Aman619

assuming an increase in demand for the very keyest of GA keys (which is not a sure bet) I think demand for restored copies will increase in ten years as the demans will force buyers to accomodate a little resto to get the books they desire. This line of thinking ties in with the overall future of our hobby as it matures, and , along with other paper collectibles faces the unavoidable reality of the finite lifespan of cheap paper. DDay will be approaching decades from now, and a totally unrestored and undecomposing comic book from 1939 might be a physical impossibility. or maybe not for 100 years (Im not a scientist...) and by then, when we are starving and drowning and trying to survive a nuclear war who's gonna care??? (thought Id end on a cheerful note!)

reprint of GA Sandman first appearance in Adventure 40 I seem to remember...

i like those covers... : (

these contests arent gifts! they are purchase decisions, so sellin g them off puts you back to square one, or below.

well, I went back to the MIS thread and came across RedHooks references to a Comicbook data site... who clearly gives credit for the cover to Kane. Seems the general opinion is that Infantino covers didnt start for a few issues more..... so much for my tired old eyes. maybe Im hungover or something. : ) "The Duel of the Two Adam Stranges (1960). The city of Ranagar is menaced by a giant, destructive Adam Strange. The giant Adam wrecking a city recalls all the giant monsters who destroyed cities in 1950's science fiction pictures, such as Godzilla. The image of a menace who has destroyed a handful of buildings in Ranagar and who is threatening the rest, is one of the archetypal images of Adam Strange. It recurs in story after story. We are just shown the behavior of the giant Adam Strange at the start of the story. We are not given any explanation, or any history of how the giant Adam Strange came to be. Nor does Gardner Fox tell us how we should respond to this. There is no clear indication of how the story will develop, or what kind of tale it will be. In fact, the story turns into a well constructed sf mystery at this point. It seeks to discover the causes and underlying reality of the bizarre situation we see. There is a bit of a didactic point embedded in this approach. The right response to a strange situation, Gardner Fox is telling us, is to try to understand it rationally, to look for its hidden causes. The true nature of events in the tale turns out to be very different from their initial, surface appearance: this too is a lesson Fox is trying to teach his readers. Gardner Fox suggests that dispassionate reason, and a search for truth, are the right responses to a menacing situation. One should never jump to conclusions, or try aggression or anger. Fox constructs his mystery plots in layers. The whole process of detection here can be considered as a cycle. The detectives strip away one layer of pretense, then later in the story remove another one, and so on. The layers are often supplied with clues. Often times, this clue is something in the apparent nature of reality that is not consistent. Adam Strange will look at this apparent inconsistency and wonder. Eventually he will decide that the cause of this inconsistency is some false belief he has about reality. He will revise this false belief, and look for a different explanation of the basic situation in front of him. Exploration of the world around him will then lead him to a full explanation of the situation. Another layer will have been peeled away. Clearly, there is a didactic point, structurally embedded in this mystery cycle. Fox is warning his readers that they might have to change their views about reality. A role model like Adam Strange is open minded. He is willing to change his viewpoints. He is a disinterested seeker after truth. He succeeds and helps other people precisely because of his willingness to revise his own viewpoints. Adam meets the zeta-beam in Earth's upper atmosphere, in order to avoid meeting it in an unnamed, populous city below. This is an interesting sf idea; other sf features include the meteor that Adam dodges. It does not seem to have much connection with the story that follows. However, the quietness of the opening, one of the purest and simplest in the whole saga, sets the mood for Adam Strange's use of reason in the tale that follows. So does the careful thinking and planning that led Adam to make his choice of the atmosphere. It also shows Adam going behind the obvious choice, the point of the zeta-beam's contact inside the city, to a more intelligent but less obvious choice, a meeting in the atmosphere. This anticipates Adam's going behind the surface of appearances in the detective story that follows. This story is based on one of Gil Kane's best covers. It shows the giant Adam being battled by the ordinary size Adam over the streets of Ranagar. Giant versions of regular series characters had appeared in other DC magazines: see Otto Binder's "The Human Skyscraper" (Jimmy Olsen #28, April 1958). Still, it was quite ingenious of Kane to confront the two Adam Stranges. The buildings in Ranagar are not drawn in Infantino's Art Deco style. Instead, we have some of Kane's Constructivist buildings, made out of pure geometric shapes. This cityscape is one of the best collections of Constructivist buildings anywhere in Kane's art. They are very detailed. There is what looks like an arc of a circular elevated tunnel for vehicles. This circular design anticipates the futuristic plaza of Kane's "Green Lantern's Statue Goes To War" (Green Lantern #12, April 1962). Adam often looks like a tough guy in Kane's covers. He is unlike Kane's leading men types that show up in Kane's stories; instead he looks like a gangster or a tough urban cop in a crime film. This is true of his face; his gaudy red costume is much more celebratory. Adam's appearance of a film noir tough guy makes one wonder if Kane conceived the character as a sort of inter-planetary policeman. He certainly looks very different from Infantino's refined, ethereal hero.

heres the very next issue, clearly Infantino/Geilla. Look how sharp, angular and thin hi sinks are here, not feathered as in #59. http://boards.collectors-society.com/attachments/42043-scan0003resized.jpg

Wow, great-looking copy. Adam Strange had some of the best covers of the Silver Age, if you ask me (and obviously no one would, since neither Kane nor Infantino made final five in the SA artist contest). This one is Kane/Giella. For Adam Strange, I'd have to rank that team third after Infantino/Anderson and Infantino/Giella. I wonder why the editor swapped cover duties around, since Infantino/Sachs did the AS story in this issue. Adam Strange would be a fun series to complete, except those #$%^& Showcase issues would be nearly impossible. Jack Unless theres absolute data that Kane pencilled the cover, Id go with Infantino/Geilla, or, even Anderson/Geilla,,, even Infabtino/Andedrson/Geilla, Big Adams right arm, hand and knee really have Anderson's patented feathers linework shading, The hand is PURE Anderson drawing or inking. But big Adama face is fure Geilla hard edges, The building is very Infantino like: BUT, Infantinos cover were layed out much cleaner than this one, and the futuristec skyline was always just a small strip acrosds the cover. Maybe thats because the penciller needed a close up building in order to add th etiny fleeing people on the streets, But here, the skyline and building really look more "infantino-esque" than pure Infantino. And the Big Adam looks very little like Infantino. The only thing really Kane-looking here is the Big Adam face: but, Geilla inked Kane so often I can see Kanes style creeping into Geilla's other inking work ecery now and then... same as Giordano did a pretty good (if uninspired) Neal Adams for a long time after Neal stoppped pencilling. to my eyes its hard to say for sure.

Really? Sure Action 1 is the mack daddy of them all. But, the package includes the primo killer SA trio in one shot. Its very tempting. What if the AF15 was the 9.6, and the ASM was the 9.8? Would the BEST SA trio catch up to the second best BEST comic of all time?

well, Donald Trump tells Fortune he's worth billions every year! Both instances are self- generated un-independently-audited totals.

sweet run, Steel!!! they ARE tough in HG... or maybe just sitting in collections. Either way, they dont appear often for sale in as nice shape as your copies. Which Pedigree collections have runs out there somewhere in mylars? I never hear of any of them. The Clevelands were nice werent they? How about Bethlehems, WMs etc??

thats a lot of 8.5s. whyd this sell for so much? or was that a decent price?

Jorels outfit is very disturbing.... I baffled why they colored the legs flesh rather than some spandex color which would have made so much more sense for interstellar travel. You never know WHO youre gonna meet, like your kids foster parents!!

And 8.0 can be tough for the earliest years so true. Funny how sweet an 8.0 can be when you have no chance to ever see a 9.4 of early SA war and Atlas monster books!

I think for '60 - 65 you can aim a bit higher than 8.0 for the later years....

grading fatigue! its real and its heart-breaking. works both ways: after a dozen incredibly tight glossy books, a copy with noticeable flaws looks really weak. And after a pile of VGs and Fs a 9.0 screams 9.4 to sore eyes. I dont know how CGC avoids this. Its human nature.

I took a whiz a little while ago and feel much better now.

Flash 1! Hawkman movie's comin sometime!

Joe Shuster?

thats a license plate!

did someone say tits? I read the whol ethread... where are they?

I agree, but these Heritage slabbed 6.0s look pretty clean and tight, dont you think? Very attractive books and hard to pass up as we dont see them often above the usual raggedy VGs. I was tempted on that awesome fireworks sky cover... guess I forgot to bid on it.. Im sorry now!

thats what I meant! sweet book!

$1100 for the pair! I have to think there have to be better copies out there. How much will THEY go for??

wow

now thats a pulp! I have no idea WHAT Bangzzom's shiny things he keeps posting are!!! : )