StreetPreacher

Hey, I'm 42 and just started reading comics again, so obviously I'm not so bright! I must have gotten distracted before I finished reading your reply... And when I saw 'hide' I assume that would only HIDE the post from MY STREAM.. Sort of as a way to 'hide' any posts that might offend you...

I see "Quote" "Edit" & "Options", but the only option appears to be "Hide"... I guess that's essentially the same as delete?

I still feel like an insufficiently_thoughtful_person for buying EVERY #1 from IMPACT! comics, even though I could see from the covers that they weren't very high qualty books, and the publisher was just tyring to cash in on the Comic Explosion going on at the time. However isn't Robocop #1 actually valuable, assuming it's in mint condition at least? I have Robocopy #1 in my collection, and also thought it was a garbage book so I never even bothered bag/boarding it... But Then I checked 'gocollect' recently, and noticed that Robocop #1 in a CGC 9.8 has actually sold recently for liiek $100?!?!?!

Exactly, and I'm not invested enough to buy a CGC 9.8 copy of Amazing Spider-Man #322 for $75, when I can find another copy in acceptable condition for $8... I mean, I'm sure the slabbed 9.8 would make a better long term investment, but I'm not sure that ASM #322 is important enough of an issue to ever increase in value enough to justify spending nearly 10X as much for the graded copy... $75 SLAB $8 RAW

Yeah, Felix was another fun character to look for in the background of McFarlane panels! I don't remember all of the Felix appearances, but I know he can be seen sticking out of a background garbage can on the ASM #320 cover EDIT: Is there NO WAY TO DELETE a message? Somehow I ended up posting the picture in a 2nd comment, when 1 comment would have sufficed. However I don't see any option to completely delete a message? Is deleting not possible, or am I overlooking the option?

That's great, I didn't know that! I'll have to take a look at the earlier issues as well then!

That's what I was wondering! I didn't even think it was possible for a book to get this SEVERELY faded? Do you have any information about the book's history? Has this copy been on display in direct sunlight for the past 60 years? And it's interesting to see how the degree of fading appears to be consistent, and seems so to have dramatically altered all colours, while the black inking looks relatively unaffected so none of the art's details are washed out! Very interesting example showing the potential ravages of time!

Well I'm not sure about Spider-Man, but McFarlane was a hockey fan, and I think the Oilers might have been his favourite team. And I believe this would have been during the Gretzky era when the Oiler's were still great! Before Wayne was paid a fortune to defect to L.A. and went Hollywood... And I swear I've seen McFarlane draw characters wearing Oillers jerseys in other books, but I can't remember the issues... It is strange that Todd went with the Edmonton team, considering he's from Calgary, so you'd assume he would be a Flames fan? But hey, I'm from Toronto, and was also probably more of an Oilers fan at the time... I always found it humorous that the cover includes a test tube... I've done a few drugs in my day, but none of them ever came in a test tube? I guess they're also trying to discourage kids from producing their own drugs? And was it wrong to read this issue while drinking a beer and smoking a joint? (I'm Canadian, it's legal;))

Only on his more recent work.

Wow, so the grader noticed creases even AFTER the book was pressed?

Did he start this earlier? I also noticed at least 1 in #307, hidden on Chameleon's left wrist, but it doesn't look like he started including the number until #311? I checked all the covers starting at #298, and this was the first issue that seemed to included a number next to his signature banner to denote how many 'hidden' spiders are intentionally included on the cover? And I like the joke in 'Spider-Man' #1, where he just put a question mark since there were so many spiders drawn into the web lol. If he did this on an earlier book then PLEASE add it to the thread! AFAIK, I don't think he did it again until #313?:

Thought this might be fun, not sure if it's been done before, and I believe this is the first issue he did this. I'll start with ASM #311: :

Whatever happened, I think we can all agree that this definitely wasn't McFarlane's finest hour, but I wonder if this cover was considered a disappointment, and is the reason that he didn't get to do another 'official' Hulk cover until #340? And then after that iconic #340 cover, he came back with another 3 in a row that I also consider top notch, those being #343 showing Hulk carrying a woman's body with a full moon in the background, #344 where Hulk is smashing the chains, and #345 where Hulk had smashed the comic Title, knocking "Incredible" onto the floor while he forces his way through the "Hulk" lettering! The cover for #346 is technically McFarlane's last work on Hulk, but the art is ALSO signed by Erick Larsen, and yon DEFINITELY see some Larsen style, so I like to consider #345 the final McFarlane Hulk And I absolutely agree with you on Hulk #333 looking like McFarlane might have at least had some input on the layout... #333 always reminded me of one of Todd's very early covers on Infinity Inc. And I believe that McFarlane's formal training was in design, which is probably one of the reasons that he tends to crib from himself when he finds something that works! And actually, looking at these side-by-side, you could even argue that the Hulk cover is a complete SWIPE of infinity inc? EDIT: Nevermind, I just checked and it doesn't look like the Infinity Inc cover was credited to McFarlane, and he only did interior pencils on the Infinity Inc #36 as well... Guess it's just a coincidence? But thanks, this was a book on my short list, and I guess it's a minor 'key' since it is officially the first Hulk cover penciled by McFarlane?

Yeah, this is one issue that's an example of a book that I see listed for $100+ for high grade slabs, but also see decent looking raw copies pm sale for less than $20?

Can't you just delete messages? I added the back cover image to my firs post, so this message was redundant... I just don't see an option to delete in the editing options? Well I might as well use it for something I guess. Does anyone know how/if books with the UK pricing included makes any difference to grading and/or resale value? I actually noticed while taking a closer look, that this book has the UK price included, and then I just noticed that even a few Spider-Man back issues I bought from the LCS recently also have UK pricing? I'm in Canada, so sharing book releases with England isn't all that strange, but I'm pretty sure that most comics I bought in Canada only have USA/CAN pricing printed on the comics?

Is that a problem? I found the old thread in a search, so just figured I'd leave a comment here instead of starting a new thread about the same subject... Hope it's not against the rules to resurrect old conversations? I was also slightly curious if any of the OPs were still around, and who was 'smart' enough to buy #226 as it turned out to be a decent investment according to current listing prices! I just found it surprising that this issue was currently selling for up to 3 figures, while the earlier similar swipe issue appears to currently be selling for the same price as other issues from its time period? And I actually prefer the #37 cover, as #226 appears to have been forced to appear more similar to hulk #340? I mean holding the 4 knives make Violator look more like he found a Freddy Krueger glove...

Hope you grabbed one anyway, I just did a bit of shopping for this issue, and looks like mint copies are currently going for triple digits! Although I'm pretty sure that McFarlane ONLY did the cover on this book, so it might be a perfect candidate for just printing out and framing a high resolution image of the cover

Fingers crossed! It's currently in my 'hold box' at CaptCan comics so I'll see if I can get them to send a scan of the back cover. The store has this cool online option that allows you to buy books whenever they list something you like, but instead of shipping immediately, you can just have them hold all the books until you've filled a $12/25 issue shipping box, or whenever you figure you've spent enough money It's nice to be able to maximize the shipping cost without being forced to buy 25 books at once. And I have no affiliation with this store, I actually just found out about it yesterday.

Yes, I believe the 'hero' labels are a special order, with an extra $5 charge. And it looks like any extra info is printed on the back of the custom tags instead.. Luckily someone else had this slabbed before I bought it, and said they lost like $30 on the sale. Apparently the book was even pressed before grading, so the original owner was DEFINITELY expecting a higher grade. Does anyone ever feel bad for winning an auction that the seller is losing money on? This seller told me that they also had this book pressed before grading, so they were into it for like $50, and I picked it up for $26

Thanks for the peace of mind, I grabbed it for around $60 USD, so I'm happy I waited it out and didn't jump on the $105 copy that I kept seeing that had a corner crease on the front cover, that after further inspection looked to potentially have been caused by water damage visible on the back cover... Hopefully the back cover doesn't have crayon scribbles all over it or something! Now if I could just to find a copy of #300 for the same price...

Been looking for a good deal on a decent raw copy, and this suddenly became available locally so I jumped on it. The seller had graded it a VF-, which I guess is 7.5 in CGC speak... I haven't seen the back cover yet, but unless the rear is a complete disaster, then I thought it might even look a bit better than 7.5? There appear to be a few minor spine ticks, and the corners could be sharper, but does anyone else notice any defects that I'm missing? EDIT: Here's the back cover. And, yep, you can definitely see the spine ticks more clearly on the rear end thanks to the solid white background... And looking at the front again, I can definitely see tics at the same locations, but the indentations look even less severe on the cover, and most don't appear to break colour? Anyway, still happy with the acquisition, and if I'd seen the back cover before purchase I would have bought the book anyway This will likely remain in my personal collection, so not too worried about resale and just like to know that I got a fair or better deal!

And more comics with no business being graded will get slabbed everyday!

They're starting to pile up now, and it's all under protest! I would have preferred raw copies of both books because I DO enjoy reading through the real thing at least once, but I keep finding deals that are less expensive than any of the raw copies I can find! Anyway, I now own slabs of McFarlane's first cover work on both Amazing Spiderman & Incredible Hulk, with my 6.0 CGC slab of ASM #298, and then just today I grabbed this slightly higher grade Incredible Hulk #330! I guess this isn't considered one of Todd's better covers, and Marvel must have agreed because McFarlane didn't do another Hulk cover until he came back strong with the Iconic #340! Although he was still allowed to do pencils on Hulk #331-339...

But yeah, one of the great things about McFarlane is that no matter what he does, somehow his style manages to come through! I think this was also just a cover, but probably one of the most striking Walking Dead covers, and there have been a few cool ones! I guess this has turned into more of a McFarlane appreciation thread, so if there are any cool things I might not be aware of then let me know! I found an image someone stitched together with thumbnails of supposedly every cover McFarlane did, but I don't think it includes books where Todd only did the interior art, like a bunch on the Hulk run, where McFarlane was still only doing interiors on the earlier issues of his run... And I always found it odd that he did the cover & interiors of his first Hulk book #330, but then they used someone elses covers for the next 9 issues, before McFarlane came back with the classic #340 cover, and I think he did the rest of the covers before moving to ASM for #298 after leaving Hulk after #346. Does anyone know if there is a particular reason that McFarlane did the cover of Hulk #330, but then didn't do another cover until #340? Was Marvel not happy with the #330 cover? I mean, I agree that Hulk #330 isn't his best cover, but is it possible Marvel sidelined him until good old Toddy came back STRONG with that classic with Hulk reflected in Wolverine's Claw? And I hate deciding how much I'm willing to pay for Todd's 'cover only' material... Like right now I could buy the Walking Dead variant for $20... Or I could print and frame a high resolution image of the cover for $2, and get the only part of the book I'm really interested in

Well this was meant as a joke, but I have noticed ebay auctions asking $100 (they might not actually sell for that much) for a CGC 9.8 copy of a book that I could find 'raw' in decent raw shape at my LCS for $5...