rgtichy

Last night I went and looked at all the 9.2 sold on ha.com in the last few years, and none showed a slight tear like mine does.  You don't think the tear is disqualifying for a grade that high?

I would absolutely love to see pics of this book after a cleaning and pressing.  I bet it'd be stunning, since I have always thought this is one of the great, great covers.  You should sell it to me and I'll get it cleaned, lol.

Thanks.  I've had this book since 1989, in mylar.  I bought it off a freshman in college that wanted to sell two long boxes of mostly mediocre stuff.  I think I gave him $200 for the whole lot.  Got some older X-Men books that are in the 4.5 - 6.5 range, but were not considered valuable in 1989, at all.  That nice one with Polaris by Steranko on the cover, though, I am pretty sure!  (Always loved the excellent green on that cover.  I should get one of those in a high grade.)

Back to this book, GS X-Men 1:  I've always thought it would be a very solid grade for the color and sheen but that glued binding really bothers me.  I haven't seen enough GSXM1 up close to place mine in a range.

I cringe when I look at glue bindings.  Small tear in lower outside corner, front.  Color seems good, sheen seems great. I took the picture of the inside pages with the brighter white of the inside cover showing because digital camera seems to adjust the paper to "whiter" otherwise. 

On 1/7/2021 at 11:01 PM, jcjames said:

I like this cover too.

 

This kind of stuff is my favorite Batman... when he crosses with the occult storylines.  That's why I always liked the series "Legends of the Dark Knight", too.  The horror/occult stories.... plus well, Adams, Rogers, a couple of Wrightson... you know: "The Greats"!

The bottom one, to be specific...

21 hours ago, Jasonmorris1000000 said:

What is this?  That is stunning.

I agree.  But the one on bird's comment works to read about Mantlo.

I'm much happier with modern age books that are offering me a new story, with original characters, and preferably one that is not based on being jaded about superheroes.  And DC and Marvel have rebooted and remixed their characters so many times it is hard not to be jaded if you've been around for 50+ years and the last 7 reboots of a character happened in the last 30 years.

(And, as both an aside that is an example, but from the movies, who wasn't annoyed when Sony rebooted the Spider-Man movies right after the Raimi-Maguire trilogy?  I mean 3 "issues," and a reboot of the origin story is "#4" ?)

I see the start of the demise of the stories right in the moment many of us were crashing into comics, too.  Frank Miller is jaded, was jaded, and burned down many long comics legacies to create his short runs on many titles.  They looked cool, and being jaded was so hot in 1990, but it's not fun to read that vibe for years and years afterward.  The Silver Age rebooted superheroes after the first 20+ years.  The Modern Age reboots "your superhero" every time a new writer takes over.

I'm not sure I agree with the posters talking about the smell and feel of newsprint, directly, but I think they also see that the new books are glossy and it's often not just the paper.

So, that all probably keeps me in the "Curmudgeon Camp" but I don't want to be.

Manhunter... there was a premium paper reprint of those in the early 1980's? I liked it.  (May 1984 "Manhunter #1" reprinting Detective 437-443)

Maybe the most common newbie question.  We should probably take the best of the various answers and make it a stickie.

I was rather surprised that I couldn't quickly find very similar questions on this, so "Yes." pinning a helpful writeup to the top of what happens when you put together a box of a dozen comics or something would be very good!

Might as well make it as thematically accurate as possible, so pretend it's a GS X-Men 1, a VG/F Hulk 181, the F. Miller Wolverine mini-series, and a "silly" run of McFarlane Amazing Spider-Mans.  Every single person thinks they have NM for all of it, and the McFarlanes were bagged after first read and kept ever since, so a discussion of minimum grading on the first two could also be mentioned. 

The whole thing really should be made into a video:

• Packing it up correctly, sending it.
• Show everyone how it all gets handled at CGC.  (I mean, I assume everyone there is dressed like a brain surgeon, in full operating theater garb!)
• Show the expensive books going past a table of professorly old-men, discussing paper tones and edges and corners.
• Show the other books going past a single guy that reminds us of that one crazy customer at our favorite store, muttering about color qualities and flexographic printing, a Peter David -script he hated for ASM that is not in the run of Spideys, but he always complains about that one story-line whenever he's holding any copy of any ASM, etc.  (He talks a lot about the black cover issue of the Wolverine mini-series and whether the black background is evenly dark and black enough, too.)
• Show the books shipping back to the collector, in separate parcels.
• Show them arriving and everything not being graded "9.6" across the board, and how to appreciate the thoroughness of the grading and distinctions made, and how to contain your outrage that not everything sent in was considered near-perfect!

After that, monitor the forum comments to see which forum posters are going to be the biggest headaches if/when their books ever go to CGC and make it clear you keep A List of Their Names, just to "screw with their heads"!

Wow!  Some of that stuff is really, really great! (But not her Swamp Thing.  The phone bit is funny, though!)

I just want to understand how submitting a bunch of books "works"....

I have two books that are "probably worth something" HOS 92 and GSX 1.  I have a bunch of copper age books in great shape that are worth "a little" by comparison.  If I send them all in together, do they all get graded together and sent back together?

Because it appears to me that the value of the book determines the speed at which it gets graded?

Am I misunderstanding this?

I mean, even now, there are no comic-cons to go to and get graded at, so sending them in is the only way, but it seems totally crazy to have books sent back in multiple lots/groups?

Wow, what a tragic story.  Had no idea about that.  I enjoyed Rocket Raccoon back in the day.  AND, I liked the Mike Mignola artwork, too.

That's like the worst "Grimjack" drawing, ever in the far left corner of the top panel of that page!  Might as well claim that is Grimjack dressed for Halloween as the Nexus!

Mazzuchelli had a nice style on these books.  Sort of "Sin City-light"...

On 12/30/2020 at 10:49 PM, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

Does the interior Art Thibert art look better than the cover?

Looks like the cover might be signed "Bill Willingham"?  Hard to tell if that's what it says or "Bingham", but it's about the right timeframe for the little work Willingham did for DC?

You've got your cover images on "speed dial"!  

When are the Kelley Jones covers?  Are those Copper or Modern Age?  Personally, I like every one of the Kelley Jones covers much better than the McFarlane cover.  (Not saying the McFarlane one isn't striking, but in my opinion Kelley Jones's run of Batman covers were fantastic.)

I have the window decal for comic retailers.  (I think there was one in a really big shot of stuff on page 1, too.)

Was that one of the early flexographic color jobs?  Those were pretty garish for a while, while the colorists adapted...

Always liked the vampire town underwater!  When "O' Brother Where Art Thou?" came out this was my reference point to the TVA flooding event!