IW reprints for big bucks

[gozer]

Someone is offering the "Strange Planets" number 1 (an IW reprint from the

late 1950s) and wants more than $400 for it.

 

link

 

Is this nuts or are the IW books actually worth anything?

Admittedly, this one is in superb shape.

 

This one caught my eye because I sold this book (in about VF)

awhile back for $10. And I was pretty happy to get $10 for it!

 

gozer

---------------------------

March 15th. I wish I brought a TV. Oh God, how I miss TV!

[dgillock]

The IW Strange Planets are pretty much the most desirable IW's, though #1 is actually not one of the better issues.

 

That said the $419 price tag has more to do with the 9.6 grade than what's inside the slab.

[aardvark88]

Seller is aggressively wanting 6x top end Ostreet nm- for the 9.6. Nice reprint with Wood art or Frazetta inks. I can't quite remember.

[rjpb]

I'll be surprised if the price is realized. It's not some Marvel silver or bronze book where the competition for high grade is stiff enough to command those type of multiples.

[PovertyRow]

This is an interesting thing. Am really not up on the IW reprints, but seeing they are from '58 - does anyone know how they dealt with the code? Or how distributors/dealers dealt with this apparant "looks like pre-code" book but it ain;t got no code." book?

[dgillock]

IW's, as far as I know, were basically "bootleg" books. They weren't concerned with copyrights or trademarks, so why bother with the CCA?

[Zonker]

I'm not sure they were strictly speaking bootlegs as in stolen. I think what happened is the IW people acquired the used printing plates from defunct comics companies for basically nothing. Their business model was do 'em cheap as possible, cheap repro, cheap paper. They probably thought they could sell enough to make a profit even if there were distribution problems caused by no CCA seal.

 

I'll see if I can find a reference.

 

 

 

UPDATE: OK, they were bootlegs. I forgot that Eisner retained the copyright to The Spirit, and there certainly were 2 or 3 IW/Quality reprints in the early 60s. (Ditto for Plastic Man, owned by DC at that point!) Here's the link.

 

IW COMICS.

 

The "IW" in those reprint comics of the late 1950s and early 1960s stands for Irving Waldman. He acquired printing plates from defunct publishers...apparently with little or no thought as to who might actually own the rights to the stories. That's how he came to publish two Spirit comics. Anyway, he would publish comics with brand-new covers by New York artists like Ross Andru (inked by Mike Esposito), Joe Simon, and Sol Brodsky. I never saw the IW books on a newsstand, so I assume they were published strictly to be sold in the discount stores. Whatever his dubious rights to the material he published, Waldman must have treated those artists fairly well. He enticed Sol Brodsky away from Marvel to launch Skywald Comics in the early 1970s and, though the company didn't last long, it did last long enough to publish work by artists and writers like Andru, Esposito, Syd Shores, Tom Sutton, Len Wein, Robert Kanigher, Gary Friedrich, Ayers, and others whose names escape me at present. Waldman must have had some leftover printing plates from IW Comics because his color comic books usually featured one new story and several reprints