Books you just cant find in the Wild 22 22

[godzilla43]

On 12/27/2023 at 2:45 AM, fastballspecial said:

Interesting is it a retailer variant or a con/store variant. First copy I have seen.

I believe it is just a normal ratio variant which is rare because hardly any store wanted to order 50 copies of X-factor 250 in 2013.

Edited December 27, 2023 by godzilla43

[IbukiLord]

Not sure what is going on with this Chew cover but it seems almost impossible to find, been searching for weeks for a copy, seems to only ever pop up in sets online if you get lucky with one, finally got a copy so can cross that off the list but never seen one in an LCS:

 

[littledoom]

Some htf books I got from a vendor at a show

other variants I picked up for the first time at a pawn shop

 

[fastballspecial]

That Gold Gambit I dont see much its moving well lately.

 

[grendelbo]

On 1/9/2024 at 6:07 PM, littledoom said:

Some htf books I got from a vendor at a show

other variants I picked up for the first time at a pawn shop

 

My copy of Amazing Screw-On Head is in a box with drek in the garage. Maybe I should dig it out.

[littledoom]

Some recent comic shop htf pickups 

[Readcomix]

[littledoom]

Rare book I picked up at a recent yard sale

[littledoom]

Some htf books I picked up at a shop recently 

[Qalyar]

Here's one that's actually a lot easier to find in the wild than it used to be. In 1991, a company called Active Enterprises released an unlicensed multi-game cartridge for the NES, called Action 52. It was terrible. Several of the games simply don't work. The ones that do largely make you wish they didn't. The flagship game for the cartridge was The Cheetahmen, which was envisioned as the start of an entire multimedia franchise. Before, you know, people played it. In any case, the NES box for Action 52 (but not the later, better-quality version for the Sega Genesis) shipped with a copy of the Cheetahmen mini-comic, written and illustrated by Joe Martinez. It's, um... well, you can read the entire thing at the Internet Archive.

Comic book quality notwithstanding, complete-in-box examples of the NES Action 52 are chase items for NES collectors, and sell with some regularity for hundreds of dollars. Sealed boxes are even crazier and are definitely the sort of thing that tends to wind up with one of the video game grading companies. Other than the cartridge, the other constituent material from the box, such as the mini-comic, rarely if ever comes up for sale individually. I like me some obscure video game tie-ins, and weird modern mini-comics, but there was no way I was going to consider chasing a CIB copy of the video game at those prices just to own this book because... I mean, seriously, look at it!

But remember, Active Enterprises thought Cheetahmen were destined to be the next big thing, bigger even than TMNT. So of course there were more copies of the mini-comic produced than were ever packed into the small number of Action 52 cartridge boxes produced. A few of these trickled into the market over the years, but the National Video Game Museum in Frisco, TX managed to acquire the bulk of the remaining stock, and gave them away as part of a 2022 promotion.

Active Enterprises sort of rose from the dead much later, with a Kickstarter to release a bug-fixed version of Cheetahmen II that somehow actually did happen. As part of that whole thing, Active reprinted the comic. The reprint covers are clearly marked as such, and the cover is rebranded as Cheetahmen: The Creation, although the indicia wasn't changed (I view these as 2nd printings). In any case, the NVGM giveaways were from the original printing.

This copy is almost certainly an NVGM giveaway.

[littledoom]

On 2/26/2024 at 2:04 PM, Qalyar said:

Here's one that's actually a lot easier to find in the wild than it used to be. In 1991, a company called Active Enterprises released an unlicensed multi-game cartridge for the NES, called Action 52. It was terrible. Several of the games simply don't work. The ones that do largely make you wish they didn't. The flagship game for the cartridge was The Cheetahmen, which was envisioned as the start of an entire multimedia franchise. Before, you know, people played it. In any case, the NES box for Action 52 (but not the later, better-quality version for the Sega Genesis) shipped with a copy of the Cheetahmen mini-comic, written and illustrated by Joe Martinez. It's, um... well, you can read the entire thing at the Internet Archive.

Comic book quality notwithstanding, complete-in-box examples of the NES Action 52 are chase items for NES collectors, and sell with some regularity for hundreds of dollars. Sealed boxes are even crazier and are definitely the sort of thing that tends to wind up with one of the video game grading companies. Other than the cartridge, the other constituent material from the box, such as the mini-comic, rarely if ever comes up for sale individually. I like me some obscure video game tie-ins, and weird modern mini-comics, but there was no way I was going to consider chasing a CIB copy of the video game at those prices just to own this book because... I mean, seriously, look at it!

But remember, Active Enterprises thought Cheetahmen were destined to be the next big thing, bigger even than TMNT. So of course there were more copies of the mini-comic produced than were ever packed into the small number of Action 52 cartridge boxes produced. A few of these trickled into the market over the years, but the National Video Game Museum in Frisco, TX managed to acquire the bulk of the remaining stock, and gave them away as part of a 2022 promotion.

Active Enterprises sort of rose from the dead much later, with a Kickstarter to release a bug-fixed version of Cheetahmen II that somehow actually did happen. As part of that whole thing, Active reprinted the comic. The reprint covers are clearly marked as such, and the cover is rebranded as Cheetahmen: The Creation, although the indicia wasn't changed (I view these as 2nd printings). In any case, the NVGM giveaways were from the original printing.

This copy is almost certainly an NVGM giveaway.

What is the value on this?

[Qalyar]

On 2/26/2024 at 4:20 PM, littledoom said:

What is the value on this?

Probably not very much!

Some time before 2008, a copy was sold out of a badly damaged NES Action 52 box to a collector who had an otherwise complete-in-box Action 52 that was missing the mini-comic. That copy sold for $50 in a private transaction brokered on a video game collecting forum, and was the only market transaction I've found for just the minicomic prior to the NVGM promotion. For what its worth, I had a standing offer to match that $50 sale for several years on several VG forums, and got no bites. But with the number of extra copies now in circulation, I wouldn't think this is more than a $15 or $20 book, if that.

But it's still part of fairly infamous video game history, and it's still kind of cool in it's own... erm, let's say homely, way.

Edited February 26 by Qalyar

[Qalyar]

So, if the first printing of Cheetahmen is an obscure book that is easier to find that it used to be, here's a book that definitely isn't.

I've talked about Teeny Titans before. You can read my 2022 post about the book, an obscure SDCC 2016 give-away at a panel totally unrelated to comic books. But there I wrote "As far as I'm aware, all physical copies have the blue "Teeny Titans mobile game available now" sticker on the cover at bottom-left..."

Surprise!

What my 2022 post, in retrospect, should have said was that all copies distributed to the public are believed to have the blue foil sticker applied to the cover. This copy is not one of those copies. It was from the personal collection of a then-DC editor, who received it directly from the printer prior to SDCC. Thus, no sticker.

[godzilla43]

 

Edited February 27 by godzilla43

[littledoom]

On 2/27/2024 at 9:32 AM, Qalyar said:

So, if the first printing of Cheetahmen is an obscure book that is easier to find that it used to be, here's a book that definitely isn't.

I've talked about Teeny Titans before. You can read my 2022 post about the book, an obscure SDCC 2016 give-away at a panel totally unrelated to comic books. But there I wrote "As far as I'm aware, all physical copies have the blue "Teeny Titans mobile game available now" sticker on the cover at bottom-left..."

Surprise!

What my 2022 post, in retrospect, should have said was that all copies distributed to the public are believed to have the blue foil sticker applied to the cover. This copy is not one of those copies. It was from the personal collection of a then-DC editor, who received it directly from the printer prior to SDCC. Thus, no sticker.

I saw one sold on ebay for $200 on September 6th 2023

[littledoom]

Got these for $25 each from the original owner who went to HS with Rob Liefeld 

Edited March 18 by littledoom

[littledoom]

I found these for $1 each at a yard sale on Sunday

[jessehardesty]

On 5/15/2023 at 2:29 AM, fastballspecial said:

Found this in a regional LCS couldn't believe it. Couldn't pay fast enough.

I found the entire run in a $1 bin many years ago.

[BuraddoRun]

I found these recently at HPB. I never knew they made comics based on the Disney World attraction.

 

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 4/21/2024 at 3:16 AM, BuraddoRun said:

I found these recently at HPB. I never knew they made comics based on the Disney World attraction.

 

A lot of theme parks did these kind of things. Six Flags had Batman Beyond.  Universal had a Back to the Future.