Jesse-Lee

Nice little mail day:

Yeah, I wonder about this sometimes too - I know it's a small sample size, but my kid (14) and his friends have zero interest in comics, despite a couple of us dads having collections. My kid would rather spend money on digital video game items than physical items. It makes me wonder how much people will care about buying comics in 20-30 years. I think the big books will stand the test of time, but a lot of the flavor-of-the-month variants probably won't. That's why I typically only buy variant covers I really like and try to get them on the cheap - if I can't sell them, at least I like looking at them.

I actually agree with you in much of this - I think this Moon Knight is probably overvalued (the original example that the OP posted is obviously WAY overvalued) - and I think there are a lot of modern variants that will never stand the test of time. But then we see examples like Batman 423, Hulk 340, etc. Not modern variant books, but also not being bought for the contents of the book; they're being bought for cover alone. You could even make that argument for classics like Batman 227. My only point was that there are exceptions to every rule, and in those cases, it's the rarity and exclusivity (plus demand) that drives those prices. You could argue that those books that I used as examples aren't necessarily rare or exclusive, but compared to the overall demnad for them, they are rare and exclusive enough that the number of collectors who want them outstrips the number of copies available, thereby drive up the price.

I recently pulled out my Preacher trades to re-read it again - man, I loved that title; makes me wish it would have gotten a show of "The Boys" caliber. I'm really loving that show, and that was another great read. I had to stop watching the Preacher show because of how much I loved the book. I know there are a ton of differences in The Boys show compared to the comics, but something about the show still makes it work really well for me.

One other tip - watch the online stores that do store exclusives and pay attention when they do sales, like BOGO sales. You can sometimes get variants on the cheap that are still desired, especially if you subscribe to their email lists and act fast (a lot of times they may only have 1-2 copies of the more desirable books). Don't expect a "get rich quick" scheme - we're talking paying $10-15 for books you can sell for $25-40. It's a grind. But if you enjoy doing it, it's not a huge amount of work and those extra $15s and $20s can add up fast enough.

Sure, but my point was that there are many other examples of collectibles that you can't really interact with (i.e. read) that still have value because they are exclusive or rare. A rare or exclusive cover that is in high demand makes as much sense to have value as a stamp does. I guess the caveat should be rarity and exclusivity plus demand equals value, regardless of what's on the interior of the book. There are plenty of examples of that.

To play devil's advocate, why is a stamp valuable? Or an old coin, or a baseball card, or basically anything people collect? It really all comes down to rarity and exclusivity in some form or another, doesn't it?

Ha! No, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that no one else had done them either!

Thanks for sharing this! It was one of those books that I knew zero about, but when I saw it, it felt like something I should pick up for the price - I love the "old Americana" feel around the Big Boy stuff. I've only eaten at a Big Boy twice - once on the way to Detroit and once in Cleveland.

I shared this in the Silver Age forum, but thought it could be fun to share here too - has anyone else found any local promo comics like this? I found this for $2 at a local Half Price Books and thought it was pretty cool. The indicia says "copyright 1964." I love how it has the local Milwaukee and Wisconsin Big Boy locations. The last Big Boy in Milwaukee (and I believe Wisconsin) closed its doors in 1995, but a new location opened last year in Germantown, Wis.

Found this for $2 at a local Half Price Books and thought it was pretty cool. The indicia says "copyright 1964." I love how it has the local Milwaukee and Wisconsin Big Boy locations. The last Big Boy in Milwaukee (and I believe Wisconsin) closed its doors in 1995, but a new location opened last year in Germantown, Wis.

No worries! Yeah, I like these too. Here's another nice one that's not too terribly expensive - Uncanny X-men 22 Jay Anacleto White Queen Carnage-ized (not my picture, I took it from online):

Venom 19 - Jeehyung Lee MJ Venomized There's a Carnage-ized version of this too, fyi.

Such great covers! Beauties!

I always loved that figure - I think mine is still somewhere at my parents', although I'm sure the accessories are long gone... We had one surplus store (like a Farm and Fleet, but not a chain) at the edge of town and they would carry some of the figures. I used to get my paper route money, bike out there to check out new figs, and then bike to the drugstore to check out new comics and baseball card packs. I also spent way too much money on those sticker books where you'd buy the book and then buy the sticker packs for a quarter a pack and always get way too many doubles.

@Wolverinex and I were actually talking about how Bratukhin's (the artist's) upcoming Deathstroke Inc. cover is sold out everywhere, and at prices around double what the Batman 124 when it was coming out. I'm sure Deathstroke Inc. has a much lower print run, but maybe a string of popular/valued covers will help. I really do love the art style.

Won a 21 book lot on eBay for $10. Mostly drek, but I bought it just for these 3 anyway, I think it was worth it:

Just a touch more - got it for $22.50. Win some, lose some - but it's all good, it was always going to be a keeper for me anyway, and I love how it looks in-hand. Definitely not the worst beat I've taken by a long shot, and I'm still way up overall in the long run.

Not going to lie, I ordered a couple of copies of the Cover M - Batman is on my pull list, but I had to scramble to grab this cover, same as that 124 1:25. FOMO.

We've got Ghostsafe, Fail Hunter, Clown Maker, Punch Drunk... I think I might have the names wrong...

Be aware of the hype, and do your own digging too - from a modern standpoint for example, Black Panther 3 wasn't really heavily touted prior to release, and it took off because of the first appearance of Tosin, while everyone and their mother knew Hulk 6 would be a first appearance prior to final order cutoff, so that book was heavily pre-ordered - that meant way, way more availability and because of that it tanked in price/spec. Hulk 6 is currently a $2-3 book, while Black Panther 3 is a $50-60 book. It's easy to overspend on spec and get caught holding the bag. Also, go Brewers!

Yeah, and also one on the front cover of the first print of 7. But man, that 2nd print is just so cool looking in my opinion!

It's TMNT 7 - the 2nd print. If you want to get pedantic about it, it's not technically Krang, it's an Utrom (an alien race of which Krang is a member). However, most people do call it the Krang cover. It's a sweet book for sure.

Finally got Tales 4 and 5 to complete the 7-issue run, plus a nice TMNT 5 2nd print and a decent copy of TMNT 7 1st print:

Picked these up from various places over the past couple of weeks. Adding Tales of the TMNT 4 and 5 means I finally have all 7 issues.