On 3/11/2023 at 2:52 AM, jjaneaux said:

Most recent finds, all 50 cents each ($1 bin, all buy-one-get-one free).

 

That's just ridiculous.

On 3/10/2023 at 7:21 AM, ak47po said:

https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/11386/fantast-selling-superman-provenance-batman/

CGC Creates New Custom Label for FANTAST Collection Comics

Posted on 3/8/2023

Featured in the upcoming documentary "Selling Superman," books from the FANTAST Collection have been certified by CGC and given their own custom label. The first comic from this collection with the custom label is being offered in a Heritage sale in March.

One of the most highly sought-after comic books of all time, which is certified by Certified Guaranty Company® (CGC®) and features the very first custom collection label for the FANTAST Collection, will make its debut in a Heritage Auctions sale on March 30, 2023.

The first book with the FANTAST Collection label that will be offered in an auction is a Batman #1 graded CGC 8.0. This book originated in a collection of more than 300,000 comic books that were collected by Michigan attorney Dale Watts. The FANTAST collection is the focus of an upcoming documentary film, “Selling Superman,” by filmmaker Adam Schomer.

I guess this isn't a pedigree collection because they're not original owner books?

Regardless, ugly label is ugly. Sorry, guys. Really nice book, though.

Historically, I would have said that CGC would discard the envelope as it is not affixed to the comic in any way. However, there's some recent precedent indicating that they're willing to reinsert books into DC's new envelopes and slab them thusly. That's expressly not the case for traditional polybags.

As for how the market wants these things handled? Who knows, too new for long-term anything to be determined yet. How CGC approaches these as more are produced going forward may have an impact, but who knows.

On 3/9/2023 at 5:14 PM, DC# said:

So this is not the sort of Quality Control that everyone here is talking about but......CGC should have refused to put this label on this book.    What in the world.....great way to ruin a Batman #1.    This is currently on auction with Heritage.  

No accounting for taste.

The good news is this is fully reversible, and if you can afford to buy an 8.0 Batman 1, you can afford a Walkthrough reholder to get that  off your slab's label.

On 3/9/2023 at 5:10 PM, gadzukes said:

Once again the inside coloring on a foreign comic is atrocious (see last pic.  It wrecks Frazetta's art)

 

That coloring job is ... not good, but it's made a lot worse by laughably incompetent color registration. It might have looked okayish if the plates had been aligned properly. Maybe.

On 3/9/2023 at 1:35 AM, steveinthecity said:

Here’s one with the mark, though it’s above the price box.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265736990509?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&campid=5338825302

 

 

 

 

I do perhaps stand corrected then. However, since the two marks not only do not match in terms of position, but also shape and orientation, I don't think this can possibly be any sort of consistent "error". Random bits and bobs of ink misbehaving are pretty common and not generally of significant collector interest.

Searching Ebay, I can find exactly zero copies with a similar mark.

Honestly, I don't think this is a production error. I think that's a mark from a bright pink marker or highlighter or something along those lines.

Just wanted to follow up on this thread. 

Port City Auctions never pulled this listing. But despite adding some weak disclaimers about how it "might" be a reprint, it ultimately sold for... $1300. On the other hand, GoCollect believes that even very low grade copies of the GRR reprint have a FMV north of $1500. So I guess if you believe that, you might think this fraudulently altered copy might be a deal at that price...

I sure don't, though. MCS has an 8.5 CGC slab up for $850, and that's an infinitely better deal, and a book that wasn't mutilated.

On 3/7/2023 at 8:24 AM, CGC Mike said:

Here's a note from the team:

We just changed the Uncanny Tales from Marvel to Atlas. This mistake was made a very long time ago, and should be a one-off. But if you see anything else like this, please let us know and we’ll fix.

The Katy Keene is fine. Two series published by the same publisher, and the dates are listed to delineate between them. I believe they are also listed chronologically so they are not mixed together.

I used to have a longer list of these problems. It does appear that there's been an effort to clean up census duplication; as of 2021, there were duplicate entries for Amazing Spider-Man #299 and Flaming Carrot #28 with different date formats.

Amazing Spider-Man #234 has separate entries for "Canadian Edition" (the original terminology) and "Canadian Price Variant" (current practice). I happen to know that the first CPV copy of this book was slabbed in October 2021, so the other CPV-sorted copies are more recent. But that orphans the 4 earlier labels and duplicates the book entries. Because this is probably the case for a lot of books (anything with a CPV slabbed before... whenever they started being called CPVs), this may not be an easily corrected problem.

3.5.

Fantastic show, and not surprised it made it to comic form. It has sort of that feel about it. Didn't fare too well as a modern film reboot though; that one probably would have been better with fewer (as in, zero) giant steampunk spiders.

On 3/6/2023 at 3:11 PM, zzutak said:

I absolutely hear what you're saying about the Katy Keene example (and I appreciate your detailed explanation).     

I guess my response would be this: if Overstreet can clearly distinguish between the 1949 Series and 1983/1984 Series in his Comic Book Price Guide, and the Grand Comics Database can clearly distinguish between them in their online listings (without mixing images from one series into the cover gallery of another), why should we expect any less from CGC?    After all, CGC was the last of these three sources to be established.

Where there's a will, there's a way!    Especially considering that CGC's current "policy" regarding the Katy Keene title occasionally leads to labeling/mislabeling gaffs like this 

CGC's Census is not an extremely sophisticated creature. If books have the same name and the same publisher, they're going to be appear listed together. In part that's because CGC doesn't (generally) invent distinguishing clauses (like [2nd series], [5th series], whatever) when they're not actually part of the book's publication title. Most of the time, that's fine. It's not ideal, but it's fine.

Books like that one you pictured are, of course, glorious failures of QA.

On 3/6/2023 at 9:26 AM, zzutak said:

Perhaps I'm the first to bring this up you say?  Twelve previous anal-retentive, eagle-eyed collectors/submitters who typically complain about every instance of poor centering in the holder, tiny shard of stray plastic, strand of hair, and/or Newton ring?  What are the chances that nobody else has ever brought this up to CGC? 

And the Uncanny Tales "anomaly" is not a one-off.    This very issue has previously been raised in conjunction with other titles (such as Katy Keene, to name just one).  I know next to nothing about Katy Keene, but one quick glance at this panel tells me that something here is way off! 

This one is not actually an error, because title shenanigans.

Katy Keene (Archie Publications) ran from 1949 until its final issue, #62, in 1961. Archie Publications began printing a revival title -- Katy Keene Special -- in the 1980s. The first such book is Katy Keene Special #2 in 1983. That run has all been slabbed:

If you're wondering where Katy Keene Special #1 is (because let's face it, I know everyone is very concerned), it's listed separately because it was published under the Red Circle Comics Group imprint.

So that takes care Katy Keene Special, right? Of course not. Starting with #7, Archie decided that Katy Keene wasn't really that Special after all and dropped the final word from the title but retained the numbering. Katy Keene then ran from #7 (in late 1984) allll the way to #33 in 1990. MCS lists all the 1980s issues under the Katy Keene Special title despite the change. I've seen other sites index it as Katy Keene (2nd series), a title that simply begins with #7; this is essentially what CGC has opted to do. Your mileage may vary.

I'm gonna go with a 4.5 here, although I bet the margin of error on grade predictions will be higher than normal for this book. Any time you have a copy whose defects don't follow the traditional damage patterns, it makes it a lot harder to predict how the graders will suss things out. Relevant defects: the omnomnom'ed spine (obviously), slight spine roll, piece out of UL BC, that book-length "reader's crease"-like fold to the BC, that tear/missing chunk (it's hard to tell) near the UL FC, and a few minor other hits (FC LR corner trauma, BC bottom, etc.).

The writing imprint at UR is utterly irrelevant at this grade (and GA books rarely take a meaningful hit for such markings anyway). I would absolutely not get this pressed, at least in the conventional manner, because you do not want to correct this book's spine roll. Doing so will move that chew damage to be more clearly visible from the front, and that would be terrible. As it stands, this book is going to present way better than it's structural grade will suggest.

On 3/4/2023 at 8:04 AM, Sauce Dog said:

Pretty sure this is demonstrably not true. Leaf casting any missing material, be it from a ripped off chunk or trimmed edge, can result in a conserved label as it is repairing a structural issue (so long as there is no color touch being added afterwards). 

I've seen many purple label GA books shift to conserved labels in such a manner.

Does anyone have an example of this? A book that had trimming "reversed" and received a gray label? I'd like to see how they notated such a book.

On 3/3/2023 at 1:43 PM, scburdet said:

Basically jives with all I've found. MCS mentions a lot of Byrne story & art in early CPL issues, but not Layton art. Obviously, it was his publication so there could be something in 1-8, but I haven't even seen so much as a blog post with someone showing images of those issue. They must have been around at some point if MCS has them listed. I can't imagine making the inventory entry if there was never anything to sell 

Felt pretty fortunate that there was even a copy this nice out in the wild for sale. There are others, but a lot look—to be charitable—pretty crappy.

I had a friend chase some of these for the early Byrne work. CPL 7 is technically the first time Byrne's ROG-2000 appears, but merely as an unnamed character in a panel image. CPL 11 was supposed to be the first actual story appearance of the character, but the CPL Gang had some production delays, so the back-up feature in E-Man #6 (Charlton) actually appeared first (although it literally follows after the one in CPL 11 in continuity).

I was able to find cover images back to 5. Before that, I think it was less fanzine and more just "Layton's store catalog". Note that MCS attributes CPL 6 with a Neal Adams cover, but that appears to be in error. Adams did the cover for #5. I believe the cover artist on #6 is Joe Sinnott.

Regardless, yours is a fantastic copy (I'd go 9.2 here) of 9/10, and one of the best copies I've ever seen from the series at all.

On 3/2/2023 at 12:53 PM, scburdet said:

From my new/old hobby of picking up benchmark creators from before they had mainstream success. I'm sure there must be something that pre-dates this, but it's the earliest published pro/amateur art by Bob Layton (cover inks).that I can find. Perhaps more notable for an unpublished Ditko Blue Beetle story

This is the earliest semi-pro piece Layton did. This is technically a double issue (#9 and #10) of Contemporary Pictorial Literature, a fanzine produced by Layton and Roger Stern. This issue is "semi-pro" because it was actually produced with permission from Charlton (which is why that Ditko piece is there) as something a test to see whether Layton and Stern would be suitable for creating a more official house publication/fanzine hybrid (it was, and that later work is the five issues of Charlton Bullseye).

But Contemporary Pictorial Literature existed as a self-published fanzine before this issue (and after it, up to #12). The first couple of issues are, apparently, more or less just Layton's catalogue (he was a mail-order comic dealer for a bit) with a bit of his line art for flavor, although it gradually became a pretty impressive collection of talent. I don't think I've ever seen a copy of any issue before... oh, #6 or so. They're all quite scarce.

On 3/2/2023 at 7:56 AM, CGC Mike said:

When we recently started identifying all newsstands, it was not feasible to create separate comic ID's for every one (thousands), so we put "newsstand" in the pedigree field (which does not need a separate comic ID number).

This is extremely disappointing and feel contrary to the original announcement on the issue.

On 3/1/2023 at 9:17 PM, TallMan said:

Now they are going to become Films. Note: Blood and Honey

No, they really aren't. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey is not, in any way, related to Counterpoint's Do You Pooh or any of their other nonsense.

Blood and Honey is the creation of Rhys Frake-Waterfield and his tiny British indie film studio. The film is frankly awful, but it also made better than $3M on a budget of less than $100,000, so Frake-Waterfield plans to make not only a sequel, but similar horror film adaptations of other properties whose original works are in or entering the public domain. Expect slasher-film treatments of Bambi and Peter Pan. Hopefully with some money behind them, they'll be better.

None of this is related to Counterpoint Comics or its principle figure, Marat Mychaels. Blood and Honey is not a film adaptation of Do You Pooh. And there are quite a few reasons to expect that Counterpoint material cannot and will not see film adaptations. Most importantly, Counterpoint isn't selling a story; they're selling cover variants, and you can't put out hundreds of different versions of a film and have people buy them like they -- for some reason -- seem to do for their "comics".

If anyone tells you that Hardlee Thinn, Do You Pooh, or any of Counterpoint's other titles is going to become a film... they are probably trying to sell you Counterpoint products.

On 3/1/2023 at 4:21 PM, TC33 said:

I guess if we only did leaf casting & no color touch that it could potentially get a conservation label and it would not even be trimmed anymore since the leaf casting/conservation fixes that, that is an idea to consider.

A trimmed book is trimmed forever. You may improve appearance by leaf casting material onto the existing paper stock, but what was trimmed away is gone forever; no matter what you do, this will be a purple label.

That said, because it is a purple label no matter what, I guess there's no harm in making it look prettier if you want to spend the money into it. Regardless, what I would not do is just leaf cast the cover and not the interior pages (assuming you're intending to resubmit to CGC) because that will be rejected from encapsulation due to overhang. Of course, if this is just going in a Mylar, do whatever Spider-floats your Spider-boat.

One of the more random things I collect are comics spun-off from the Labyrinth film. Boom has done quite a few of them, and many of their variant covers are essentially virgin covers. Sometimes it works for me, but not always. There's definitely a problem where there's no real way to know what book you're looking at without any front cover trade dress!

These are all cool enough covers, but there's no way you'd know that they're also from three different books (Labyrinth: Coronation #1, Labyrinth: Masquerade, and the 2007 Special). I don't think any of these would have been hurt by retaining trade dress (and, indeed, the rather pink one -- from Labyrinth: Masquerade -- also comes in a version that does have trade dress).

That said, I love this Joelle Jones "coloring book" cover -- from yet a fourth different book, the 30th Anniversary Special -- and it just wouldn't have worked out as well if there was full trade dress (heck, I wish they'd pushed the Fried Pie logo to the back cover, too).

On 2/27/2023 at 10:32 AM, Gonzimodo said:

Well, now the book is famous!  It's a one-of-a-kind collectible with its own dedicated thread on the CGC boards! 

Port City Auctions is stridently uninterested in pulling this listing, which means I'm definitely never bidding on anything they auction.

On the other hand, even after adding some half-assed disclaimers, there's a new high bid at $1100. So there's either some hardcore shilling action here, or Port City is sort of right and insufficiently_thoughtful_persons will throw money around regardless of a book's authenticity.

I don't collect much that reaches back to the Golden Age anymore. This book counts, if you squint a little, as it dates from 1955. Since copies were distributed for several years, this is arguably more of a Silver Age book, but, hey, it was printed before Showcase #4! Technically correct is the best kind of correct.

Anyway, these were given out to people who toured Nestle's Fulton, NY production facility.