Qalyar

I suppose these are technically Modern, not Copper. The series began in 1991, but these final issues are 1992 releases. Still, these feel a lot more like Copper Age comics than Modern ones. Certainly, they're not the same sort of beast as the late-year Modern newsstands. Pirates of Dark Water was an interesting, well-crafted little cartoon (with a pretty A-list voice cast to boot) that was probably before its time. It also might have been a little too well-crafted, since it ran consistently over budget and missed several production deadlines. As a result, it didn't get consistent airings and was cancelled well before the completion of its main storyline. The final eight episodes were produced in haste as a direct-to-syndication second season and are perhaps a little lower quality than the ones before. Regardless, the show had a pretty devoted fan following at the time (and a pretty devoted cult following now), and so in 1991 Marvel released a 6-issue comic book adaptation of the first episodes (which had originally aired separately as sort of a cartoon mini-series). It also sold well, and so Marvel prepared 3 additional issues, with a story unique to the comics. The series in general is pretty good, and offers some fun trivial. All 9 issues were scripted by Dwight Jon Zimmerman; after the 90s comic industry collapse, he made a new career for himself as an award-winning military history author (including The Vietnam War and Saga of the Sioux; he was also a co-author with Bill O'Reilly of Lincoln's Last Days). Meanwhile, the covers for the first 6 books were done by Bruce Zick, followed by Rob Davis for the next two (styled after the cartoon). And then there's the final issue, with a fantastic Charles Vess (probably quite familiar to Spider-Man fans) cover that doesn't look like anything else the franchise ever produced. But is nevertheless my favorite piece in the whole 9-issue run. I think Vess is a pretty significantly under-rated artist in general. In any case, as was common for 90s Marvel material, all 9 issues exist in both direct market and newsstand variants, and I was happy to pick up these 3. Stacking them this way hides the fact that this copy of #7 is quite the beater, but I bought these for the #9, easily the hardest of the series to find in newsstand. This one probably won't ever be slabbed (unless some studio reboots the cartoon and these randomly become hot books someday), but would live happily in the 8.5/9.0 range (what looks like a stain at UR is just the terrible lighting I had present!).

The problem with both these hip-hop covers is not remotely related to the album covers they are tributes to. That X-Men cover would be fine using the poses from the Grandmaster Flash album; it is awful because the faces of the X-Men are drawn like withered crones. Likewise, that Deadpool cover does an admirable job recreating the hands from Run the Jewels 2. The problem is... um, literally everything else, but especially Deadpool's head, which looks like someone took one of those "How to Draw Characters" books and stopped at "Step 1: Draw an oval."

None this year, although I'm just getting the ol' registry underway. I aim to have a half dozen or so come 2021.

I suspect there are some elements of submissions that can hasten or slow their progress. Mine doesn't have a prescreen (you pays your money, you takes your chances!), so that's one less step to complete. On the other hand, I have a couple of books that will be new to the registry, which will require some extra time on their end to create the relevant entries.

20 (Slow) Modern books, received 6/25. The lure of the refresh button begins to grow stronger.

You are a trooper, sir. Thanks for all you do for the registry.

CGC has suggested at several times that comics not eligible for blue labels weren't supposed to get blue-only vanity labels. So these are basically QA failures, but they're particularly unfortunate ones.

I don't want to threadcrap or anything, but thought I'd provide a little info on this weird thing. This isn't, strictly speaking, an issue of Bulletman (even though it uses the cover art from Bulletman #3). This is one of a loose series of miniature comics called "Mighty Midget Comics", published by Samuel E. Lowe. The interior reprints content from Bulletman #6 and #7 and from Master Comics #27 (and as I recall is only 30 pages despite what the cover says!). Lowe sold these cheap little reprint books originally for 2 for 5 cents! What's interesting about THIS copy is the shoe store ad on the back cover. I've seen this issue before, but always with a blank back cover (except for the war bonds bit). If there's someone into collecting Fawcett and related material who enjoys the chase for odd printings and variants, this one is for you!

1.0, because in my opinion, this is a 1.5 book that will lose another grade for the staining caused by adhesive migration from the tape. But beat up Daredevil 1 is still Daredevil 1!

Quick comments on a few of these. Overall, I agree with the the folks who got to this thread before me. The only way you're losing money on this buy is if you light it on fire or otherwise mistreat these books. Great catch. Active Comics was a Bell publication, one of the Canadian White publishers. You have issues 29 and 30 (the latter titled on cover as New Active Comics). Technically, these last two issues are reprints of US material rather than newly published Canadian content, but they're still collected as part of the Canadian Whites, and 29 in particular is a really hard book to find. Despite the cover being detached at the lower staple, yours is actually in fairly decent condition for the title, a lot of these are straight-up beat. Crackajack Funnies 10 is a decent enough book, although the spine roll and ugly tear on yours are going to keep it down in the $20-25 range, I think, assuming no other problems. It's too bad that's not Crackajack Funnies 9, which is the first comic appearance of Red Ryder and a pretty solid minor key book even in trashy grades. Not that you aren't winning on this buy anyway! Your Jeep Comics 2 is quite scarce and rather odd. Only the UK edition has the cover character in blue; he is colored rather like a big flying baby in the US version. I have no idea how to assign a market value to this one. Guessing at condition, the US edition would probably be a $50ish book. British editions that vary only by price are often less desirable, but this is an actual variant cover in the true sense, and zero copies of it have been slabbed by CGC. Too bad about the top right corner, though. I have absolutely no idea what that Jet Comics even is. The text on the cover is a little too small for me to read in that pic, but it looks like it may have been some sort of promotional give-away? At the very least, you'll want to investigate that one further. Red Hot Comics 3 is another Canadian White by Bell, and this one isn't a reprint book, although ironically Red Hot is probably a less less, well, red hot than Active. Three Aces Comics 54 is another book to look at closely for condition. It's hard to tell the grade on these from the overview pics, but a CGC 5.0 copy sold last year for $240. World Famous Creatures 1 is a historically important horror magazine, debuting not long after Famous Monsters of Filmland. The UK edition, which yours is, only lasted for this one issue, and is not common. Unfortunately, in low grades, it's probably only a ~$30 book (although I imagine it would sell faster than a lot of stuff in that price range). Make sure the back cover is intact; at least the US editions were published with a cut-out monster mask on the back cover and, predictably, many copies have a big hole in the back cover as a result. Someone else will have to help you with those Classics Illustrated. That series is a nightmare of weirdness to determine printings on, and I have made it my life's goal never to deal with them if I don't have to. There are undoubtedly some experts around here. No clue if any of these titles are ones worth the trouble. Long Distance Wife is actually one of the 10 issues of Streamline Pictorial Romance, published by the British paperback publisher (and cheapo repackager of US comics) Streamline. This series reprinted stories from various Fox publications, mostly My Love Life and My Secret Story. I'm not sure which "number" this one is (and not all of them were even officially assigned numbers in the indicia, so they're sort of one-offs, but also not really). GCD only has a handful of images for them. This is 100% going to be an example of "not everything scarce has enough market to be worth money", I'm afraid, unless you get lucky and find someone who actually collects the (lots of) obscure romance stuff Streamline produced in the 50s.

Agreed with a 6.0, probably with something like OW/Cream for PQ. This question is on my short list of warning signs that a return would be likely.

To be honest, there's no shortage of banged-up modern books. Stuff damaged in shipping, shelved carelessly, or just actually read. We just don't see them posted here very often, due to the nature of the board. As for the grade, I'm also inclined to go 8.5 here, although with the FC UR crease, the crunched FC LR, and at least two color-breaking defects at BC bottom, there's a chance this might only bring an 8.0.

That is absolutely the 1997 reprint and not the 1953 original. EDIT: FYI, these are really easy to tell apart. The original is somewhat wider than a modern comic book and has a lighter background color. But, far more obviously than that, it also has a 25 cent cover price, below the title at the right. The reprint was a pack-in with Superman Red/Superman Blue and so does not have a cover price.

They've actually been doing this for a little while, at least. When they make an error regarding an order, or (as in your case), oversell their stock, they ship a "We Effed Up" edition, which are not otherwise available. This is at least the second such book. I know previously they shipped a We Effed Up edition of Lady Death Icon #1. I guess they Effed Up enough to exhaust that print run!

Ouch. My only Lotus was Unlimited. And when I bailed on the game circa the end of the Urza Block, I did get all of TWENTY DOLLARS EACH for my beta dual lands...

World's Finest did not often refer to the logic of its plot or writing

Even I would crack and press this one!

Those sorts of miscuts used to be much more common, in the game's early days. Sometimes displaying almost half of each card. And sometimes only one mat was misaligned, so you'd get a reasonably centered card on the back, with something wacky on the front. I had some fun ones, long ago, but I sold off the whole collection ... sadly, not long before the secondary market really took off. Of course.

They're self-published (as "Like a Virus Productions") comics written by Dallas-area author Ken Lowery, who is maybe better known for his presence on Twitter (among other things, as creator of the Fake AP Stylebook account that randomly acquired an awful lot of attention at one point). Lowery distributes most of his comics exclusively as digital publications on Comixology, but there are at least a few he's done physical print runs for, as far back as 2013. Offering (2016) is the older of these two, a sort of EC-horror tribute book, co-written and illustrated by Kevin Warren (probably best known as the artist for Copernicus Jones: Robot Detective). The Night Driver (2017) has art by Gavin Guidry and lettering done by Micah Myers. Lowery's comics are firmly modern indie stuff. I don't think the print runs were ever very large, but conversely, the market for them probably isn't either.

Well, what I think is being mentioned here is the "Uncorrected proof advance readers copy" wordless variant sent as a 1/store promo to select retailers. However, those were created on purpose; they aren't errors like the Venom Lethal Protector books, the blue panel Sandman, the no-die-cut Tick, or the freaky chartreuse Spawn on the back cover of Malibu Sun 13 error copies.

Ironically, with misprints, extreme rarity sometimes hurts value because it limits visibility and demand. There are lots and lots of one-off errors in comics. There are certainly collectors who enjoy them, and to those collectors, they may demand a premium. But it's tough to find a market for them. When a single error occurred on a slightly larger block of copies, you get things like the black Venom cover, or the blue panel Sandman, or similar comics. Then, there's enough copies to make it a viable collectible, and not just a unique aberration, and the value often reflects the rarity. These? No real idea.

I don't think anyone other than Counterpoint has been doing these "fleck" covers. It would be... nice for this not to become a wider industry trend. Counterpoint, of course, will continue doing whatever gimmicks they can come up with to justify additional 10 comic print runs of new variants of the same half-dozen books. They get work from some great artists, but, well, I don't have a very healthy opinion of them as a publisher

Would a press improve the grade? Perhaps, although it's virtually impossible to say anything from just the grader notes. CGC's grader notes are not standardized (and, indeed, not mandatory for the graders to provide). "Light bends" are pretty likely to be a pressable defect; spine stress is almost certainly not. "Light creasing" could go either way; just because the notes don't use the magic word "color-breaking", doesn't mean they are or aren't. Would a press be worth it in terms in cost-to-value? I doubt it. It's really tough to earn more than +0.5 on a press. But let's say you have press-friendly defects and a skilled presser and earn +1.0 grade adjustment via CPR. GoCollect reports that Marvel Super-Heroes 8 is a $55 book in an 8.0 slab, $70 at 7.5, and an $85 book in a 9.0 slab. CCS QuickPress plus regrading and shipping are already north of $30, and if you only get an 8.5 back, you've only gained +$15 on FMV.

Wow, this company makes it hard to determine what they've printed. And their website is like 90s-Geocities-level useless. I think they release AP-numbered versions of anything they release in normally-numbered versions. So, yes, I believe that image #6 and #7 are not the same book. The one image certainly doesn't appear chrome at all. As for the non-chrome Bespin cover, yeah, I would suspect an AP print exists. Unless they numbered those as DF for some reason? For normal printing companies, "AP" means "artist's proof" (or "author's proof", for non-comic books). These are usually separately numbered issues held back for the use of the artist or author. There's lots of these sorts of things for Stephen King limited editions, for example. On the other hand, Counterpoint seems to print these just so there are more ultra-low-print-run variants. No idea how many there are, either. I'd guess runs of 10, insofar as I haven't found examples of a Counterpoint AP book with a double-digit number. But who knows? And zero clue what that DF version is or means. For everyone else in the comic world, DF is Dynamic Forces. But I don't have any evidence that Dynamic Forces has been involved with these Counterpoint books. So... Yeah. You might try reaching out to Counterpoint and seeing if they'll actually provide a list of what they've released. I've had mixed luck with that sort of request from other publishers (props to Top Cow, slops to Fantagraphics). But the worst that happens is you're right back where you are now.

Usagi, after his introduction, eventually joined the TMNT universe (and appeared in both the 1987, 2003, and 2012 cartoon series). That's certainly helped boost the value of Albedo 2. Also, it's a tiny print run with a lot of copies in pretty grim shape, so high grade examples are things to chase. Something ludicrous, assuming such a thing exists. Odds are pretty good at this point that there simply are no 9.8s of Cerebus 1. Most copies were marred by fairly significant production defects; Dave Sim held back essentially all legitimately high-grade copies and distributed them later through various means. Many of those are now SS books. If there was a 9.8 candidate Cerebus 1, we'd almost certainly have seen it by now. I don't believe Sim has a stash still held back, and normal distribution copies have pretty much zero shot at high grades.