Jesse-Lee

Cool, I definitely will! I'm about 98.5% sure I'll be there (just have to haul my butt out of bed in the morning, it's a 1 hour 45 minute drive) - @manetteska, @KolmarAvenue, hope to see you there too!

That's all for today - happy Friday!

Nightmares on Elm Street 5 - VF+ - $40

Nightmares on Elm Street 3 - VF+ - $20

Nightmare on Elm Street the Beginning 2 - FN/VF - $25

Nightcry 1 - FN+ (small tear near the price, lower front cover on spine) - $8 HTF issue that includes an Evil Ernie story by Ed McGuinness

New Gods 1 (1984) - VF/NM - $5 Reprints New Gods 1-2

New Avengers Illuminati 1 - FN+ - $7 Origin of the Illuminati

New Avengers Annual 1 (2011) - VF/NM - $4 Dell'Otto Cover

New Avengers Annual 1 (2006) - VF/NM - $5 Yelena Belova becomes Super-Adaptoid

New Avengers 27 - VF/NM - $10 1st Hawkeye as Ronin

New Avengers 26 - VF/NM - $3

New Avengers 11 - VF- - $10 1st app of Ronin (Maya Lopez)

Nemesis 1 (1st and 2nd print) and 2 - 1 is VF/NM, 1 2nd print is FN/VF, 2 is VF - $15

Hmm, I might do that, thanks! I'm planning on going to the Comicverse show in New Berlin on Sunday too. I have a rare, wide-open weekend!

I bought on Hi-Bid one time. Never again. I think I won the lot for like $30, but by the time it was all said and done it cost me close to $70. The place where I could pick them up was only about 40 minutes from me, but their pickup times were like "2-2:45 pm on Thursdays and 1-1:30 on Fridays" or something along those lines. So I had to pay a buyer's premium, a credit card transaction fee and a huge amount of shipping. The 7 books were ultimately mailed to me in a manila envelope.

Love this! I had a similar idea to do a blog or something awhile back along these lines that I ultimately never did, but I did write up the first post. I've shard this on the boards before, so apologies to those who've already seen it: ------------- I was around seven years old when I first discovered my love of comics. I was a voracious reader as a kid. I’d read anything I could get my hands on – even encyclopedia volumes – but I was partial to mystery books like the Hardy Boys and Trixie Belden. Sometime around 1985, while at my grandparents’ house, grandma said she had something to show me. She had been cleaning in the basement, and she brought out a cardboard box about the size of an egg crate. Inside the box was a stack of comics – they were books that my grandpa and dad had bought, read and then held on to over the years. I was aware of comics of course, and especially of superheroes. I loved Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, Batman and Robin, Superman. But as much as I loved reading, I had never really read comic books – why would I do that when I could watch the Super Friends in action or see Lou Ferrigno bring the Hulk to life? Most of the comics in the box were war stories or beat up Gold Key issues of Tarzan, not of much interest to me. But as I dug through, I hit gold – superheroes! Many of the books were missing the top half of the front cover. At that time, retailers – like the general store where my grandpa and dad would have bought most of their books – would receive their monthly comic issues from a distributor with the understanding that any unsold copies could be returned for credit, and those issues were supposed to be destroyed. The sellers weren’t required to return the entire comics for credit though; they just had to send back the top half or third of the front cover as proof that they had destroyed the inventory and they’d receive their credit – a process often called “stripped cover returns” or “remainders.” The retailer was then supposed to destroy the books themselves, but what happened most often is that the store owner would sell the half-covered comics at a discount. A few of the comics in the box still had their entire covers intact, and as I thumbed through them, one caught my eye and captured my imagination: Batman #209. The cover is a stark black with a bright red and yellow Batman logo splashed across the top third of the page. In the foreground, on the bottom of the cover, Robin kneels to investigate a series of animal tracks on the ground (as a kid I thought they were on the moon, but it appears they’re just on yellow sand) and exclaims, “Batman! Who’s making these tiger tracks?” Batman stands menacingly over the Boy Wonder, his fingers curled into hooks and his cape flowing behind him, bearing the head of a tiger, with tiger-like feet and claws ripping through his boots. It’s a beautiful and fantastical piece of art, drawn by the talented Irv Novick (as is the rest of the issue). The clean lines and expressive faces and poses are evident throughout Novick’s body of work, and especially his covers, on titles like Batman, Our Army at War, The Brave and the Bold and Wonder Woman. I’ve studied that cover a lot – the hard lines of Batman’s fingers giving them a look of iron strength, the perspective of Robin’s hand, reaching out as though it will come off the page, the frightening expression and sharp teeth of the Caped Crusader’s tiger head – it all comes together to draw in the reader and make them want to open the book to learn what fate might befall Richard Grayson. It’s ultimately a lie; Batman doesn’t turn into a tiger at all in the issue. But I didn’t care – I was hooked. I met the evil Brainwash (revealed to be the villain Mr. Esper, who first appeared in Detective Comics #352), set on destroying the Dynamic Duo through a mind-control scheme that made them believe the Batcave was an African jungle filled with dangerous animals like tigers and elephants. I marveled at the Batmobile and worried along with Alfred and Commissioner Gordon as they tried to alert Batman and Robin to the plot that was unfolding. I had discovered a new way to see my heroes in action, and I had to have more. Luckily, the box was full of adventures starring the Avengers, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Superman and many others. That original copy survived readings by my dad and grandpa, and somehow miraculously survived the multiple page-throughs and mishandlings by seven-year-old me as well. I was lucky to score a much nicer copy on eBay, and I now have both in my collection. As far as “Holy Grails” go, it’s not a very high standard; I bought my “new” copy for $15. But this is the book that started it all for me. This issue cemented my love of comics, and it holds an even more special place because it’s evidence of three generations’ worth of fascination with stories and superheroes. My dad's (and now my) original copy, found nearly 40 years ago in a box of books: Dad's copy and my "new" copy side-by-side:

That's all for tonight, thanks!

Mortal Kombat Blood and Thunder 1 - VF+ - $10

The Mishkin File (Fantagraphics) - FN - $10

Miles Morales Spider-Man 25 - NM - $15 Razzah Ultimate Fallout Homage

Marvel Tales 272 Newsstand - VF+ - $10

The Immortal Hulk 34 - NM - $5 Marvel Zombies Variant

Ice Cream Man 20 3rd Print - NM - $5 Dr. Seuss Homage

Hulk 1 (2014) - NM- $7 Minneapolis Wizard World Exclusive B&W Variant