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Comic book collecting with a foreign variant focus
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Started by Define999,

4,886 posts in this topic

Define999

Define999

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I just discover this great article, good work!

 

I am from Canada, Québec, and first discover as a kid the Marvel super heros via our french comics reprint of American comics. I must say that the french translation were ... strange sometime to be polite :P

 

I stop collecting them in high school. Several years later I got back into collecting comics but this time I were interrested by the original in english. The french one, publish in Québec were long gone by now. The publisher (Héritage) having stop printing them and close shop.

 

Not too long ago, french comics begin to get popular again. And so I decide to also try to get some of them. I even created a website / forum for french comics collector:

 

Comics Héritage

 

It mostly remind me of my childhood, but I still prefer the original over a reprint. But these are fun to collect. To date I got the full run of "Le Puissant Thor, "Les Vengeurs" and "Le docteur Strange" :)

 

Funny fact here, I mention that I got the full run of the Avengers in french, well this is not entirely true. There is still #139 that is missing. This issue is particulary rare simply because the publisher stop selling the comic at #138. They still got #139 to the press but decide to throw them all to the trash bin. Only a few issue survice, Here when you found one, it can goes generaly up to $1500 and more :eyeroll:

 

Hey thanks for checking out the thread! (thumbs u I have always wondered if you were a member here? Your book Le Guide des Comics Héritage is supposed to be the bible of French Edition Heritage variants! (worship) I cant read French so for years I have been clamoring for a English translated edition. Nice to see you have a website that mirrors the book! Google translate will be busy translating this site for me......

 

Ya know…. rumor has it that you might own the only French edition heritage pedigree in existence? High grade and some issues 3 copies deep? hm If you do that would be amazing! Love to see CGC give a pedigree designation to a Original Owner foreign run!

 

Also.. not a lot is known around here about these books…. But the basics… Stuff we would love to know off the top of my head….. print run info? Its been said the later years into the 80’s had even smaller print runs than the bronze age stuff... Is that true?

 

Are there known variants within the French heritage runs? Like price variants or different printings?

 

A master list also of all the keys that were printed in the Heritage runs would be cool.

 

Whats the story about the publisher? Many of the foreign publishers had very interesting stories themselves…..

 

Did Heritage stop producing books because of a lack of interest by French Canadian youth? The draw of owning the original American book kept demand in check? Or was it some other factor that led Heritage to stop producing these books?

 

Also from what you have said I am guessing that as a collector you prefer the American version over the French Canadian correct? Just wondering if you agreed with that part of my article that addresses the bias issue concerning foreign collectors preferences when they had a choice….

 

Cool story about the last Avengers book ending up int he trash! I love factoids like this! :headbang:

 

 

 

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Define999

Define999

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Heritage still published French translated Archie books, so they're not gone completely.

 

Interesting... hm I wonder why they only kept the Archie licensing rights? I wonder if it was a issue of licensing costs or something internal with Marvel's licensing dept.?

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Erik B

Erik B

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Hi Define!

You got a lots of questions, I will do my best to answer them all :)

 

I am not the writer of "Le Guide des Comics Héritages". This incredible work is the creation of 4 guys (Alain Salois, Gelnn Lévesque, Rosaire Fontaine and Jean-Francois Hébert). I met those guys and they are all great persons. This is because of them that I decide to rebuild some of the Héritage title comics for my collections. And YES this is really the BIBLE of Héritage french comics.

 

Then later I decided to create a website for peoples that couldn't get the limited Guide. Put some of the information (with the agreement of the writers) on the web for everyone and also create a little forum for peoples to gathers, a little like this forum.

As for owning the only pedigree, it can only be Rosaire that got tit :) This guy has ALL the Héritage french comics in Very fine / Near mint + shape. BTW I will submit some of my best comics to CGC soon, will post them here once receive.

 

Now let's talk about print run. This was fairly low. For example the first six Héritage comic in color (Hulk 1-2-3 and S-M 1-2-3) got a print run of 1200 mostly. And considering the low quality of the paper at that time, founding one in good shape is very hard. At the beginning of 1970, the print run were at most at 22 000 copies, but were soon adjust in the several following months around 13 000 copies. In 1980, the print run were even lower, around 7500 down to around 2000 in the last years of publications in 1987.

 

There sure are some comics variants, but not many. The one I add din minds is "Le Puissand Thor #25". One got regular gray page and the other got white page. Now that I think of it most variant are done that way gray / white page.

You can see a list of ALL Héritage comics here on my website:

 

http://www.comicsheritage.ca/evaluation_prix.htm

 

As for why Héritage stop producing books, it was due to low sell and mostly because of the high cost of license of translation from Marvel and DC. Also Héritage were force to raise comics prices and thus most of the Héritage readers were now looking directly at Marvel and DC to get up to date story and in color. And so they stop all super heros comics except like Liaton mention, Archie comic.

 

And yes I agree with your article about the the bias issue concerning foreign collectors preferences when they had a choice.

 

BTW I take a look in my comics inventory and notice that I got some Héritage comics that I don't need. If you are interested, PM me.

 

And if you need any help for translation or understang anything in french, PM me I will be glad to help.

 

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Define999

Define999

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You got a lots of questions, I will do my best to answer them all

 

You sure as hell did kind sir!

 

I am not the writer of "Le Guide des Comics Héritages". This incredible work is the creation of 4 guys (Alain Salois, Gelnn Lévesque, Rosaire Fontaine and Jean-Francois Hébert). I met those guys and they are all great persons. This is because of them that I decide to rebuild some of the Héritage title comics for my collections. And YES this is really the BIBLE of Héritage french comics.

 

Then later I decided to create a website for peoples that couldn't get the limited Guide. Put some of the information (with the agreement of the writers) on the web for everyone and also create a little forum for peoples to gathers, a little like this forum.

As for owning the only pedigree, it can only be Rosaire that got tit This guy has ALL the Héritage french comics in Very fine / Near mint + shape. BTW I will submit some of my best comics to CGC soon, will post them here once receive.

 

So this guys collection isn’t a legend… it exists! Damn I would love to see a CGC recognized foreign pedigree…… but alas he probably doesn’t care about such petty things.

Would love to see some high grade heritage books whenever you wish to post some graded, raw doesn’t matter.

 

Now let's talk about print run. This was fairly low. For example the first six Héritage comic in color (Hulk 1-2-3 and S-M 1-2-3) got a print run of 1200 mostly. And considering the low quality of the paper at that time, founding one in good shape is very hard. At the beginning of 1970, the print run were at most at 22 000 copies, but were soon adjust in the several following months around 13 000 copies. In 1980, the print run were even lower, around 7500 down to around 2000 in the last years of publications in 1987.

 

Wow 1200 is pretty low, the early 70’s seems better but still at its peak 22 000 copies still is pretty small for the bronze age I think.

 

There sure are some comics variants, but not many. The one I add din minds is "Le Puissand Thor #25". One got regular gray page and the other got white page. Now that I think of it most variant are done that way gray / white page.

Interesting….

 

As for why Héritage stop producing books, it was due to low sell and mostly because of the high cost of license of translation from Marvel and DC. Also Héritage were force to raise comics prices and thus most of the Héritage readers were now looking directly at Marvel and DC to get up to date story and in color. And so they stop all super heros comics except like Liaton mention, Archie comic.

 

And yes I agree with your article about the the bias issue concerning foreign collectors preferences when they had a choice.

 

I thought it might be something like that, cool thanks…

 

Thanks man, we eat info like this up in this thread…. Really appreciate it!

PM sent sir!

 

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Define999

Define999

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I just completed the 3rd row when I got my Dutch copy in and I figured its time to show off some of the trophies of my 2 year hunt so far…… Of all my key based type foreign collecting issues… the Spawn 1 has the most individual foreigns in the collection. Some were easy to get others like the Greek, Polish or Bulgarian were more difficult, others still elude me…. But be warned I will have the largest foreign Spawn 1 collection minus maybe Lobstrosity the owner of Spawnworld.com in North America when I am done!

 

Spawn 1

 

American, Italian, South African, French, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Mexican, Greek, German, Dutch, Bulgarian

1new.jpg

2_new.jpg

3new.jpg

 

Edited by Define999
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Erik B

Erik B

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SUPER Cool site, do you by any crazy chance have a scan/picture of the French Héritage Conan 1 and 5?

 

Oops totally forgot to reply to you Chespirito, sorry. Of course I can provide you this, In fact I can provide you ALL of the Héritage cover scan if you want. I will sent you a PM this weekend. BTW out of curiosity, why do you need those two scan?

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Erik B

Erik B

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Posted
I just completed the 3rd row when I got my Dutch copy in and I figured its time to show off some of the trophies of my 2 year hunt so far…… Of all my key based type foreign collecting issues… the Spawn 1 has the most individual foreigns in the collection. Some were easy to get others like the Greek, Polish or Bulgarian were more difficult, others still elude me…. But be warned I will have the largest foreign Spawn 1 collection minus maybe Lobstrosity the owner of Spawnworld.com in North America when I am done!

 

Spawn 1

 

American, Italian, South African, French, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Mexican, Greek, German, Dutch, Bulgarian

1new.jpg

2_new.jpg

3new.jpg

 

Wow! Really impressing. Good work! (thumbs u

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Eerie Publication

Eerie Publication

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Posted

Hi Érik

 

Just want to correct a little thing. The first 6 color are Hulk 1-2-3, Spider-Man 1-2 and Fantastic Four 1.

 

Also, a lot of those comic were returned to Heritage and were glued and trimmed together in what we call Comicorama. People take them out of comicorama and today a fair % of Heritage came from those.

 

Et merci Érik pour ton site

 

Hi Define!

You got a lots of questions, I will do my best to answer them all :)

 

I am not the writer of "Le Guide des Comics Héritages". This incredible work is the creation of 4 guys (Alain Salois, Gelnn Lévesque, Rosaire Fontaine and Jean-Francois Hébert). I met those guys and they are all great persons. This is because of them that I decide to rebuild some of the Héritage title comics for my collections. And YES this is really the BIBLE of Héritage french comics.

 

Then later I decided to create a website for peoples that couldn't get the limited Guide. Put some of the information (with the agreement of the writers) on the web for everyone and also create a little forum for peoples to gathers, a little like this forum.

As for owning the only pedigree, it can only be Rosaire that got tit :) This guy has ALL the Héritage french comics in Very fine / Near mint + shape. BTW I will submit some of my best comics to CGC soon, will post them here once receive.

 

Now let's talk about print run. This was fairly low. For example the first six Héritage comic in color (Hulk 1-2-3 and S-M 1-2-3) got a print run of 1200 mostly. And considering the low quality of the paper at that time, founding one in good shape is very hard. At the beginning of 1970, the print run were at most at 22 000 copies, but were soon adjust in the several following months around 13 000 copies. In 1980, the print run were even lower, around 7500 down to around 2000 in the last years of publications in 1987.

 

There sure are some comics variants, but not many. The one I add din minds is "Le Puissand Thor #25". One got regular gray page and the other got white page. Now that I think of it most variant are done that way gray / white page.

You can see a list of ALL Héritage comics here on my website:

 

http://www.comicsheritage.ca/evaluation_prix.htm

 

As for why Héritage stop producing books, it was due to low sell and mostly because of the high cost of license of translation from Marvel and DC. Also Héritage were force to raise comics prices and thus most of the Héritage readers were now looking directly at Marvel and DC to get up to date story and in color. And so they stop all super heros comics except like Liaton mention, Archie comic.

 

And yes I agree with your article about the the bias issue concerning foreign collectors preferences when they had a choice.

 

BTW I take a look in my comics inventory and notice that I got some Héritage comics that I don't need. If you are interested, PM me.

 

And if you need any help for translation or understang anything in french, PM me I will be glad to help.

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Erik B

Erik B

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Posted
Hi Érik

 

Just want to correct a little thing. The first 6 color are Hulk 1-2-3, Spider-Man 1-2 and Fantastic Four 1.

 

Also, a lot of those comic were returned to Heritage and were glued and trimmed together in what we call Comicorama. People take them out of comicorama and today a fair % of Heritage came from those.

 

Et merci Érik pour ton site.

 

 

Oops :) I think you're right!

 

And those damn Comicorama. Some collect them, some not really.

 

Et de rien Eerie, j'espère te voir sur le forum des comics Héritage.

 

 

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Chespirito

Chespirito

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There were only 27 of these printed, so this is the last one. The interesting part is that this book announces number 28 on its back cover, but it never gets printed.Only two of the original covers from the US were used, well sort of the same; this being one of them. At first glanze I though they were Colombian or from Brazil, but they are from Spain. I got excited about this, as I have not seen them very often.

 

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