Qalyar

On 2/25/2024 at 6:55 PM, Darwination said:

The whole saga is the most Florida thing ever.

Or at least the most Florida thing from the 90s. Shoulda been a warning, really.

On 2/21/2024 at 1:09 AM, SCAPEGOAT666 said:

Anyone know Mike Diana? Ever seen this?

Diana's never quite been my cup of tea, shall we say. He's best known at this point for having gotten an obscenity conviction for Boiled Angel. This is one of his earlier works. 

I believe this is issue 1, and that the title went to 7ish issues or so. But I'll admit, it's all pretty poorly documented, so take that with a grain of salt. Regardless, none of Diana's early stuff is common 

On 1/6/2023 at 9:01 AM, tommy1292 said:

Alright boys and girls, bringing this topic back from the DEAD. I have another variant I would like to point out for the mini comic. Only difference I could find is the leaf color. One is green and one is yellow. Any insight on this? Check the attachments. 

Really late to the party here, but I suspect a production error rather than an intentional variety here; the "yellow" copy is also missing the green ink from the bird (or whatever that is) between Sonic and the pillar 

On 2/20/2024 at 3:08 PM, shadroch said:

In the mid-1970s, It seemed like Batman was in his own book, and  The Batman was in Detective.  I don't recall anyone ever saying "It's the Batman and Robin.  If it's The Batman, why not The Robin?

Robin isn't unique. That's why it's the Batman, but only a Robin.

On 2/13/2024 at 2:15 PM, shadroch said:

Very nice. Mine ended up being two 2nd prints, two fourth prints, and a 13th print.

The Crow book ended up being a 2nd print, but it's pretty HG. It's not a 9.8, but a 9.4 candidate. Another book from the action, buried deep in an obscure lot I paid ten cents a book for was Chakan #1.   It's an obscure pre-video comic from 1985 and the only copy I come across is a 9.8 for $1,000.

That Chakan book is a pretty cool find. There are a few copies out and about, but it's not super common and Chakan has a little bit of a cult following. Black cover, video game promo.... gonna bet that most copies don't have a prayer of seeing 9.8 though.

On 2/14/2024 at 7:59 PM, newshane said:

Yep. Another cover artist with whom I'm unfamiliar. 

Ramon Nunez. Nice work! Again, keeping with the vibe. 

I don't actually know very much about him, either, except that he's Spanish.

One of the things I really like about this run of Spawn covers is their artists. They aren't all super-established household names. Sure, the shine was off Spawn as a title... well, before these late 200s issues, surely. But it's still a premiere title with a lot of name recognition, and Image was giving cover shots to relatively un-established artists, many of whom have diverse international backgrounds.

And frankly, a lot of covers they got from that experiment are really good.

On 2/14/2024 at 5:20 PM, grendel013 said:

Agreed. That's a fox. I even checked with my wife while covering up the text at LR. She agreed that it's a fantastic fox sketch. The muzzle is just too narrow to be a wolf 

But that said, this still makes a better werewolf cover than what they actually opted for for Moon Knight 29. And I agree it's better than the Moon Knight 28 front too (although that one isn't bad either).

On 2/14/2024 at 7:39 PM, MattTheDuck said:

Yes.  I can't find it listed anywhere (like MCS).  It's entirely possible this was in a box with some collection I picked up, but I didn't even log it in my spreadsheet, which means it might have been something I picked up around the time of that campaign.  Measure 31 was voted on in the November, 1996 general election.

Yeah, I've been trying to track down any info about this. It's a heck of a ghost. I did find one retailer using a copy of the book as a stock image for their listings of DHP 114 (naturally, they don't actually have Measure 31 copies), which at least suggests there are more of these out there.

Somewhere.

I have some friends who have been involved in liberal Oregon politics for years. 1996 was a long time back on the scale of such things, but I'll see if anyone remembers these from back in the day. 

On 2/14/2024 at 1:04 AM, MattTheDuck said:

Here's one it's possible nobody else on the Boards has.  It was published by Dark Horse in response to a Statewide ballot measure having to do with defining "obscenity."  The book has two different covers (both of which had been published as actual comics previously) and the interior is completely blank aside from an argument against the ballot measure on the inside front cover and inside back cover.  "Lance Blastoff" cover is by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, "Star Slammers" cover is by Walter Simonson.  I can't for the life of me remember where I got it.

 

Wow. I've never even heard of that before. What an absolutely unique piece. Dammit, Duck, that might have to go on my list of stuff to search for now...

@MattTheDuck This was from Oregon, I assume?

On 12/23/2022 at 3:40 PM, PeterPark said:

How did the company get away with that name?!?

The real answer is that they're Korean, and that first letter is pronounced like a G, not a C. But, um, yeah. Maybe should have checked with a native English speaker before running with that name if they had aspirations of being an international company, huh?

On 2/6/2024 at 5:31 PM, newshane said:

Another artist with whom I'm unfamiliar...

Hicham Hibachi?

So, first things first, CGC has miscredited these covers, because this artist's name is Hicham Habchi. He is not, in fact, named after teppanyaki cooking.

He's Moroccan-born, although I believe he's been in the US for most of his life. He did a little bit more comics-industry stuff than Faraz Shanyar did. Beyond a couple of Spawn covers, he's done some Batman covers, and apparently some work for Marvel although I'm not sure what offhand. Like Shanyar, he's largely found a career in the video game industry. His biggest successes have been doing concept art for Riot Games. I believe he's also done some work for Netflix animated projects.

Up until sometime last year, I think, there was a website, somewhere, that had a reasonably comprehensive list (with nearly full cover images) of all DC promotional and pack-in comics. It was categorized by promotional topic, so there was a section for video game promos, for movie promos, for food-related promos, etc.

It seems to have disappeared, and because I wasn't paying attention, I don't seem to have even kept track of where it was, so I'm not able to try Waybacking it.

Anyone remember what I'm talking about?

On 2/2/2024 at 10:07 PM, shadroch said:

My newest. I'm told it's one of the harder ones to find.

Very nice. And yeah, those are not exactly growing on trees.

On 2/4/2024 at 3:55 PM, newshane said:

I don't know much at all about the cover artist here

Iranian-born Faraz Shanyar didn't do very much work for the comic book industry, which is unfortunate because he's quite talented; here's his portfolio spotlight at Fable Hatch. These days he's in Sweden, working as senior concept artist for the video game company Machinegames.

Setting (mostly) aside the speculation issues, I feel the original question here was "how did comic collecting get to be the way it is?" It's obvious that it didn't have to be this way; both coin and stamp collecting have been historically driven mostly by rarity rather than any alternative aspects (although there are exceptions in both hobbies).

Honestly, there are a number of factors, but first and foremost is that "run collecting" has always been a minority approach to the comics hobby (and to sports cards, for fundamentally the same reasons). Why is that?

First, complete runs of the top-line titles are enormous. One of the largest US coin sets that is commonly collected is the mid-tier-value Standing Liberty Quarters. There are around 120 coins in a full set of SLQs, including the varying mintmarks and other major varieties. In contrast, the first series of Detective Comics is 881 books not counting any sort of variant covers, direct market/newsstand printings, or other shenanigans. Action Comics first series? 904 books, again not counting variants or other distinguishable printings. Even The Incredible Hulk goes to 474 just on the base issue numbers. Before slabbing, a complete run of SLQs will fit in a book-sized binder. A complete run of Detective Comics or Action Comics (again, not including any variants -- just one book per issue number) would fit in ... four long boxes. After slabbing? The SLQs will take up a good sized cabinet drawer, perhaps. Nearly 1000 slabbed comics? Just on space alone (ignoring the value of some of those books), you probably need to consider a custom storage solution. And that's one title. I conservatively estimate that a full collection of "Batman books" would be north of 3000 books before accounting for variants in any form.

But beyond that, a lot of people are interested in comics because of specific characters, and those characters don't always have parity with titles. The Increbile Hulk 181 is pretty much the archetypal example of that. Let's say you love Wolverine but don't find Hulk incredibly (see what I did there?) compelling? You'll absolutely want IH181 (and maybe IH180), but there's no way you're going to shell out for the rest of the series. Of course, if you're just a huge (heh...) fan of the Green Guy, you'll probably want that book, too. In principle, at least, key issues have broader or more lasting appeal. Now, obviously, that's more true for long-established keys than for whatever book has a tenuous connection to the next film release or that introduces a new character without established staying power.

Book presents beautifully. Really fresh inks on this one!

But I'm going to be slightly more pessimistic and go 9.0/9.2 here, because I think the size of that spine tick near Lilith's right hand is going to bring this down more than normal. CGC's in-house grading often seems to consider the size of a defect as almost more influential than its severity. And the third picture shows that defect actually extends into the front cover in two directions both of which extend further into the cover than the other spine tick (in line with her elbow).

On 2/1/2024 at 10:59 PM, Qalyar said:

There's some indication that at least some of these blank box books were intended for distribution via specific outlets (Barnes and Noble is often cited as a possibility) that wanted their own barcodes rather than using the normal ones everyone else does. Rather than print specific store variants, blank boxes were produced instead, with the idea that the stores would apply their own UPC stickers. But if course that didn't always happen.

Now, it's equally possible that this was a multi-pack book like DC Universe stuff, until more information arises one way or the other 

But broadly speaking, that's the two ways books like this came into existence.

And then after writing all that, I found the answer:

This was from one of the three "Amalgam Comics 3-Issue Collector's Sets". This one had JLX, Doctor Strangefate, and Legends of the Dark Claw.

There's some indication that at least some of these blank box books were intended for distribution via specific outlets (Barnes and Noble is often cited as a possibility) that wanted their own barcodes rather than using the normal ones everyone else does. Rather than print specific store variants, blank boxes were produced instead, with the idea that the stores would apply their own UPC stickers. But if course that didn't always happen.

Now, it's equally possible that this was a multi-pack book like DC Universe stuff, until more information arises one way or the other 

But broadly speaking, that's the two ways books like this came into existence.

On 1/28/2024 at 11:13 PM, OtherEric said:

 

Just missing Blood on the Moon for the whole mini series. Pretty nice copies there, too. Obviously some spine ticks on Red Rider especially, but a lot of times these show up as pretty serious beaters.

On 1/31/2024 at 11:30 AM, davidking623 said:

Yes , maybe I should incorporate that into all my grading on Ebay 8.0 8.5 press most likely 9.0 9.2 , the new grading way , but yes I concur it very well may press out .

I'm not a big fan of the "press everything" approach, but sometimes there's an obvious defect that is likely to respond well, and also likely to make a big impact on numerical grade AND eye appeal... and it's somewhat hard not to pull the trigger there 

I would have this book pressed.

On 1/30/2024 at 6:39 AM, davidking623 said:

As Is 8.0 8.5 Back top left keeps it down for me 

Although that may press out, at least somewhat. Depending on how that looks afterward, a 9.0/9.2 is plausibly within reach here.

Agreed with the consensus here. If your goal is to turn this book into cash in the near-term, sell it raw with full disclosure.

As for how CGC would consider this book... the Frankencorner isn't really even "restoration", since it's incorrect. My guess is that they wouldn't actually give the book a grade bump for it (or, if so, not a good one), so you'd be looking at a 1.0 or 1.5 blue label if you cut the added corner out, or maybe a 1.5 or 1.8 purple label as the book stands now. But if you're selling it raw, that's a decision for the next owner to make. I don't see any reason why you'd want to limit options right now; who knows which state a potential buyer would prefer?

On 1/28/2024 at 11:56 PM, Stooby said:

Thanks for the link - much appreciated.  Mine has a color cover and includes a comic reprint.  @Cpt Kirk I welcome any feedback you can offer.  Thx.

First, that's an awesome press kit. Second, to satisfy my curiosity about such things, can you confirm the included comic has a barcode at the bottom-left (with UPC 70989 31773)? From what I can see, it looks like that's just a normal newsstand copy, but weirder things have happened...

On 1/21/2024 at 5:58 PM, FloridianDemon said:

Thanks!!! and yeah I swear 90% of the listing I see on ebay mislabel the book. almost all the ones I see say "convention variant" and then I check the back and realize its the anthology version lol. yellow face = convention, grey face = anthology, in case anyone didnt know!

Honestly, the font differences are the easiest way to distinguish them. The convention release has "#1" in italics, and the graphic violence content warning at the top not in italics. The anthology printing has "#1" not italicized, but the content warning at top is in italics. 

The color balance is also different, but with the vagaries of comic color balance being what they are in general, I always look for other distinguishing features first.

On 1/21/2024 at 9:51 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

It's detached at top staple and has some significant tears but am truly grateful! It has those stains on the cover, which look like water damage, but doesn't go through the book. It had some slight folds at the top corners of the pages, but most importantly it wasn't brittle  

Complete, but the tears are in the cover and back cover, that make it hard to take in and out of a bag and board, so pretty much a $20 fair condition book.

Still $2  

  Reveal hidden contents

It was at an antiques store, and after 2 stores before that of nothing and this last store everything was priced but this.... I almost gave up!

A friend had suggested I go today, so I thought Lord willing I'll try for the goodwill of just to leave no stone unturned kind of thing...

Anyway  they had to call the guy for price and I helped explain what looked like water damage on the cover....

Sure enough $2

 

Even kinda beat and detached at one staple, that's not the ugliest copy of that book I've ever seen. Especially if that spine isn't split, I bet you could get better than 20 bucks for that. Real nice pick for $2.