Qalyar

This. If you look at an unfaded copy, you'll see that there's no border around the text in those boxes. So when the yellow and red ink fade out entirely (because those inks are more photosensitive), you're left with just a white space.

Joe's a fantastic artist in terms of the quality of his finished work. Unfortunately, he seems utterly incapable of meeting a deadline, and no one ever seems to be in a position to hold him to one. As a result, he's pretty much made a career out of amazing work that is compromised by his apparently inability to finish what he

In principle, this really is an interesting target for machine learning. In practice, this is going to need a lot of data points, and I'm not sure how realistic it is to get pre-slab scans of even 100 books at each grade point. But I do wish you the best of luck. It's a worthwhile endeavor.

Specific books notwithstanding, my pet peeve is when people start to inflate prices just because a film has been announced, but before it actually goes into production (or, worse, when the rights are optioned!). It indicates a serious lack of understanding about how the film industry works. Most of those purported movies never get made at all, but that doesn't stop excited Ebay posters from declaring "film coming!" and doubling the prices on things.

Some nice stuff there. Xombi hardly ever shows up in these boxes in my experience. That Rising Stars Preview is a nice book, too, although the series doesn't have quite the following it used to. And because I like commenting on the weird stuff... I doubt that L.A. Raptor 1 is worth much. But it's a pretty interesting little Jurassic Park-esque B&W indie. Can do a lot worse with a buck. A #2 does exist, if you decide you just need to hunt down more of it.

There are times when a specific comic in a lower grade will outperform its better, but that's not going to happen with 9.6/9.8s, nor is it ever because of census populations. Especially in the mid-grades, and especially on older books, there are times when the eye-appeal of a comic might not closely track the technical grade (because some visually minimal faults hit grade harder than something technically minor but cover-impacting). For a lot of comics, the value in the 5.0-7.0ish range is pretty flat, and so eye appeal on the individual book level can sometimes lead to counterintuitive sales results. But that is never -- never -- because the lower grade book is "rarer". It will also never happen at the 9.6/9.8 level because faults of those types don't really come into play at those grades... and because the 9.8 premium generally trumps other concerns.

Quite a few books were intentionally produced with only one staple during WW II to conserve materials, which isn't quite the same as a book that ought to have 2 staples, but only ever got one. Still, that's pretty clearly a manufacturing defect, so shouldn't cap grade below the 9.8 level. Obviously, zero production staples is still earning a green label.

Hey, I just report on 'em. I've got enough of my own crazy to chase. Seriously, though, I don't have any reason to expect these facsimile edition 2nd printings are significantly rare. Mostly, it's something to keep an eye out for if acquiring one of those books raw, because I assume most people would be sad to unexpectedly have a later printing.

Still no. We can quibble about comics that "present" better or worse than their technical grade, but in general higher grade means more value. Certainly, value is never tracked by census population. And the reasons for that should be obvious; otherwise, I could take a comic in a well-represented grade, ding the spine or blunt a corner, and then have it increase in value? Obviously not.

No.

I agree that there needs to be a crackdown on the privately produced comic reproductions (i.e counterfeit goods) that appear periodically on Ebay. This, however, is a Marvel Facsimile Edition. There's a bunch of them: AF 15; ASM 101, 252*, 347, Annual 21; Avengers 57; Black Knight 1; Cap 117, 354; Daredevil 181; Dazzler 1; Defenders 1; Eternals 1; FF 1, Annual 6; GSXM 1; Hulk 1, 180, 181*, 182... and lots more. They really seem to enjoy selling these, to the detriment of people who fail to pay attention. * Fun fact. ASM 252 and Hulk 181 both went to 2nd printings in their Facsimile Editions, with different barcodes. As far as I know, those are the only two that have, but... who knows, really?

Do other people actually read and handle high grade or otherwise rare books on a regular basis? Most of what I personally collect is frankly cheap, and even still, I read the material in collected editions where possible or just under copies otherwise. I'm certainly capable of handling valuable books without causing damage, but if I've taken the time to find a top-of-census copy of something... why would I?

Even well into the modern age, a lot of people really were/are just readers, not.collectors. Also, a surprising amount of people honestly seem to hold the weird opinion that high grades are only worth chasing in valuable books. Which then rapidly leads to problems when Random Man's origin in Forgettable Dreck #17 becomes the next hot film book...

ASM300 is fun to look at because we have some real (approximate) numbers to work with because of the statement of ownership is ASM315. ASM300 almost certainly outperformed the yearly average, so we can skew the SOO numbers a tad higher. There were north of 450k copies physically printed. I'm gonna guess that ASM300 was the print run leader for the 12 month period. Let's say 500k. However, a lot of those didn't sell and were this newsstand retailer returns. Let's guess that ASM300 had better sell-through than average, and there were this 150k returns. So we're starting* with a pool of 350k potential sold copies. Survival rate for the direct market copies was probably pretty good. And there's reason to hope the newsstand copies have better survival than usual for the era. Do we think a 50% survival rate is plausible? Certainly older books can't even dream of a 50% survival rate, but maybe? Let's run with that for the moment. That gives us 125k potentially extant copies... which would mean there are literally 100k raws out there. So maybe that's high, or we pushed the ASM315 SOO averages too high for ASM300 because of the power of hindsight. But even taking a hatchet to those expectations, the idea that ASM300 is sitting at around a 25% slab rate seems like a realistic order of magnitude estimate. The pressure to grade these books isn't as high as for the biggest dollar pieces, and with less chance of restoration and shenanigans than with older books, there's a more liquid market for raws. So there is probably still a solid pool of high grade ASM300 raws, but there's certainly a larger pool of low grade copies, traded as run fill and readers and copies for people unable or unwilling to pay the $WTFBBQ prices this book yields for pretty copies. This book is very much not rare. It demands high prices due to popularity alone. * Some percentage of retailer returns are "destroyed" rather than actually destroyed. In particular, because of various breakdowns in the process, some issues of some titles have significant numbers of returns that leaked back into the market in violation of disposal contracts. It is literally impossible to know how many ASM300 returns survived, so I'm pretending they didn't.

I think a 50% grading rate is probably ballpark realistic for... let's say "normal" GA keys. It seems reasonable to me that half of the Det 31 population has been graded, for example. At the top end, I bet we're closer to 80% for the biggest of books: the Action 1s and Det 27s. But I think the ratio drops more steeply than might've expected for later books. There are a lot of FF1 and XM1 and Avengers 1 in slabs, but there are a lot of those books out there, and there's historically been little reason to slab copies that either 1) were restored during the restoration craze, or 2) present poorly in general. Separately, I think the 30% ratio for TMNT 1 is too low because it assumes the extant population is approximately the same as the print run, and I think you badly underestimate how many copies failed to survive. While there are certainly things that work in its favor -- initial distribution at a convention and the rapid market value increase -- fundamentally, this is still a magazine-size black and white indie on cheapo newsprint. Not everyone who got copies did so in the belief this book was important or worth money. Large, cheaply printed, and easily damaged, I guarantee the survival rate is well under 100%. Is it 50%? Is it 75%? It's hard to know. Regardless, the unique circumstances of this book probably mean it has one of the highest survival rates AND highest grading ratios of its era. But I can be fairly certain that most of the ungraded copies are going to be in poor shape at this point.

To even try to estimate this, I think you have to consider what sort of books aren't slabbed. Across the board, there are some high grade copies in closely held collections whose owners prefer raw books. For example, we know there are some ungraded mega-keys in the Dentist's hands. The number of books like this is smaller the more expensive the book is, and will continue to decrease over time because eventually collections get dispersed and grading maximizes return for high end items. Especially for GA books, there's a condition floor. Remember that coverless or radically incomplete copies get NG labels and census exclusion. Ironically, that probably contributes to the restoration count. No one wants a PLOD but if you have a coverless AF15 and an AF15 missing the two center folds, you're almost certainly better off financially turning them into one mid-grade purple book. I suspect that's partially responsible for the weirdly low census count of low-grade Det27s. Speaking of restoration, for all high value books, there's a good-sized pool of restored raws out there. They present well, so they have liquidity as raw copies, but they avoid slabs because of the PLOD stigma. Meanwhile, especially the more recent books get, the more low-grade raws there are out there. There's a market for beater/reader copies of keys, and those owners do not want slabbed books. There's probably some valuation tier where that stops making sense. Certainly, I'd rather have an 0.5 slabbed Action 1 / Det27 than the same book raw. Maybe AF15 is the divider there? I know I've seen maybe a dozen just really wrecked FF1s that weren't slabbed and probably won't ever be. Contrary to the OP's suggestions, I don't think there would be much motivation for low-grade or visibly damaged TMNT 1 1st prints to get graded, and if otherwise, it hasn't been that way for long! These causes are not uniform over the time periods, so trying to make a straight-line estimate from the 1930s to the 1970s is going to give you numbers that probably aren't even "dimensionally correct", as my former manager once put it.

I certainly played more Marvel vs. Capcom back in the day than I have any other comic book based (at least in part, I guess?) video game, although if you're after a comic book tournament fighter, it's tough to go wrong with the Injustice series.

This is actually better than I expected it to be, although that can go right into the dictionary as an example of "clearing a low bar".

SCS happens, although not as often as many people suspect. We see the problem cases here because the problems give rise to discussion. It's a classic confirmation bias. That said, I view SCS as just another shipping hazard. Yes, when I get books slabbed or get slabs sent to me, they might get SCS damage from poor transit conditions. They might also get impaled by a forklift. I haven't had that happen to a slab, but I did have it happen to a box of product back when I managed a brick and mortar store. Once a slab gets to my personal collection, I feel it's pretty safe. Obviously not if I drop things or spin them around rapidly or whatever else I don't do. I certainly feel better about casually relocating a slabbed book than a bagged and boarded book. Mylars are probably the compromise for a lot of people, but I also do like my PC uniform. In any case, no book is going to develop SCS while in my collection.

The line between underground and indie isn't always clear cut, but I'd say Lethargic Lad is mostly an indie comic. I know his very first appearances were in a photocopied minicomic version of Lethargic Comics Weakly, created when Greg Hyland was a college student. I've never seen those, but they'd absolutely count as undergrounds in my book. Still fun material.

Just be aware that not all chipped/damaged Marvel comics pages are "Marvel chipping". Also, it's possible to have a book display Marvel chipping that has been aggravated by later wear. But broadly speaking, yes, it's a production defect and has a limited grade impact.

CGC does generally grade adult material. In any case, they certainly aren't limited to books currently in their database (which is really just books they're already graded at least 1 copy of). I know I've added quite a few to that list over the years. However, at their discretion, they will not grade comics with some level of explicit cover content. Contacting them to inquire is probably not a bad idea.

Heck, I'm approaching at least one complete run of books where I'm fairly certain that the entire run is about break-even with the cost of slabbing one of the books (Midnight Nation, for the record; the thread can probably feel free to mock me now). But zero regrets there, as -- for several reasons -- the value I attribute to it in my personal collection substantially outweighs its market worth. As an aside, I'm continually surprised at how hard it is to find legitimate 9.8 candidate copies for modern books that aren't books anyone cares about financially... More broadly, though, obviously I try not to overpay for things, whether raw or slabbed. And I'm aware that the slab isn't always a net financial positive. But as far as I'm concerned, if profitability is the only motivation for a personal collection, it's not a collection anymore. It's an investment. And that's fine too. But they're different things.

Neat. I assume that was a convention giveaway. Greg Hyland has always been a very willing and active con participant.

Greg Hyland's style of parody was always a little too blunt-instrument for my tastes, but the best thing about the various Lethargic Lad titles is that he often got the artists whose books he was parodying to do parody covers of their own work. My favorites are probably Lethargic Comics #12, where William Tucci contributed a Shi cover to the Shi crossover/parody; Lethargic Comics #14, a send-up of Cerebus that sports a Dave Sim cover; and Lethargic Lad #3, because that Kingdom Come parody really does have an Alex Ross cover... Speaking of books you can't find in the wild, I've actually never seen the retailer exclusive #0 ashcan Hyland produced in 2004 for Jim Hanley's Universe, nor have I seen any of the self-published issues of Lethargic Comics Weakly from when Hyland was at Sheridan College -- not to be confused with the 12-issue "normal" indie book of the same name -- although I believe these are just photocopied, so authentication is probably impossible anyway.