jdandns

Speaking of McFarlane, his cover for Spider-Man 306 from October 1988 is a clear homage to Action #1. But just using Spider-Man we can go 4 years earlier that that as Spider-Man 252 from May 1984 is an homage to Amazing Fantasy #15. So just with Spidey, we can go back nearly 40 years already, but I suspect the eventual "winner" will be from significantly earlier. (Byrne's FF #1 homage on FF #264 is from March 1984, so two months earlier than Spidey 252. Speaking of FF, #126 from Sept 1972 is a origin retold tale, but I wouldn't consider that an homage cover to FF #1 as much as a redrawn version of that cover. I think this may have been the case with some Marvel Tales Spider-Man reprint covers from the 70's, and X-Men when it became a reprint title, as well.)

Very interesting, thanks...

Since it was bi-monthly, and had been for almost 2 years by the time of #158, doesn't that mean each issue of Daredevil during that span was on the racks twice as long as most other Marvels which were monthly (and hence, replaced on the stands by the next issue more quickly)? That might actually equate to a better sell through rate of Daredevil issues that were produced during that nearly 4 year bi-monthly window, but those copies would've probably had more handling wear, especially those that sold closer to the end of the 60 day window. I finally got a #158 at a local comic shop in 1990. I haven't looked at it in a long time, but I remember it being gorgeous, so I don't think mine was on the rack too long when it was new. I don't think about it much, though, because as long as I'm an active comic collector, I'd never sell it. That issue begins a run that is probably top 5, all-time.

Byrne mined pretty much all they were good for on his epic run, and as shown above with the "New" Fantastic Four, which was part of his run, Walt Simonson got the rest of it.

Hansi 'n Rudy sure worked it out in the end.

Wait for it...

Here's some more TMNT. These are from Western Graphics (late 80's/early 90s) and Image Comics (early to mid 90's). Artists beyond Eastman/Laird include Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, and Rick Veitch (one of his covers from his 3 issue run that is probably still the best TMNT comic story to date).

Wow, that was some find, and thanks for sharing! These posters were mostly promotional items sent to comic stores with some also issued at various conventions, and are the definition of ephemera, meant to be displayed for a short time, and then tossed out. While I don't actively collect them, I have a chunk of those you've shown from having attended SDCC for a long stretch starting in 1996 and also getting my own trove of them about 10 years from a shuttering comic store that had been in business since the late 80's. The toughest are definitely the ones from the 1980's where Marvel/DC is concerned and those from smaller publishers in general. Of course, popular characters like many you've shown don't need to be as scarce as some of the others to hold good value. I'll go through some of mine to see if I can come up with a couple of posts worth of notable ones from the same era that you didn't show, to add to the display. While the people who buy these posters to collect and/or display generally prefer unfolded examples, a lot of these were never issued that way. And boy, folded posters sure are a lot easier (and cheaper) to mail than rolled posters. Great show, thanks again!

Your poster was made for video rental stores which is why it says "On Videocassette". It features the same image as used on the original VHS home video, and was probably issued around September 1990 in slight advance of the video being available for rental/purchase in October. Here's the one that would've been on display at the movies when it premiered in cinemas in March 1990. It's also 27x40. There's also a "teaser" version of this poster, also 27x40, with the "Lean, Green..." tag at the top and the "Hey, dude, this is no cartoon" line at the bottom in place of the credits.

Probably because it was finally showing how he actually got the costume. I know I was ready to find out.. Of course, I was 13 at the time and incredibly, felt that Secret Wars was better than Crisis on Infinite Earths, which shames me still and indicates how insufficiently thoughtful of a person I was back then. For what it's worth. Secret Wars #8 alone did end up being more valuable than the other 11 issues in the series combined by a wide margin.

I agree with this. I'd call the decade that began with the founding of Image Comics the "Gimmick Age", and then consider everything from 2000 up the Modern Age (at least through the end of this current decade), but I suppose it's just easier to say "90's comics" for that unfortunate era, the same way saying "90s sport cards" immediately brings to mind the wildly overproduced, mostly garbage cards of that span.

Those are the ones with chocolate in them and they're worth every caramel-filled penny.

I like the Joe Lansdale & Tim Truman DC Vertigo miniseries from the 90's: Two Gun Mojo 5 issues Riders of the Worm and Such 5 issues Shadows West 3 issues All three mini-series were collected in a single 2014 trade paperback.

That's certainly the best issue in the run to have with something, anything, different about it, whatever it might mean for the value. While my two copies of #15 are locked in my collection, I would imagine there's someone out there who would trade you a high grade regular copy of #15 for it, if you wanted to go that route. No matter what, cool find, congrats!

When I was a kid, I read every comic I bought from cover to cover, sometimes repeatedly. By the late 90's, when I'd get hundreds of new books each month, I might have read half of those at the time, or since. At this point, even though I regularly add 2-3 dozen books to my collection each month, mainly for their covers, the percentage of those I actually read is probably in single digits.

Love this! Here's the poster, drawn by Rick Leonardi, so you can see it before it was clockified.

S'more AH!s...

What's your character name?

Good stuff. I collected prior to, through, and beyond the gimmick era, and generally saw them for what they were, which is what you described, but I still bought some of them. I have a soft spot for glow-in-the-dark covers to this day. I learned pretty early on (admittedly, in part because I couldn't afford to get everything) to buy only the stuff I saw something good in (usually following artists and writers I liked as opposed to to trying to get every title featuring specific characters or from certain comic companies), so I never ended up with a bunch of copies of stuff that I then had to try to foist on to someone else. Each collector/speculator/investor has to learn to do their own due diligence, and sometimes that's a hard lesson. Part of mine is that even though I have thousands and thousands of comic books, to this day, I've never purchased a single one because someone online suggested I do so. And I'm far enough along at this point that I can't imagine there will ever come a day when I am influenced by someone on the internet (with their own possibly hidden motivations) to purchase something I wouldn't have bought on my own.

Another opinion.

I'm not arguing. I'm relating what happened with this book that was in my garage, unbagged, flat in a Diamond Previews box for almost a decade. I have no opinion on others who would collect it for "collectability" sake. Like you, I wouldn't collect this issue or any other from the several hundred issue run of the monthly Marvel pre-order catalog for that reason. That said, I consider certain issues of Marvel Age essential to my collection.

No, more because enough people agreed that it wasn't trash in a such a way that rendered it literally no longer trash. It's not like the one I sold is the only one of those that sold for a decent sum in some one-off fluke. Multiple copies have sold for even more than the one I had, and this has been occurring over a sustained period now. Indeed, I only thought to list my copy when I saw what several others had already sold for. I understand the desire some people have that only their own opinion to matter in this regard, but the market isn't driven by what people won't pay for things they don't like, but rather by what others will pay for things they do like. I never expected it to happen with this stuff I merely considered reference material, as I said, but here we are.

I learned to be a the kind of person to help whenever I could, in part, from Peter Parker. If the latest and maybe next few generations are more amenable to following that same example when set by Miles Morales, I'm all for it.

It's very common, that phenomenon. Sometimes, people don't know what they had until it's gone. When Mad Magazine got cancelled, I pledged that if it ever came back, I'd never miss an issue. 30+ issues of the second series later, and I have them all, even though they're mostly reprints. Yup, $5 a month for a new cover, a new fold-in, and an occasional new page or two here and there.

I'd say more trying to get a larger audience for the real money, which is in the movies whose stories are taken from the comics. Let's face it, if only comic readers, most of whom look like you and me, grey hair and all, bought movie tickets, then all comic book movies would bomb, and they stop making them. In rough seas, the best bet is to cast a wider net. Comic book heroes have mostly looked like me for my entire life. I'm enjoying seeing something different.