Gallery 4: All-American #16 & beer-drinking witches

[BradleyX2]

Continuing the columns about the CGC DigiGallery by our head of Quality Control, Michael McFadden, here's what he had to say about book added around March 2008

 

 

 

Greetings, all you fans and fen! Michael McFadden, CGC’s QC doctor here, with another pusillanimous presentation of obscure observation and semi-scintillating sidebars promoting the newest inductees to our Comic Book DigiGallery. We’re fresh back from MegaCon, a mere two-hour trek from the Fortress of Qualitude. Some of us at Team CGC go to work the show, others of us go for comics, photo-ops, and autographs. But we all go to renew old acquaintances and meet new friends, which is pretty much what fandom’s all about.

 

Last month’s star was a breathtaking run of Golden Age Mile High Adventure Comics. This month’s star is still Mile High, but just one book: All-American Comics #16, the first appearance and origin of Mart Nodell and Bill Finger’s Green Lantern. Since we opened eight years ago, we’ve only certified 23 copies, half of which are restored. The Church copy towers above all comers at a stunning 9.4, off-white to white paper. The colors of the Shelly Moldoff cover leap out at you. The next best untouched copy is 6.0 (also on our Web site) and the best restored is 9.0 (we have a 8.5 example on line). This clean, crisp copy has set a standard that I doubt any other extant copy of All-American #16 can match. Incredible, just an incredible book.

 

 

 

 

We saw other Mile High’s, too. A twelve-issue broken run from #4 to # 20 of ACG’s Blazing West was sent to us, grades ranging from 7.5 to 9.6. Other copies include Authentic Police Cases #9, Boy Comics #29, Crime Does Not Pay #37, Crown Comics #2, National Comics #57, New Comics #11, Police Comics #’s 5 and 13, Popular Comics #58, Prize Comics #’s 33 and 46, Smash Comics #50, Western Outlaws #20, Wonder Woman #21, Wow Comics #62, and Zip Comics #33. Those beautiful books will get your attention!

 

 

 

 

Other pedigrees? Adventure Comics #351 (Bethlehem), Adventures into the Unknown #154, Tales of Suspense #61 (Curator), Atom #37, Silver Surfer #1 (Bowling Green), Avengers #54 (Circle 8), Brave and the Bold #21, Justice League of America #3, Mystery in Space #49 (Big Apple), Flash #108 (Ohio), Flash #127 (White Mountain), Gorgo #23, Dell’s embarrassingly lame Super Heroes #4 (Northland), Haunted Thrills #3 (Aurora), Jumbo Comics #86 (Lost Valley? Is this Turok’s freaking personal copy?!?), Marvel Tales #129, Strange Tales #13, Suspense #9, Uncanny Tales #1, all Atlas (River City), Mystery Men Comics #13 (Allentown), Superman #11 (San Francisco), World’s Finest Comics #27 (Davis Crippen) and my picks, Crypt of Terror #‘s 18 and 19 (the second and third issues) and Weird Fantasy #15 (Gaines File Copy). Only three Gaines File Copies? I’m depressed.

 

 

 

 

Bureau of Statistical Inevitability: Well, well… the magicians who physically fabricate our far-out fixes of four-color frivolity are back on their game. Here’s a selection of this month’s pristinely stapled offerings. A copy of Frank Miller’s 300 #1 hit 10.0, as did Ultimate Spider-Man #115 and Betty Boop’s Big Break. No number on that one, fen, but with such a sizzling cover by Leslie Cabarga, who needs a number? We certified a 9.9 of that one, too. Also shattering the vaunted 9.9 barrier were a magazine, Mad Super Special #78, All Star Squadron #8, Angel: After the Fall #2, #3, and #3 Sketch cover, Hellboy: Seed of Destruction #1 (9.9 Angels and Hellboys, indeed — we play no theological favorites here), Wanted #2 (Death Row Edition), Hulk #1 (the new one, natch!), Star Trek: Year Four #1 RRP, Goon #’s 10 and 13, and Walking Dead #’s 42, 43, and 44. The boys in the grading room assure me that Walking Dead is a zombie book… I argued it was about shopping malls here in Florida during tourist season. I could be wrong, “of corpse.”

 

 

 

 

Submissions of SigSeries books are exploding as we forge a beachhead into summer convention season. Early events like WonderCon, MegaCon, and Wizard World Los Angeles keep Sgt. Scott Talmadge and his Howling Customer Service Commandos Wild Bill Bodin, Joe-Joe Pierson, Glamorous Gemma Adel, and So Not Glamorous Eric “Shriekfreak” Downton hopping at the CGC booth. X-Files fans fondly remember William B. Davis as “The Cigarette Smoking Man,” an adversary so tough, so relentless that he made the Marlboro Man look like he was sucking Virginia Slims. Davis’ signature graces a copy of X-Files #1 (9.6). Saga of the Swamp Thing #1 sports autographs from the still-hot Adrian Barbeau and Durlock, the Swamp-Meister himself. What a shame the Swamp Thing never got that lead role in Roots. A Hulk #1 variant signed by Stan Lee, Jeph Loeb, and Ed McGuiness earned 9.6. My personal favorite, as a diehard Girl of Steel fan, is a Supergirl #75 (9.2) autographed by actresses Helen Slater (Supergirl,1984) and Laura Vandervoort (Smallville, 2007-8). Very cool!

 

 

 

 

As regular readers of this bureau know, we’re not done here until we note our latest entries of… do I really have to?… Fallen Son #3 blank cover. At least they’re not all fawning portraits of the Maggot Eaten Avenger this month. We do have a technically proficient value study of Cap by Clayton Crain. Whilce Portacio does a nifty profile of Iron Man — love those metallic highlights — and David Finch crafts an intricate and nuanced portrait of Moon Knight. And how ’bout this, True Believers? Don Rosa, a man responsible for terrific art and an equally terrific comic book pedigree, slips Donald Duck onto the cover of a Marvel. Once I would have thought that was too silly to put on a Marvel cover… that is, until I saw something called “Spider-Girl” on one.

 

 

 

 

February saw us focus on a number of collections in the DigiGallery. We added over 60 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, most under #325, most in 9.8 or top five type copies. Over 30 more Detectives Comics from the late 1930s to the late 1970s, over 30 Iron Man, a dozen Adventure, Lois Lane, Walt Disney Comics and Stories, Jumbo Comics, and Jungle Comics are newly on exhibit. We had been neglecting Dell’s Four Color, over 1,300 issues in its 20-year run. While this title is often overlooked by fans, the title features important Carl Barks, Walt Kelly, and Alex Toth material, plus lots of cool photo covers from movie and TV adaptations. It’s quite a cogent mirror of American pop culture. We’ve begun to address this omission with 50 new issues, mostly file copies. In all, there’s over 750 new high-grade books this month on the CGC site.

 

 

 

 

We’ve seen a lot of lovely Harvey file copies lately. Their humor books offer cheery, brightly colored covers, so cleanly cartooned, and so infectious to see. We’ve begun to add quite a few of them, like Little Dot Dotland, Wendy, the Good Little Witch, Friendly Ghost Casper (Casper the Friendly Ghost was the book’s original title), and Richie Rich, the Poor Little Rich Bourgeois Capitalist Pig. Did I say Wendy the GOOD Little Witch? Check the cover of #38 and you’ll see Wendy joined by Casper for what looks to this barstool veteran like an underage beer-drinking escapade. I wouldn’t be surprised if Wendy is rooming with Amy Winehouse in rehab right now!

 

 

 

 

Comments and questions regarding the gallery? We're fans, too. We enjoy hearing from you. You can contact me at mmcfadden@cgccomics.com. Thank you for your time and do remember - be good to yourself. Be CGC-ing you!