BuraddoRun

This is nothing too special, but I always find random fun stuff at Half Price Books, and that occasionally includes foreign books. They only charged me 50 cents for this one.

It's one of those things, weighing money you have to spend VS what you're getting. If I already had a copy, I likely wouldn't have bought it tonight unless I planned to flip it soon to make money. But I've never owned a copy, so it was my chance to finally get one of the comics I've wanted for awhile. I liked the price enough to go for it.

I found another recently. I like these things a lot. LOL

Alright guys, I found a couple of Spider-Man newsie keys at my most visited newsie hunting ground, Half Price Books. One I got about a month ago, and the other I got tonight. I'm super-excited, especially for the one I got tonight! But I have to admit, while I usually go for the true half-priced books, these 2 were in the collector's case and had stickered prices. The first I already re-bagged before taking a pic, but I paid $18. The 2nd, I took a pic with their sticker, so it can speak for itself, though I got 10% off the labeled price with a coupon. I got a few other big hits there tonight as well but they aren't newsstands, so I'll post them in another topic somewhere. I didn't expect to spend as much as I did during a cursory visit to HPB, but you know, I saw it, and these things go fast so I had to do it! Oh yeah, and the 2nd book isn't as modern as what we usually post, but still, I had to share!

I don't mean "new" as in a fresh Wednesday release. I mean a book that isn't new, but is "new" for you, a first-time read. I bought this issue of 1st Issue Special a few weeks ago from a local comic shop and gave it a read. It's a Kirby book, with a group of misfit, or I guess, dingbat heroes that never really took off. I mean, I never knew about them before I found this book. Anyhow, it wasn't amazing, but I still enjoyed it. They're definitely a fun group and it would've been cool if Kirby's origin of "why they don't trust adults" had been released. How about you? Read any "new" books lately?

Recent HPB pickups.

So is Archie the only comic company still printing both Direct and Newsstand editions? I got this at Walmart.

That's cool. I always like finding odd/interesting things like that. Thanks for sharing!

Found this at a lcs Friday.

Got a few more.

Nope, but I'll go check it out. Thanks. As for the sticker, yeah, I guess it is the same comic. But a manufacturer's sticker is different than a retailer's sticker, assuming one could tell the difference. Regardless, I just thought it was interesting.

What is it,exactly?It says "2099." but the characters on the cover are not the 2099 ones and there isn't an Avengers 2099 comic, is there? And it says "for all ages," which makes it seem like maybe a kids' comic compilation. Is it a TPB? It looks prestige format to me, from the pic.

That's pretty interesting, and I'd definitely never heard of it before now. I'm gonna have to keep my eyes open for this one now.

Nice HPB score!

So I did a search on ebay today and found a newsstand copy for auction. It had a sticker over the UPC. The seller said in the description that all copies, newsstand and direct, of that issue have the same cover inside and out, but that the ones distributed as newsstands got that sticker placed on them. So that explains this one.

So I just picked up Issue 22 of Tomb Raider, which appeared to be a newsstand, but when I opened it up, there was a Direct Edition UPC on the inside cover. Don't worry, I found it at HPB for half of cover price, so it's not like it was misrepresented to me by a seller or anything. But it's weird, right? I looked the book up on Mycomicshop, which of course has cover scans of comics, usually the Direct Editions. Their pic for TR 22 also shows the newsie-looking UPC on the front. In my comic book collection app from Collectorz, they often have pics for the Direct Edition entries but not always the newsstand ones. For this issue, they have this cover listed as the newsstand variant, but don't have a pic under the Direct Edition entry. My guess: they accidentally printed the front cover for the direct with the newsstand UPC. Question is, is there an actual newsstand variant that doesn't have the Direct UPC inside the front cover? Or maybe the version sold at comic stores and newsstands were the exact same for this issue, with instructions maybe given out to retailers on which UPC to scan? There are definitely Tomb Raider newsstands out there, as I also found a true newsstand of Issue 14 at HPB that same day. Anyone have any input? Also, are there other examples of Direct Edition books you know of that disguised themselves as newsstands?

And here are the DC and indie books.

Various X-Men books.

Here are some more random Marvel pickups I got from HPB this last month or so.

I've seen a few of these around. Anyone here collect them or have more info? They're interesting because they are just single issues, but bound in hardcovers and distributed to libraries.

It's sad, but I think these are done. Obviously we can't say for sure, but it's been so long. It started with less and less Walmarts carrying the comic packs, making them harder to find. Now, they're just not being restocked since that last $10 pack dump. Some Walmarts near me have various older packs, so I bought a few for old times' sake. Nothing amazing, but here's what I got.

I'm cross-posting from another topic, but I also found this book at HPB this weekend. It was published by a company in Hong Kong called HK Comics Limited. It's in English, though I suppose there were some made in Chinese as well? I don't know. I also am unsure who distributed it in the U.S. It's a Christian comic called King of Kings, and it appears only 1 issue was published, at least domestically and in English. There's a variant cover as well, which I don't have.

So I found this book at a Half Price Books this past weekend. I do a lot of my comic shopping there. LOL. Anyway, it's a Christian comic from Hong Kong, printed in English. The art is pretty and really detailed, and the book was printed in high quality. It's black and white with a glossy cover, and it's more like a silver age size than modern, though of course the book is a modern one. Plus, for what it is, it seems pretty unique. I looked it up online and I believe there was only 1 issue ever printed, though there is a variant cover out there. I haven't read it, but I flipped though and it was clearly meant to have more issues. Anyhow, I thought it was a neat find.

I found this DC Comics Presents this weekend at a Half Price Books. It's in bad shape but it's complete and only cost me $1. I found another comic from the same publisher at that same HPB about a year ago as well. I had to pull a stock photo for it since my copy's already bagged, boarded, and stored away. Both books are in English but were released in India, apparently, by a company named Gotham Comics. As you can see, they licensed both Marvel and DC books (and other companies', I believe). They are digest-size, but thin like a standard U.S. comic.

Wow, you can really see the contrast with color fade between the 2 covers. Nice book!