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AJD's comic notebook
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1,132 posts in this topic

Note for new readers: this thread started life in the journals section of the pre-2017 boards but has been moved here now that area has been closed off. I asked it to be moved to gold because most of the posts are relevant here. The entries 2013-2016 are books that reflect my collecting habits at the time, and after that I started adding interior pages and commentary.

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Welcome to my Journal. I'll update it from time to time when something noteworthy happens with my collection. I hope you find something of interest here.First up I thought it might be fun to bring the Class of 2013 together for an end of year bash. Let's start with the ECs...

I've been pecking away at runs of Two Fisted Tales and the Sci-Fi titles for the last four or five years, and I picked up a few nice ones this year.

Here are the Two-Fisted Tales. Very pleased to pick this one up on eBay.

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I got this one at Metropolis back in March when I visited their office in Manhattan (highly recommended - the stuff on their walls is amazing).

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The remaining two fill out my run from 34 - 41 (final), also from eBay.

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Next up will be the Sci-Fi titles.

See more journals by ajd100

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Getting there with Weird Science. I have 16 of the 22 now (missing all of the first four though). Here's this year's, starting with the un-numbered #5:

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(Christmas present from Mrs AJD - thank you (worship) )

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Anyone else think that this might have been the inspiration for the 'skeleton in the spacesuit' episode of Dr Who?

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The last few Sci-Fi books. First up is the final issue of Incredible Science Fiction. From Heritage, who graded it 7.0 - can't say I agree. I think Heritage's grading has loosened in the last 12 months.

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I also picked up the first issue of the merged Weird Science Fantasy. I have the six white issues, but haven't got the famous Frazetta #29. (Would it be sacrilege to say that I'm not as impressed by that one as most others seem to be?)

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And a single Weird Fantasy:

WF_11.thumb.jpg.b6333e60b58651a7f2adda82a4817e09.jpg

 

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Finally for the ECs this year, a couple of New Direction titles. I like to be working on one of the shorter titles as well as the longer runs. My inner completist can get some satisfaction too. lol

 

I have 4 of the 5 issues of Valor. I think that #3 might be tough in mid to high grade - they seem to be much harder to find than the others.

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And my first Gaines file copy. (Sorry, I can't scan slabs very well.)

 

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I also weakened and bought a Piracy before I finished Valor. It's a very good read.

Piracy_4.thumb.jpg.6ad8375caabf14050fc3a4f4189b1cf2.jpg

 

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To round out the ECs for 2013, a couple of oddball Australian reprints of Two Fisted tales. Well, sort of. The contents of the Lion Men issue are partly EC and partly from other adventure comics of the time.

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This one is pure EC, with three stories (they have only 24 pages per issue and B&W interiors). It has two stories from TFT #36 (from whence the cover comes) and one from TFT 37.

Oz_TFT_09.thumb.jpg.4d47fa402ecaeb030e535e8dff364d22.jpg

 

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A change of pace. These days I buy almost only Golden and Atom age books. But I'm determined to finish the run of Dell peanuts from the Silver Age. With these two 2013 additions, I've got 10 of 13. I'm missing the first two (Four Color 878 and 969) and the last one. I bid on a file copy of 969 last month on eBay but ended up the underbidder. :cry:

 

This one was an eBay purchase from an antique store that 'didn't deal in comic books'. I can believe it. the book was lovingly wrapped in tissue paper (complete with a pink ribbon and a very nice hand written note) and put between two very thin pieces of card before being put in a Manila envelope. Amazingly, it crossed the Pacific Ocean and arrived looking like this. I left +ve feedback (including the stars) and sent a polite message suggesting that packing for comic books should be a bit more robust.

 

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Pretty sure these two were 2013 additions, but my record keeping failed me for once:

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Peanuts_09.thumb.jpg.10cfcb9e55cb230dca4bf0f8015163d1.jpg

 

 

 

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Sticking with the cartoon book theme, as my sig line shows, I have an ambition to collect WDC&S 1 -100. I'm 2/3 of the way there, including all but 2 of the 50-100 part of the run. Of course, that means the expensive ones are ahead of me, so roll on a big market correction for duck prices...

 

Anyway, I got my first single digit copy this year:

5964a74df13bd_wdcs_006.jpg.b88c38c293dce8d7bffcb428fda224a1.jpg

and some nice later ones:

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Rounding out the funny animals, I got two more of the Donald Duck Four Colors this year:

 

A beautiful restored copy (SP - staple reinforced.)

FC_0147.thumb.jpg.25cf652acf8a880a7b3c1b627726e8d8.jpg

 

This one proved elusive in the right eye appeal/$ combination. I'm not 100% convinced it's my long-term copy, but it's very presentable for now:

FC_0238.thumb.jpg.041f702529d037e7255ed8b9f8dc1548.jpg

The full Pogo run of Four Color 105, 148 and 1 - 16 was the first set I completed in my most recent collecting period. This year I replaced a nice #3 with a nice #3 that's also a file copy:

 

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Fiction House, war bonds covers and a long-term (but very obscure) grail to round out the year.

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Thank you for sharing these amazing comics with us. Wally Wood's EC covers are some of my favorite all-time illustrations. I know it is going to sound crazy, but I actually love his art over Frank Frazetta.

 

I also love Walt Kelly's Pogo Possum.

 

Congrats on all these beauties!

 

SW3D

Edited by SW3D
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And now this?

 

Between posting on the Boards, running a Blog and now this Journal you either have fantastic time management skills or are seriously underemployed.

 

:jokealert:

 

Lovely eclectic selection AJD and the scans look great.

 

Nice tease at the end so the casual reader might revisit too :baiting:

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Thanks guys. This is a vanity project, but I'm glad you enjoy them too.

 

2013 has been a very good year. It started with the notion of focusing on Fiction House titles. Clearly that didn't last, but I did manage to buy a goodly number of Wings GGA issues:

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Something of a classic here (from a ComicConnect auction):

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Another Heritage "7.0" - really?

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This one is probably my favourite (thanks again ComicConnect). With Fiction House books, getting strong colours is often more important than high grade as far as eye appeal goes. I haven't seen a better copy of this one.

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This year's batch included a Church collection copy :banana:

Wings_098_Churchfront.jpg.5a6d4b63d9ca3441fa1eabc96a6444ba.jpg

And this high grade beauty.

Wings_099.jpg.53f2de9540a02d44279707c3bb224747.jpg

 

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The final "run" I'm working on is 1942 - 45 comics featuring covers with ads for War Bonds or Defense Stamps integrated into the cover artwork. You can see all of my war bonds collection in the thread I started in Gold. But here are the four I picked up this year:

 

A boards purchase:

 

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Heritage for this one. Set a new GPA high with this one (something to avoid) but it didn't break the bank.

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I love this one. SP resto, but that's about half a square inch of white acrylic on the back cover. The rest of the book is beautiful, and was less than a third of the blue price:

WFC_08_s.thumb.jpg.e7c35e996994a197497077c64e75ae12.jpg

 

This one is the biggest $ purchase I've ever made, but I think it was worth it. Gotta hate those Japanazis:

Superman_018.thumb.jpg.f15461dfcef986d447c36104d5ca5cd8.jpg

 

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One last 2013 comic purchase.

For five years I was chasing a grail to complete a set. One came up on eBay in 2012, and I bid what I thought was 3x FMV and still came up short - not even the underbidder. :o Then another came along this year, and here it is:

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This is the last of 24 of these 1964 giveaway comics I was after. #9 is by far the toughest book in the run. I've seen just the two two in ten years of looking. I bought my first few of this series in 2003 and thought this would be quick.

There were sets printed in Australia and New Zealand. The NZ issues are stapled, and have different ads on the back. The #9 above is a NZ issue.

Here's a couple more. These landscape format books are half the size of regular comics:

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There were 17 duck books (10 pagers from WDC&S cut down to fit the format - there's about 7 pages equivalent in total, so some editing was needed), 6 MM and an adaptation of Sword in the Stone. Here's an inside page from #9, with typical Australian colouring:

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Here's the group shot. Oh, yeah. :banana:

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That's it for 2013 comic purchases. But there's one more item to come, which I think is seriously cool. But that can be a Christmas surprise. Thanks for looking. :hi:

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Killer haul this year, Andrew! Love the ECs (makes me want to restart my meager collection...), the WDCS #6 (that issue has always eluded me) and of course that gorgeous Supes #18. Well done!

 

 

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Courtesy of Point Five ( :hi: Jon) I'm now the proud owner of a Jet Aces #4.

Jet_Aces_4.jpg.546e4089df2f46c2b037137238e76d91.jpg

Now I'm also an aviation tragic as well as a comic collector, so I have many, many aviation books and mags and models around the place. The cover of Jet Aces 5 rang a bell. The aircraft is a Gloster Javelin, and since my library is pretty well indexed, it didn't take long to find the picture below:

Gloster_javelin.thumb.jpg.087e1b8fe03be2301943e400ce0d7b67.jpg

 

That's the third case I've found where a cover has been cribbed from a real life photo. Here are the other two:

 

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the aircraft is the Keystone XB-1.

 

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That aircraft is the RAF's Short Stirling. That photo is one of a series of colour wartime shots. Another one was the basis for a painting that graced a famous Airfix model kit boxtop:

 

Airfix_Stirling.jpg.25705414ebe1ab2d2818c4794366582c.jpg

 

That's a painting by the great Roy Cross - a fabulous artist who is as well know to model builders of a certain age as Steve Ditko is to comic fans of the same vintage.

I'm sure there are many more aircraft photo 'swipes' out there. I'll have a look through the Aces High series at some stage and see what I can find. George Evans was very careful to be accurate, and I'm willing to bet some photos were involved.

It's kind of cool when two hobbies collide.

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Very impressive books!

 

I've thought about collecting ECs but I've got too many wants already on my list. I've decided to just target a few covers I really like and to then complete my set of the old Cochran book reprints.

 

The wings covers are silly - pretty girls in short dresses and high heels balancing on airplane wings - but I collect them too! Auction prices seem pretty steady in higher grade (cgc 7+), hard to get any deals, I tend to go for vg+ raw.

Edited by n2wdw
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I just picked up a Valor #3 to complete my run of this five issue title. While I'm trying to finish off longish runs of EC's 'New Trend' titles like Two-Fisted Tales (have 18 of 24), Weird Fantasy (13 of 22) and Weird Science (16 of 22), I like to also have one of the short 'New Direction' titles on the go to give me a chance of finishing something off sooner rather than later. Finding ECs in nice midgrade seems to be harder than finding low grade copies or high grade copies, thanks to the Gaines file copies. I bought my first Valor in December 2012, so about 18 months for this 5 book run.

Valor_group.thumb.jpg.9c07c9c1ff198da518b380dfcff58cc6.jpg

The run before that was Aces High (also 18 months over 2010 - 11):

Aces_High_group.thumb.jpg.f031b291502ea7b5d4ae3b050d8d7ccf.jpg

I think the next run will be Piracy (7 issues), and I'll keep working away at Mad 1 - 10 (7 of those so far). The only other EC run I've completed is the 15 issue Frontline Combat (two and a half years for that one, and now one of my favourite comic series):

frontline_group.thumb.jpg.d101ff316f5ba978fdeaac224ee2f87f.jpg

 

Much as I love the right 'one off' book in my collection, there's something especially nice about finishing off a run. :cloud9:

 

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