Steven Valdez

On 3/19/2024 at 11:54 AM, Hepcat said:

 What it most certainly was not was a "sale".

Yes. Again, that's the entire point. Because of that, it appeared to the bean counters that the affected books were not selling (in fact they were being stolen prior to distribution instead of being legitimately made available for sale to the public) and consequently some of them were cancelled.

On 3/19/2024 at 10:45 AM, Dr. Haydn said:

Two things:

1. Bob Beerbohm was there.

2. His story hasn't changed in over 50 years.

That makes his recollections hard to ignore.

Right. And that Conan #1 hoarder was just one of the people who were rorting the system.

On 3/19/2024 at 1:28 AM, Zonker said:

Where it gets more speculative is the suggestion that Adams / Kirby / Barry Smith books were disproportionally targeted by the practice, and if so, whether that made the difference between commercial success versus premature cancellation (or near-cancellation, in the case of Conan). Personally, I believe it is credible that such a thing happened.  When I got into collecting in the mid-1970s, collecting the "good artists" work (interiors, not covers) was much more of a thing than it is now.  And, if Roy Thomas is to be believed, Conan the Barbarian only really became commercially successful about the time when Gil Kane was filling in for Barry Smith.  It makes sense that if you were hoarding recent issues to sell at marked-up prices, you would focus on those issues then likely to be in demand by those fanatics willing to pay more than cover price for a comic book.  

It's not speculative.

"One person I know acquired over 25,000 copies of Conan #1 when it came out. By early 1973 I was giving him $600 for a sealed case of 300 copies and selling them for $5 a pop." His price per case doubled to $1,200 in 1974."

Bob Beerbohm, Comic Book Artist #6 (Feb 1999), Twomorrows.

On 3/19/2024 at 1:28 AM, Zonker said:

There is plenty of evidence for affidavit fraud (MH2 being the existence-proof).  Where it gets more speculative is the suggestion that Adams / Kirby / Barry Smith books were disproportionally targeted by the practice, and if so, whether that made the difference between commercial success versus premature cancellation (or near-cancellation, in the case of Conan). Personally, I believe it is credible that such a thing happened.  When I got into collecting in the mid-1970s, collecting the "good artists" work (interiors, not covers) was much more of a thing than it is now.  And, if Roy Thomas is to be believed, Conan the Barbarian only really became commercially successful about the time when Gil Kane was filling in for Barry Smith.  It makes sense that if you were hoarding recent issues to sell at marked-up prices, you would focus on those issues then likely to be in demand by those fanatics willing to pay more than cover price for a comic book.  

Bob Beerbohm via Facebook: 

'The perceived sales DC NPP Independent News was receiving was the sold numbers were actually going down. Neal Adams' GL/GA was one of the most heavily "hit" by affidavit returns fraud on that "honor" system mandated by the larger ID gigs around the country in order they would handle ANY comic books.'

On 3/18/2024 at 10:10 PM, Prince Namor said:

We can see proof of it. I've posted it here. It was talked about even at the time. 

It doesn't matter. Marvel Zombie's have been programmed to ignore facts and stick to their programming no matter what.

Here the enormously respected Joe Brancatelli, talks about the market in an article from 1979 (you may have seen his editorial's in the Warren Magazine's of the day)... Joe Brancatelli spoke about affidavit fraud and stolen artwork decades before anyone else would, because the rest of the hobby was too busy making money off of it to give it any traction. They didn't want it talked about.

In the same way we today see people finding ways to bust open CGC slabs and switch the comics inside, people were finding unethical and illegal ways to make money off of comics back in the 70's as well.

It's weird that so many people are in denial this happened... they're probably the same guys who deny the Moon landings and think the Earth is flat. Then again, a lot of major dealers got their inventories started by being involved in this fraud, so it might be no wonder they want it hushed up.

On 3/18/2024 at 9:43 PM, Prince Namor said:

It was. Spider-man had a very popular cartoon series (the exceptional 1967-68 series) that ran through... I think 1971 and then made it's rounds on after school kids TV reruns (which is where I first saw it). 

But yeah, when Superman got a movie made in 1978, no one was like "How can that be? Spider-man is so much more popular!). No one in the mainstream cared about the sales of Marvel Comics. Superman was the much better known hero because he had a 30 year head start and had been in TV and cartoons throughout his time. 

And even in comics for 1978, Superman's title still wasn't far off Marvel's best, Spider-man in terms of sales 223,222 to 258,156. Much of the 'Marvel changed the course of comic history' is hyperbole... what we actually see in the real world of what happened is much different.  

The Spider-Man and FF cartoons were on here in the 60s, but not many adults seemed to watch cartoons back then. They only took note of live-action shows.

Adam West Batman was huge here,  like everywhere else... and in the very early '70s we had George Reeves Superman reruns for those who weren't around yet in the '50s. So that ensured Batman and Superman were household names.

The 'mainstream' only seems to have become aware of Marvel when the Hulk live-action series began in the late '70s. Those lame Spider-Man shows were around then too, as theatrical releases.

On 3/16/2024 at 9:02 AM, Zonker said:

There is of course the theory-- promoted perhaps not surprisingly by Neal Adams himself-- that fan-favorite titles, like supposedly the Adams/Thomas X-Men, were victims of affidavit fraud.  Copies would fall off the truck before ever reaching the newsstand and be sold through a back door to aspiring comic book dealers.  Often used as a partial explanation for the commercial failure of the original X-Men, Deadman, GL/GA, Kirby's Fourth World, and the near-cancellation of the BWS Conan run.  

Chuck Rozanski freely admits his Mile High II collection (of MILLIONS of books) consisted of the fruits of affidavit 'return' fraud. The co-owner of National Comics up to 1967, Irwin Donenfeld, also knew full-well that it was going on and is on the record as acknowledging it.

On 3/17/2024 at 4:14 PM, BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES said:

Show us on the doll where Stan hurt you

You really need to can it with your pedo 'joke'.

When I started collecting Marvel in 1976 it seemed the general public was aware of Batman and Superman, but the Marvel characters were practically unheard of. I recall a kid at school asking me if I was into that 'Captain Spider-Man garbage'. This was in Australia, may have been different in the US.

On 3/9/2024 at 3:46 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

Now that you mention it...

it sure does! I don't know how that can be fixed. Perhaps some speed lines to suggest motion? That way, the characters would appear to be walking or running instead of levitating.

 

The guy on the left just needs to have the front of his right foot on the ground and it would make sense.  Kid Colt should just be standing with both feet on the ground, turning to respond to his assailant. Would be better if he was closer up, so you could just seem him from the chest up. Just trying to think how Mr Kirby would have staged it. If only there'd been an art director!

Talk about Monday morning quarterbacking!

On 3/9/2024 at 2:50 AM, Dr. Haydn said:

Is this the first we've seen of Jack Keller's work on this site? 

This splash reminds me a bit of the late, lamented Joe Maneely--though the figures are stiffer. Maybe a hint of Jack Davis in there as well, though less stylized and cartoony.

Not a fan of it... the guy on the left looks like he's floating. The other guy kind of does too.

On 3/3/2024 at 8:00 AM, Dr. Haydn said:

If his parents left Austria (the Austro-Hungarian Empire back then) shortly before Jack's birth in 1917, as a result of the unrest created by World War I, most of what they owned would have been left behind. This would explain how they ended up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a notoriously rough neighborhood back then. Still, I'd be curious to know where the aristocrat story came from. If doesn't appear in the biography on the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center site.

Thanks, makes perfect sense. My own father's family fled Germany after it was largely destroyed in WWII; they'd been wealthy but lost everything... another 'wrong side of history' story.

On 3/2/2024 at 6:44 AM, Dr. Haydn said:

His parents were Austrian-Jewish immigrants. I wonder if they spoke German at home when Jack was young?

He also said his dad was an aristocrat back in Austria, but they seemed to have an austere life in the lower east side of NYC. Would love to know the backstory there.

Got the new issue of the Jack Kirby Collector last night. I was surprised to learn therein that Jack spoke German. Did not know that.

On 2/10/2024 at 4:17 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

The better Stan's collaborators were, the better the stories turned out, it seems.

Same for Roy Thomas as well. He wrote so much better when Neal Adams or Barry Smith was illustrating, than say, Werner Roth or Don Heck.

CGC is now telling us to 'only buy from reputable dealers' i.e. those who we don't think are inclined to tamper with books. Begs the question, what's the point of CGC now?

On 1/27/2024 at 2:49 AM, Stefan_W said:

This is a huge factor that extends the impact of the scandal beyond the number of books that were directly tampered with. From what I am seeing sales are down, but sales were already continuing to drop as we slide out of the comic boom era and back to where we were in 2019-ish. 

I am watching the market as well as I can, but I don't think we have an accurate handle on how much damage the incident has done to sales outside of the books that were commonly tampered with (NM98 news stand, etc). Logic tells me it has had some impact, but I don't know much of continuing drops is just that the market was always going to drop in Jan 2024. 

I think it's going to take a while for the full affects of this to play out, the erosion of trust.

On 1/27/2024 at 2:09 AM, Stefan_W said:

Based on the comments on my videos I would completely agree with the bolded point. I think a big source of difference is the people who have accounts with CGC and participate on a CGC forum are typically people who buy and sell slabs. It does not have to be that, but I am speaking about the majority of people on these boards. 

The audience for YouTube comic book channels is very different in that it spans more broadly across the comic community, and as such it includes both people who submit books and those who do not. Some of the people who are commenting in those reply sections are not into submitting books to begin with, and for that crowd the scam was one more reason that justifies not sending anything in for grading. There is also a crowd of people who are pretty dedicated to going from channel to channel and posting their hatred of CGC in every comment section they can find. 

So when you look at the composition of the groups of people on these boards and those writing in comments sections on YouTube I think the differences you correctly identify make sense. 

A lot of what I see on YouTube though is collectors who are saying they're afraid to buy CGC-slabbed books from now on, for fear they may have been tampered with. So not just people who submit directly to CGC, but the buyers at the end of the line.

What I do notice is that on YouTube comments pages people are up in arms about the case debacle and are swearing never to touch CGC again; whereas on these boards there's a strong 'this'll blow over soon' vibe as if it's just a minor road-bump. Yes, the 'nothing to see here' brigade. It's a form of cognitive dissonance , i.e. 'This is tough luck for people I don't know or care about, but I'll be fine.'

On 1/26/2024 at 11:33 PM, comicwiz said:

That doesn't go far enough - the patterns I'm seeing here, ranging from grade dates/notes, impossible achievement of time gaps between changes and flips, AND exact sale date matches on a string of books is the kind of coordination that 's akin to not only knowing who is working security at a planned heist, but right down the colour of underwear they're wearing.

I wonder if the perps are as blasé about all this as Mr Lightning55 is?

On 1/26/2024 at 4:17 AM, grendel013 said:

even if I do opt to sell, I doubt folks will suspect they were swapped.

Wait, so you've been the culprit all along?

On 1/26/2024 at 2:47 AM, sd2416 said:

Show us on the slab where CGC touched you? 

Thanks for proving my point so succinctly.

Anyone who still submits to CGC has Stockholm Syndrome.

There are guys on eBay selling perfect-looking counterfeits of key Golden, Silver and Bronze Age books for many years with zero restraint. How many of these has CGC graded and cased as 9.8's so far I wonder? Might be time for getting them reholdered as 9.9s/10s.