Jesse-Lee

I love it - had to have it when I saw it. I just love the soft, "painting" feel to it, the colors, and it's just such a weird premise. And the infinity cover aspect is cool too.

There were a couple of recent personal examples for me that stood out. I'm not talking about 9.8s or anything, but for example, I bought an 8.0 Batman 357 and a 9.0 Batman 386 at an online auction (not eBay) for $74 and $66 respectively. The last few "VF" raw sales (and that's VF if you trust their grading, which can be a very big if) of Batman 357 were $78, $87, $101, $108; and for Batman 386 they were $100, $76, $62, $110.

This is interesting to me - I know people do this, and I used to think it's crazy (I personally wouldn't crack a book to keep it raw, but I like the look of slabs). But I browse eBay a lot - like probably unhealthy a lot. And I've noticed a trend of people selling raw books (which can be a huge variable) at prices equivalent to a high-grade CGC book. So do you buy the graded book so you know what you're getting but crack it out because you prefer it? Because previously I would have thought that buying raw would be cheaper, but I've definitely seen raws that were overgraded and overpriced, and I've personally bought graded copies that were cheaper than a lot of raws in what would the seller would claim to be a similar grade.

It somewhat comes down to personal preference and what your objective is. It's like the 9.8 vs lower grades thing. Are you looking to invest? Some buyers prefer white pages, some don't care; so if you're buying to resell, you may consider going after white page copies to broaden your sales base. Are you keeping it in your personal collection? Then it comes down to what you value. If I saw two identical books for the exact same price but one was W and one was OW/W, I'd buy the white pages. If the OW/W was significantly cheaper, I might buy that one. If they were the same book, but the W page one had a miswrap where the cover was off-center and the OW/W one was perfectly centered, I'd take the centered copy over the higher page quality. A lot of people go by the "buy the book, not the grade" mantra, and for many, that extends into the page color/quality variable as well.

Either way, a Batman Adventures Annual 1 is likely not worth grading, unless it's for personal collection reasons. I'd just enjoy it in a nice bag/board.

Well, now I want to start collecting Supergirl statues... Nice haul!

I've seen people hate on this book, but I love it. It just screams 90s. Nice books!

This isn't a grading issue per se, but I think it still fits in this area - how often do you crack out books you've bought to press and resubmit them? Have you found success with this? I just got two books for relatively cheap that are a 9.4. and 9.2. On both books, I can easily see they weren't pressed, and I can see the "defects" that kept them from a higher grade, and they look easily pressable. A couple of non-color-breaking bends at the spine, some slight spine roll, etc. Both books would see a significant price increase if they could reach a 9.6 or 9.8 (one more than the other). Just wondering if people have certain criteria or price thresholds at which you decide to take the risk?

I like watching Very Gary's videos. Mint Hunter Comics seems like a nice dude, and I like some of his content so I usually watch most of his stuff too.

Always wanted a nice-presenting copy of this book without spending a ton, and I finally got a nice one. Just a 6.0, but it was exactly what I was looking for:

Some recent LCS pickups, cheap auction wins, etc. - plus a GI Joe from here on the boards, thanks @BBURY10!

Sorry, I don't get the reference?

Definitely a ton to choose from! I was being a little facetious, because of my avatar - but yeah, this is the one for sure. I had a shirt with this print back in the early 90s, and then my wife got me the same shirt a few years ago for Father's Day (since the old one was long gone and would never have fit me again anyway!). But yeah, there's so much great art in that book!

It's certainly my favorite Joker cover (Jock is up there too, and I have a soft spot for Neal's Batman 251 of course). And Killing Joke also has one of my favorite interior panels from any book ever - bet you can't guess which one that is...

This is one of the things I love about The Killing Joke as an "origin story," the fact that it's such unreliable narration, and the way the job seems to come together as "fate." Without spoiling The Three Jokers, I'm not sure how I feel about that miniseries. Part of me liked what they did with it, and part of me hated it.

Looks like the Game Boys can go for around $50-75 on eBay; a lot of the N64 games can fetch in the $20+ range (looks like the Zelda Ocarina of Time is the gray cartridge, so less sought after than the original gold) but you should check each one because sometimes there are low production runs that will bump value; same with the Super Nintendo games - check to see if any are "rare." If you sell on eBay you could probably make a couple to a few hundred, but be prepared for a lot of it to sit or need to be discounted, as a lot of these are pretty common. The bigger payoff comes if you still have any of the original boxes, and even more so if you have the original inserts/instruction manuals, etc. as well. Then the even bigger money is sealed games and rare copies. I've made a couple grand selling games in the past year+ on eBay, but many of those were complete with box and inserts. But there is value here if you're a patient seller.

Killing Joke came out in 1988 at a time when prestige format one-shots and mini-series, along with graphic novels, were gaining in popularity. In the late 80s, Frank Miller's work on the Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One (Batman 404-407), Moore's Watchmen 12 issue series and others were sparking new interest in comic storytelling. Not to mention the Tim Burton Batman movie was set to release in 1989, and Bat-mania was huge. Killing Joke is considered by many to be the best (or one of the top) Joker stories of all time - it won the Eisner as well. The art is gorgeous, and the story really is well done and has an interesting payoff. There were 14 printings of the initial run, each with different color lettering on the front, and even back then I remember the first print being sought after and selling for a premium. I still have my original 4th print, which was the first chance I got to buy it - I was 11 and living in a small town, so I was limited to what I could buy at the drug store or grocery store except for the one or two times a year I could get my parents to take me to a comic shop in a nearby city. It's a great book for a collection, but if you just want to read it I would suggest tracking down the deluxe edition hardcover - it's like $15 or less on Amazon. It has some extra essays, an additional story written and drawn by Bolland, and it's recolored to match Bolland's original vision for the artwork. If you're looking for Batman stories I'd consider it a must-read, along with these others (this list is not at all definitive or in any kind of order, and others may disagree or have additions): The Dark Knight Returns Batman: Year One Strange Apparitions (Detective 469-479) Long Halloween Son of the Demon Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth I also recommend some of these other stories as a few of my favorites: Grant Morrison's Batman run (various issues/titles starting at Batman 655) A Death in the Family (Batman 426-429) Batman Year Two (Detective 575-578) Going Sane (Legends of the Dark Knight 65-68) Batman: Venom (nothing at all to do with the Marvel character Venom; Legends of the Dark Knight 16-20) There are tons more (most anything Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams teamed up on is worth checking out), but the above are all great in my opinion. You could also look for the collected editions of "The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told" and "The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told" for a nice collection of individual comic stories across the ages from Gold to basically Copper (not sure if there's a newer, updated printing of these with modern stories).

It definitely sucks! This one wasn't as big a deal for me, I kind of bid on a whim - but I've gotten sniped before on a few that really bummed me out. Still, it was a kick in the pants thinking I'd won and then seeing I didn't.

Just had a weird one - I put in a last-second bid on a lot, and got the confirmation "congratulations, you're the high bidder" or whatever is says, and then it redirected to the ended auction page and the banner at the top said "you won this auction." A few seconds later, I got a push notification on my phone that says "Auction ended; got away." I checked, and sure enough, it said I was outbid. I've gotten sniped plenty of times, but I've never seen it where it says I won the auction and then it changes after the fact. Anyone else?

You're right, I'm way off - I found this breakdown from Comichron: https://www.comichron.com/faq/ultimatefallout4sales.html To save some reading, here's the gist from the end of the article: Still, under 100,000 on the first print is relatively low overall.

If only!

I disagree somewhat, respectfully. There's some evidence for eschewing 9.8s for slightly lower grades to see a better long-term return. Some lower grades on certain books have seen a higher percentage return than the same book in a 9.8,and it allows you to diversify your investment across multiple books. You could spend $1,000 on one 9.8 book and see a 20% return, or spend $1,000 across 3 9.2 books and see a cumulative 40% return for example. It can be book dependent of course, but there's solid evidence for it. And if you have one 9.8 that dips, your whole investment dips, but if you have 3 9.2 and one dips, the other two could potentially cover your losses.

Is it copper? I can't keep up. It feels bronze to me...