Any love for the Valiant reboot?

[Bosco685]

I just wanted it on record that you say you aren't working for Valiant. I succeeded in annoying Michael Sacal so badly that he not only admitted that he was, but he also admitted that he'd signed a non-disclosure agreement. I like to establish the integrity of an individual. You know, like the time you said you didn't consider yourself to have inside connections to the CGC, then you posted the last post on this page: Link

 

Do you mean when Greg makes this statement?

 

I've been compiling the CGC census for about 10 years, and when I started compiling, there were about 20 copies of "Adventures of Superman #500" in CGC 0.5 on the census.

 

If so, I think that is Greg talking of building some form of data warehouse and analysis of all CGC census details. Not that he was being paid by CGC to serve as a data analyst.

 

Is that what you meant?

[Bosco685]

I can only guess you two have some history here we are not aware of.

 

Long sordid history at valiantfans.com. It was a good day when Defiant1 stopped posting or was prevented from doing so. Can't remember which.

 

 

I left on my own. The members voted for me to stay.

 

DG

 

Wait a minute!

 

Since I personally logged in over 400 votes on a poll once in my younger years, I would say "yes".

 

DG

 

CBR: Comic Publisher's Output in 2013 fans most thanks for

 

So did you vote for yourself in this Valiantfans poll, as in your own words you have tampered with poll results before?

 

And you can say it was Howard Stern's Angry Dwarf gag. But now it leaves me wondering.

[VEI Reborn]

Valiant produced some of the best comics ever made. I don't hate Valiant or anyone that likes them. I hate theft. I hate lies. I have a strong dislike for ignorance and I'm not really wild about mediocrity. I'd honestly love for someone to release a better product onto the market.

 

Everyone seems to miss my comments online stating that Valiant's initial art was better than "most" of the other modern comics out there. I've complimented quite a few of their marketing strategies. Sadly, the end result is mediocrity because they adhere to decompressed stories and they release endless variants that will not endear either retailer or collectors to their cause. People hear what they want to hear and I'm not sitting around trying to tell you what you want to hear. I'm calling it like I see it. The facts are the facts and my opinions are my opinions. I don't tell you what opinion to have and I refuse to let anyone dictate what opinion I can have.

 

Everyone puts a spin on something. When your spin is deceptive and builds up hopes in people that are unfounded and can be hurtful to their budgets, I call it for what it is. You don't see me telling people not to buy their product. If you like buying the same comic 30 times when that same amount of money could be pooled together to buy a silver age key book... do it. To each their own. I posted in this thread to make my observation that Unity #1's marketing did NOT increase sales for the titles. There's no spin there... just published data.

 

DG

 

 

 

Since you want to put people on the record, have you read the new line of books? Id like that stated for the record.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dgarthwaite-migration]

I just wanted it on record that you say you aren't working for Valiant. I succeeded in annoying Michael Sacal so badly that he not only admitted that he was, but he also admitted that he'd signed a non-disclosure agreement. I like to establish the integrity of an individual. You know, like the time you said you didn't consider yourself to have inside connections to the CGC, then you posted the last post on this page: Link

 

Do you mean when Greg makes this statement?

 

I've been compiling the CGC census for about 10 years, and when I started compiling, there were about 20 copies of "Adventures of Superman #500" in CGC 0.5 on the census.

 

If so, I think that is Greg talking of building some form of data warehouse and analysis of all CGC census details. Not that he was being paid by CGC to serve as a data analyst.

 

Is that what you meant?

 

At no point have I ever said that Greg was being paid.

In my final argument with Greg on his board we disagreed with what a comic book should be called. His reply was that the CGC would decide. I knew Greg had some kind of contact with them and his input would be treated as that of an authority. I thought about it and replied "I don't care what the CGC calls it." This infuriated Greg immediately which validated my suspicions he had some kind of insider connection going on. A week after I left, I was telling a retailer friend about me leaving Greg's board. He thought for a second and says "Oh, yeah. He gets a spreadsheet from the CGC and runs statistics for them." At that point it all makes sense.

 

For me, there are ethical conflicts if someone is hyping or promoting a business, service, or product and then shrouding their connection to it. At the time, Greg was not telling people he had contacts at the CGC. Obviously if Greg says "CGC is the greatest grading company" and he's on a first name friendly basis with Steve Borock (head guy at the time), that invalidates the integrity of his referral. Especially, if he's receiving special favors from the organization. That special favor being all their proprietary data and statistics on their graded comics. In the south, that's called a "good ol' boy network". Good ol' boy networks are tied to cronyism. Cronyism can lead to corruption.

 

DG

[dgarthwaite-migration]

Valiant produced some of the best comics ever made. I don't hate Valiant or anyone that likes them. I hate theft. I hate lies. I have a strong dislike for ignorance and I'm not really wild about mediocrity. I'd honestly love for someone to release a better product onto the market.

 

Everyone seems to miss my comments online stating that Valiant's initial art was better than "most" of the other modern comics out there. I've complimented quite a few of their marketing strategies. Sadly, the end result is mediocrity because they adhere to decompressed stories and they release endless variants that will not endear either retailer or collectors to their cause. People hear what they want to hear and I'm not sitting around trying to tell you what you want to hear. I'm calling it like I see it. The facts are the facts and my opinions are my opinions. I don't tell you what opinion to have and I refuse to let anyone dictate what opinion I can have.

 

Everyone puts a spin on something. When your spin is deceptive and builds up hopes in people that are unfounded and can be hurtful to their budgets, I call it for what it is. You don't see me telling people not to buy their product. If you like buying the same comic 30 times when that same amount of money could be pooled together to buy a silver age key book... do it. To each their own. I posted in this thread to make my observation that Unity #1's marketing did NOT increase sales for the titles. There's no spin there... just published data.

 

DG

 

 

 

Since you want to put people on the record, have you read the new line of books? Id like that stated for the record.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've thumbed through quite a few at the comic book shop. As I stated above the stories are too decompressed for me to want or spend $3.99 for a comic. The art which started out better than the average comic has dipped down to be about average with most other comics. The first issue of X-O was about Aric, not X-O. As a reader, I have a problem with comics featuring characters on the cover and title when that character is not actually in the comic. In CGC grading terms, their product does not pass my pre-screen evaluation as a reader. There's no hope for it getting a high recommendation if it doesn't pass the pre-screen review.

 

I think it interesting and insulting to take Harbinger's setting out of the Atlanta suburbs and place the stories in a remote rural area of Georgia which is best known for the movie "Deliverance". I'm going to assume this is some kind of ignorant stereotype of Georgia and a precursor to the revelation that Peter Stanchek is gay. Regardless, I have bought none of their product. Sadly, I've seen quite a few of their comics downloadable for free. Valiant might consider the advice in this column.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140115143610.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29

 

I'd also like it put on record that I'm not buying Dynamite's product with the reboot of Magnus either. I'm not going to pay $3.99 for any monthly title. Even if a publisher made the best comics ever written, the odds of me buying a monthly series at that price is pretty unlikely. Factor in variants and the answer is "*spoon* no".

 

DG

 

 

[dgarthwaite-migration]

I can only guess you two have some history here we are not aware of.

 

Long sordid history at valiantfans.com. It was a good day when Defiant1 stopped posting or was prevented from doing so. Can't remember which.

 

 

I left on my own. The members voted for me to stay.

 

DG

 

Wait a minute!

 

Since I personally logged in over 400 votes on a poll once in my younger years, I would say "yes".

 

DG

 

CBR: Comic Publisher's Output in 2013 fans most thanks for

 

So did you vote for yourself in this Valiantfans poll, as in your own words you have tampered with poll results before?

 

And you can say it was Howard Stern's Angry Dwarf gag. But now it leaves me wondering.

 

I did NOT hack the other members account and vote on my behalf. It was actually quite informative to watch the public vote. People that didn't like my posts voted for me to stay. People that I'd gone out of my way to do favors for said "get rid of him". It really did show the true colors of people.

 

I logged 400 votes into a poll for a teenage cousin to a movie/TV actress. She was a good kid, and it meant a lot for her cousin to win the TV poll. The poll had people entering multiple votes on both sides.

 

DG

[Bosco685]

At no point have I ever said that Greg was being paid.

In my final argument with Greg on his board we disagreed with what a comic book should be called. His reply was that the CGC would decide. I knew Greg had some kind of contact with them and his input would be treated as that of an authority. I thought about it and replied "I don't care what the CGC calls it." This infuriated Greg immediately which validated my suspicions he had some kind of insider connection going on. A week after I left, I was telling a retailer friend about me leaving Greg's board. He thought for a second and says "Oh, yeah. He gets a spreadsheet from the CGC and runs statistics for them." At that point it all makes sense.

 

For me, there are ethical conflicts if someone is hyping or promoting a business, service, or product and then shrouding their connection to it. At the time, Greg was not telling people he had contacts at the CGC. Obviously if Greg says "CGC is the greatest grading company" and he's on a first name friendly basis with Steve Borock (head guy at the time), that invalidates the integrity of his referral. Especially, if he's receiving special favors from the organization. That special favor being all their proprietary data and statistics on their graded comics. In the south, that's called a "good ol' boy network". Good ol' boy networks are tied to cronyism. Cronyism can lead to corruption.

 

DG

 

I think this gentleman gave you an incorrect perception of what is going on.

 

I have dealt a lot with market data aggregators like Acxiom and LexusNexus. They will either pay for a given source's data in order to build reports about that company's market, or it will be a mix of payment plus trading for services like sorting their own data for the providing company.

 

I wouldn't assume because Greg may have provided reports to CGC this means he is being paid by CGC. Anyone wanting to conduct analysis on encased books is going to have to deal with CGC and GPA as a minimum.

[500Club]

 

He presents himself as a paragon of knowledge about ethics, fandom, and the comic book industry...

while simultaneously promoting (literal) porn in comics, at least two failed fan message boards, tons of user accounts so he can be everywhere and agree with himself, and he's in this particular topic to denegrate the 2012 Small Publisher of the Year over their business practices... which MUST be working for them to be winning... and continually prognosticates that Valiant will fail while PROUDLY NOT reading the books.

Catfish Comics.

 

Wow! High art right there!

 

I can safely say I won't be putting any faith in the opinions of someone who hasn't read the Valiant titles, and is a fan of Catfish Comics.

[valiantman]

First off, I have no idea how you track your traffic and whether the includes your CGC stats page. I see no domain name associated with you graphs. The unique visits data is often quite erroneous and gets bumped up by the same people who sit around replying to dozens of threads.

Google Analytics is not fooled by "the same people who sit around replying to dozens of threads".

Those are page views, which you can clearly see is a MUCH higher number than unique visitors.

 

ValiantFans.com messageboard has over 4,000 unique visitors in the past 30 days.

The ValiantFan.com website (not the messageboard, on a different server) has 2,600 unique visitors in the past 30 days.

YES... some of those visitors were on both sites.

CGCdata.com has 308 unique visitors in the past 30 days.

 

I've updated the image to show valiantfans.com messageboard IS the domain --- which, if you were half as computer savvy as you claim to be, you would KNOW is not even on the same server as CGCdata.com

 

 

You're like a kid in school telling his teacher that the textbook is wrong when it says 2+2=4.

In your "expert opinion", sometimes 2+2 is something else... depending upon whatever conspiracy theory you've hatched.

[valiantman]

In my final argument with Greg on his board we disagreed with what a comic book should be called. His reply was that the CGC would decide. I knew Greg had some kind of contact with them and his input would be treated as that of an authority. I thought about it and replied "I don't care what the CGC calls it." This infuriated Greg immediately which validated my suspicions he had some kind of insider connection going on.

I chose to call the Bloodshot #0 Platinum book WHATEVER it was that CGC decided to call it because CGC will have to call it something.

Then the market will call it whatever it says on the label.

 

Me choosing was my decision... I'll give you that. I didn't agree with you. I chose.

 

What would be the point of calling it "Bloodshot #0 Gold Error" when CGC calls it "Bloodshot #0 Platinum"?

To confuse people?

 

I can hear it now...

 

"Hey Greg! I have the Bloodshot #0 Platinum book, but I can't find it on your website."

 

ME: Oh, that's because it's called Bloodshot #0 Gold Error.

 

"Why? There isn't any gold on the book!"

 

ME: Because a guy from rural Georgia said I had to call it that or he'd leave the Valiant fans website and make anyone who DID enjoy the website sorry, by calling me a CGC stoolie and by calling Valiant fans "hive-minded Greg brown-nosers"... for at least ten years.

 

[valiantman]

I did NOT hack the other members account and vote on my behalf. It was actually quite informative to watch the public vote. People that didn't like my posts voted for me to stay. People that I'd gone out of my way to do favors for said "get rid of him". It really did show the true colors of people.

I'm about to blow your mind... but I seriously doubt you'll understand.

 

The people who voted for you to stay were voting FOR the first amendment... not FOR you.

 

Those people were OK with the fact that I would have to perpetually moderate all your interactions on a website called the ValiantComics.com messageboard... where you would not stop telling everyone how much Valiant sucked.

They were OK that people told me that they wanted to be on the site, but they didn't like the "Valiant hate" on a site for Valiant fans.

 

In other words... those votes for you were OK with you throwing feces in my house.

I'm the one who had to clean it up... and they just saw it as free speech.

 

The people you'd "gone out of your way to do favors for" realized the situation and said... he's not worth it.

 

Free speech is great IN PUBLIC, but sometimes, you just gotta get the feces throwers out of your own house and send them back to rural Georgia.

[valiantman]

Obviously if Greg says "CGC is the greatest grading company" and he's on a first name friendly basis with Steve Borock (head guy at the time), that invalidates the integrity of his referral. Especially, if he's receiving special favors from the organization. That special favor being all their proprietary data and statistics on their graded comics. In the south, that's called a "good ol' boy network". Good ol' boy networks are tied to cronyism. Cronyism can lead to corruption.

Here's another fact that will blow your mind (and you won't hear)...

 

In 2003, I started compiling CGC census data FOR FREE from the FREELY AVAILABLE CGC WEBSITE.

 

I compiled the full public CGC census, one page at a time, using software that I wrote.

It took DAYS to finish.

 

I emailed Steve Borock to ask if that was ok, since it was his data and his server.

 

He said it was great... they liked the website that compiled all the census information, and asked if I would prefer a single file download of the FREELY AVAILABLE census info.

 

I said, "Yes!"

 

I had NO inside information. I still have NO inside information. I still do it for free.

 

Now, remind me again where I violated your ethics.

 

Was it the free service I have provided for ten years?

Was it the freely available data I have now and have always had?

Was it the fact that I emailed Steve Borock to get his permission?

[Bosco685]

He said it was great... they liked the website that compiled all the census information, and asked if I would prefer a single file download of the FREELY AVAILABLE census info.

 

I said, "Yes!"

See! It's true. You were on the take and...

 

 

Wait a minute! You mean you were using your love of data analytics to deliver a free service utilizing data which was kindly provided by CGC??!!

 

 

Ten years wasted. Oh well,

[valiantman]

Wait a minute! You mean you were using your love of data analytics to deliver a free service utilizing data which was kindly provided by CGC??!!

GUILTY AS CHARGED!

 

Yes. I used free data from the public CGC website, provided by CGC so that I wouldn't have to compile it from their server (40,000 hits per update).

 

Yes. I used my love of data analytics (which I was trying to learn more about for my "day job") to compile data in my hobby.

 

Yes. I made that data available for free to anyone who wanted it at GregHolland.com/CGC and later at CGCdata.com

 

I'm so ashamed.

 

If only I didn't have so many skills and the need to ask permission from people, which then lets me call them by their FIRST NAME.

 

If only I hadn't done these awful things... maybe, just maybe, I could be as high and mighty as DG.

 

He's so helpful... yet... so lacking in actual ability to do anything useful... I'm truly in awe of how many crowns he has heaped upon himself... and more importantly, humbled by how many times I've failed him.

 

I was telling a retailer friend about me leaving Greg's board. He thought for a second and says "Oh, yeah. He gets a spreadsheet from the CGC and runs statistics for them."

I was telling a retailer friend about me failing DG's plan for my life. He thought for a second and says "Oh, yeah. He doesn't want anyone to know... his mother was a virgin!"

(His mother denies it... but if you can't trust the insider information from a comic book retailer... who can you trust?)

 

...and to get us back on track... if any of you (besides DG) have chuckled at ANYTHING I've posted...

I recommend Archer & Armstrong and Quantum & Woody by Valiant.

They're from ACTUAL writers who do comedy.

WARNING: They are Valiant employees.

[Bosco685]

[valiantman]

I just realized that DG has admitted to using dozens of user names online, AND he has spent more than ten years popping up in Valiant topics on various comic book website to tell people how Valiant has failed him and continues to fail him.

 

Put those two things together and you know what you get?

 

Valiant Whack-A-Mole!

[Bosco685]

I recommend Archer & Armstrong and Quantum & Woody by Valiant.

They're from ACTUAL writers who do comedy.

WARNING: They are Valiant employees.

 

 

[FormerReader]

You're right... I need to re-calculate.

 

Valiant sells 9,000 copies per title. There are 8 titles.

 

OK, so, 72,000 books a month...

Given the number of variants, divided by the number of unsold copies,

carry the two... multiply by the square root of pi... and...

 

There are exactly 17 Valiant fans.

 

Thankfully, all 17 of us LOVE the books and we have unlimited disposable incomes.

 

 

Woohoo! I'm 1/17th of Valiant's fan base.

[spreads]

I just realized that DG has admitted to using dozens of user names online, AND he has spent more than ten years popping up in Valiant topics on various comic book website to tell people how Valiant has failed him and continues to fail him.

 

Put those two things together and you know what you get?

 

Valiant Whack-A-Mole!

 

The twelve user names is incredible...hey DG, if you ever want to be included as a case study for analysis let me know, my girlfriend is a MD of Psychiatry. Next time I see her I'm gonna ask what her professional opinion is. It's just too bad I didn't catch wind of this last weekend when I was out with her and her two friends. I could have had had a collective-analysis involving three professionals detailing how -up this guy is.

[rjrjr]

You're right... I need to re-calculate.

 

Valiant sells 9,000 copies per title. There are 8 titles.

 

OK, so, 72,000 books a month...

Given the number of variants, divided by the number of unsold copies,

carry the two... multiply by the square root of pi... and...

 

There are exactly 17 Valiant fans.

 

Thankfully, all 17 of us LOVE the books and we have unlimited disposable incomes.

 

 

Woohoo! I'm 1/17th of Valiant's fan base.

 

Probably ....