Aman619

I seem to recall that the decision was to remove the Warlord of Mars from the title for wider acceptance, thinking that the John Carter aware fans were a a given and other would be put off by the Mars angle. I think there were recent film bombs about Mars just prior to its release. But I’m too lazy to do a Google search.

Thanx.

Right but successful how? I recall the director loved Burroughs, and set out to slavishly bring the original story to the screen, and got hundreds of millions to do whatever he wanted. So Carter was a labor of love by a talented filmmaker.... and missed the mark by a long shot. I’m sure he is still thinking: “but I did everything right!?” the new Shadow described above reads exactly like the boneheaded update hollywood would green light, coming from a place of willing ignorance of the character and source material. Could it actually work? by the way, I never rally knew or cared much for the Shadow. In the Heritage auction though, I saw that the second issue featured the first appearance of Lamont Cranston. I was confused... how could he not be in the first issue? So I read on wiki that Cranston was just one of many real people’s identities that the Shadow used to conceal his own . So my question to you guys who know this stuff, was this true only early on, and later Cranston became Shadow’s only secret identity, like Bruce Wayne, and the other identities were retconned away?

Yes... but remember John Carter movie a few years ago. Meticulously adheres to the stories, and completely underwhelmed everybody because the incredibly original concepts Burroughs created fresh were already hackneyed ideas most people have been watching for decades in movies etc. where the beef! By the way, I enjoyed it. Maybe because I saw it in week two all alone in a huge theatre on the big screen! Always nice. similarly I used to think Adam Strange might have made an interesting movie... but after John Carter it’d be way too derivative! Unfortunately I think the only way these characters can work is a fresh reboot with the basic elements.. but then you risk losing all of us who know and care about these characters! But, then again a carefully crafted period piece does still work now and then. Nevers on HBO was well done. But probably will never be finished due to Whedons toxic reputation..

Never heard of this... wonder if they ever used it on Madoffs clients statements... a series of Madeup numbers!

He didn't leav that part out. its covered in sentence 2.

Post Of The Year! nailed it in near Haiku precision!

lol. were you the Heritage source for that quote? I tend to agree that the first Tarzan is the biggest pulp. He is arguably the biggest thing to emerge from the pulps. Although I tend to think that going forward, the concept of the Great white savior triumphing in darkest Africa, descended from British Royalty no less (!!) and thru genes alone rises to the top of the food chain all on his own, in todays climate, is a tough sell... and Tarzan's recent movie/media events have failed to ignite much popular success. But that goes for all the pulp heroes conceived 100 years ago, not as relevant as when conceived as the world has moved on significantly since then.

How many sharp All Story Tarzans are out there? That Heritage copy was hyped as the best, similar to the write ups for these copies.. but they really said “best we have offered or seen,” which is not the whole picture.. it would seem to me that we just don’t have the data to compare. Both are really cool issues, and scarce. One sold for a lot a long time ago, and this Shadow just sold in a very different heating up market overall for a new record shattering the Tarzan price. ‘last year there was some article through Heritage marketing that said the All Story McGlocklin copy was now worth 200K. Ok sure, but based on what? I guess today though, maybe it was after talking to this week’s Shadow 1 buyer, who was looking for a chance to pick up the best pulps at whatever price it would take to get them...

DONT I know it... I was the underbidder.. couldn’t shake the winner, so I bailed after going way above what I wanted to pay. Sorry buddy.. I wanted it too!

Agreed. I was going thru some GA books, including various pedigrees, and as nice as the others were, once I unmylared a Church copy my eyes widened. Whiter, cleaner, basically “virginal”. Where the others were structurally tight, they just didn’t sing like a Church does. I never really appreciated this fact before. In this regard, only Lon and the graders will have experienced both Church and Promise books in hand to answer. But in the video, this is what they say... same feel and state of like new preservation absent exposure and handling. So maybe that’s the answer. Wish I bought more Church books... but they were SO expensive! Lol

yeah, I glossed over the fact that there was an almost equally fervid underbidder too. Two embezzlers duking it out??

theres some backstories to the losses you cited. Yes a buyer paid too much for the Adventures and sold too soon in one case, and lost a lot of money. But most are it was by selling too soon. With the Billy Wrights, there was a maverick bidder who bought many of them at any price he could before it was learned that he had embezzled the money. When he was caught, the books were up for auction again with the distinct stain that caused bidders sit them out, or to completely ignore the previous sales prices as illegitimate. Nelson didn't t grade the Crippens, and some things evolved since they were so that now the general opinion is that they were overgraded.. Perhaps he will look back at his Promise grading and feel the same way someday. But this untouched collection really does seem of the same mold as the Church copies, the Bangzoom collection and other Pedigrees of incredible un-handled specimens.

that being the case, its another example of a potential happy ending if you hold onto a once hot book thats cooled down book that just might hot action again. If this 100K sale happened in the last year, It feels like another record sale by the "mysterious new money" thats flooded in during Covid. A super high grade of a long running title first issue could sound very attractive to a newish(?) collector hot for key books to scarf up, while being unaware of the other Gaines copies and that Mad has been pretty tepid for a decade. I could argue this book either way, actually. NO says Mad as a title and cultural touchstone is dead (no longer published) and/or dying in interest. YES because for 60 years it was a hugely successful and culturally influential magazine for 2 or 3 generations of kids that influenced their worldview! It will always have a decent place in out hobby, I wouldn't bet 100K on it though. But not the WORST book to buy.. optimistically, I hope Mad stages a full on comeback cause I have a run of the mags just collecting dust and losing value year after year.

Did the price ever get that high? The one I was talking about was more like 30k way back in say 2008 or so.

On the other hand, such a list would put a damper on crazy bidding wars for best copy and hurt the market. And specifically the sellers.

Also the guy who lost money on his highest graded Mad 1 failed to grasp that Gaines put aside a dozen uncirculated copies. Chances were high that more would grade as high. this applies to other books still raw that would top the census someday. Most of us are aware of a bunch of them, maybe we should pool our resources to generate a list of known copies presumed (based on provenance and memory of old sales) like a “phantom census”. We could all use it to gauge when buying a highest graded copy that really won’t be forever. Any known but unslabbed MH or Allentown or SF copy are obvious candidates.

Yeah, Cool as in stagnant!

I can give a partial answer: GPA doesn't care about a particular copy with a unique serial number. So no search possible by serial numbers... You look up their sales data by title and issue, and every copy in same grade (yours and everyone else's) has the same sales data. I tried out the "Comics I Own" function. I dont see a bulk upload feature, but you could reach out to them and see if its in the works. Overall, the Comics I Own doesn't generate values for non slabbed comics... and more of an issue, if you've got books that rarely sell, that theres no sales data, or a few sales that are many years ago, they calculate crazy prices for HG copies. more like Overstreet has to guess when there not enough real data, only here, they err by giving to high a price! X-Men 4 in 9.4 says $50,000. Has there ever been a sale at half that much? and for 9.6, their value is $78000. They list 3 sales 14L, 13K, and 22K from 2014, 2013 and 2011. There was a recent sale for $59K that IS NOT listed, so how did they come up with 78K? Id take their total value for your collection with a dollop of salt.

because its a recent hot book, so it attracts the new horde of MCU collectors, and theres more instant demand to grab it after Falcon and Winter Soldier. ST 135 has always been a key but doesn't have ant NEW hype to propel it right now. or something... Do they really expect Julia Louis Dryfuss to stay with the character that long?? She's got a lot of other things on her plate.

got it it. I just read the rules and youre right, and I felt stupid for staying with a traditional IRA... but theres a catch, the income limits. If you earn over 200K you CANT use a Roth IRA. Ive had plenty of "good years" so it was never an option. Seems to be targeted at inducing those who earn well but dont save much... Rewarding them for not spending the last 1 - 7K of their income. Pretty clever.

aren't taxes due when on the gains in IRAs when you withdraw the funds? Governments gets a share of ALL profits. By and large though I agree that the markets can of quite often pay off a lot better than even the amazing gains on Big Ticket comics that took decades to increase in value as much as stocks more often do in less time.

hope so. or Ill finally throw out my long box of Wizards issues (and the rest of the magazines from back then) ! weighs a ton.

didnt the Shamusi sell it already at Heritage?

yeah. all I keep hearing from this guy is someone with barely enough knowledge about comics to pick which issues to jump on. While all he says MAY be true, that demand is sky high now, and 3500 9.8s is still scarce in the big picture (even though those of us in comics for decades know the opposite is true and how many more are out there etc) , bottom line for me is that 95% these guys will move on when they're done, and the 3500 copies will be way more than the market needs... and prices will go back down to whatever point the buyers decide is their value. Yeah, its awesome that everyone is crashing our little party lately! We knew they would someday, or hoped anyway that lots of others would come to appreciate our little fixation on funny books --- but I sincerely doubt their stickiness to the hobby. Many of these same guys came knocking in the 90s buying the books that "would go up!" They were gone in a few years after the glut. At least this time they're speculating on actual "vintage" modern key books not current newsstand issues.