Marvel UK Price Variants 16 16

[Bart Allen]

3 hours ago, cgcsketcherz said:

Very nice pickup. Was the badge originally distributed with tape? I would have thought it be a bagged deal with the badge loose. 

Yeah, @Kevin.J is right in that it would have been distributed with tape. If I so send this to CGC I presume it would be classed as complete even if I removed the badge?

[Kevin.J]

2 hours ago, cgcsketcherz said:

Thank you for the knowledge, I guess it used to be a hands on finishing touch then back in the day. 

 

It was usually the first few issues had a gift as an extra selling point, when I read British comics, we tore the gift off the front and played with it, read the comic in bed then swapped it with your mates, if you were lucky your Ma didnt get it and chuck it in the bin.

I dont collect British comics at all, not since I discovered American Comics but I do have a few boxes tucked away here and there including that GhostBusters you showed I am sure  

 

[Kevin.J]

3 hours ago, Bart Allen said:

Yeah, @Kevin.J is right in that it would have been distributed with tape. If I so send this to CGC I presume it would be classed as complete even if I removed the badge?

I have never slabbed a British comic before, so no knowledge of what would happen if you remove the badge

At the very least you could send it in with the badge, they wont slab the badge I doubt, but they will see it as complete and send the badge back, maybe ask in the "Ask CGC" thread, I would do a fancy link but I am too old and dunno how to do it  

The only British comic with a gift I can remember seeing slabbed was A Captain Britain #1 but that has the mask on the inside rather than the cover, I had a raw copy but gave it to a pal as I knew he wanted it more than me

[cgcsketcherz]

2 hours ago, Kevin.J said:

 

It was usually the first few issues had a gift as an extra selling point, when I read British comics, we tore the gift off the front and played with it, read the comic in bed then swapped it with your mates, if you were lucky your Ma didnt get it and chuck it in the bin.

I dont collect British comics at all, not since I discovered American Comics but I do have a few boxes tucked away here and there including that GhostBusters you showed I am sure  

 

 I understand about mom chucking into a bin. My grandfather when I was younger saw me reading a comic book and said I would have gotten his collection but when he went to serve in the Navy, his mom threw out the bookshelf filled with books. So I asked him about what type of books he had..... 

FIRST twelve years of all the originals. Action Comics, Detective, you name it, he had it in the late 1930's through the 40's. He was the youngest in the group and all the brothers pulled their allowance to build the library. I'm sure some rat had fun going through them. 

Edited June 7, 2020 by cgcsketcherz

[Kevin.J]

Yeah I have similar stories to that, just after the war their were paper shortages and GA comics were used as toilet roll  

When I was courting my first missus, her mother was cleaning her room and found my carrier bag of Top Trumps and (now) rare cards, she binned the lot and pleaded ignorance ( she never liked me anyway  )

 

[Get Marwood & I]

Meanwhile, back at UK Price Variant HQ, some pence related blatherings here:

9 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

If you look at copies of JIM around that time, most have defined boxes in which either the month sits with the issue number above or both number and month sit in the one outlined box, like so:

 

 

The handful of issues where there is no outlined box, but a rectangleish blob of white (I know all the technical terms you know), sitting in the cover background colour, they all seem to have visually poorly defined months. On #77, the 'FEB' looks like it is supposed to be white text printed within the background blue (like the issue number is), but the white rectangle of the pence copy looks like it has been overprinted and has therefore made the cents copy look fuzzy:

 

Same again on #80, the cents copie's 'MAY' looks like it has the pence copies white rectangle overprinted and, as such, looks indistinct as a result:

(Incidentally, the white rectangle was placed on the pence copy to obscure the month as pence copies had them removed in those days to avoid shipping delay confusion - see my pence thread for more on that)

My theory is that the months on these two should have been printed as white text on the background colour but, somehow, the pence plate's white rectangle found its way onto the cents copies, possibly indicating that the pence copies were run first (fight!).

Just speculation on my part, drawn from all my US Price Font Variations analysis, but fun nonetheless.

 

 

[Pinkerton]

On 6/7/2020 at 9:23 AM, Kevin.J said:

Yeah I have similar stories to that, just after the war their were paper shortages and GA comics were used as toilet roll  

When I was courting my first missus, her mother was cleaning her room and found my carrier bag of Top Trumps and (now) rare cards, she binned the lot and pleaded ignorance ( she never liked me anyway  )

 

I collected UK weekly comics in the 1960s as a lad - Valiant, Hotspur, Rover & Wizard and so on, all shared with an elder brother. Then I started collectng my own stuff - TV Century 21, Lady Penelope (because it shared the same Gerry & Sylvia Anderson world, of course) and then WHAM!, POW! and SMASH! with all the Marvel stories within. I had stacks of all five books in an attic room in our big house, which was owned by the school where my dad was head teacher.

Then shortly before we moved house I went on a one-week residential music course - I was about 14. I had left all my comics in the attic, assuming that someone would pack them up - they were like treasure to me so I assumed they were to other family members - duuuh. When I returned it was to our new house, which was tiny in comparison to the previous one. As a result of the lack of space, there were dozens and dozens of cardboard boxes of stuff stacked high in the garage, completely filling it. I had no idea whether my prized comics were there, and my brother (who I had assumed would pack them) had gone off to University. My parents disavowed all knowledge. As the house was also full of boxes there was no way to burrow in there and try to find what was there. It wasn't until we moved again two years later to a slightly larger house that I could finally get to all the boxes and open them up. You guessed it - no sign.

Although I had had a long time to prepare for this likely outcome, it was a real sickener and I still feel it to this day. Yes, I know I could chase back issues but they wouldn't be MY copies, the ones I lovingly bought, read and stacked every single week for several years.

Eventually I tasked my elder brother about what happened - he just said he was told to throw away everyting in that room. It would have been chaos in the final days before the move, I guess.

And of course this story told and re-told literally a million times or more is why Action #1 and Detective #27 are so valuable. And even TV Century 21 #1 goes for a few quid.

[Kevin.J]

13 minutes ago, Pinkerton said:

I collected UK weekly comics in the 1960s as a lad - Valiant, Hotspur, Rover & Wizard and so on, all shared with an elder brother. Then I started collectng my own stuff - TV Century 21, Lady Penelope (because it shared the same Gerry & Sylvia Anderson world, of course) and then WHAM!, POW! and SMASH! with all the Marvel stories within. I had stacks of all five books in an attic room in our big house, which was owned by the school where my dad was head teacher.

Then shortly before we moved house I went on a one-week residential music course - I was about 14. I had left all my comics in the attic, assuming that someone would pack them up - they were like treasure to me so I assumed they were to other family members - duuuh. When I returned it was to our new house, which was tiny in comparison to the previous one. As a result of the lack of space, there were dozens and dozens of cardboard boxes of stuff stacked high in the garage, completely filling it. I had no idea whether my prized comics were there, and my brother (who I had assumed would pack them) had gone off to University. My parents disavowed all knowledge. As the house was also full of boxes there was no way to burrow in there and try to find what was there. It wasn't until we moved again two years later to a slightly larger house that I could finally get to all the boxes and open them up. You guessed it - no sign.

Although I had had a long time to prepare for this likely outcome, it was a real sickener and I still feel it to this day. Yes, I know I could chase back issues but they wouldn't be MY copies, the ones I lovingly bought, read and stacked every single week for several years.

Eventually I tasked my elder brother about what happened - he just said he was told to throw away everyting in that room. It would have been chaos in the final days before the move, I guess.

And of course this story told and re-told literally a million times or more is why Action #1 and Detective #27 are so valuable. And even TV Century 21 #1 goes for a few quid.

My mother used to give all my stuff away when I was a kid, some aunt would visit with young cousins and they would be given my toys and comics, I didnt have much and when I eventually moved out aged 16, my whole life was in 1 bin bag

[Pinkerton]

On 6/8/2020 at 12:26 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Meanwhile, back at UK Price Variant HQ, some pence related blatherings here:

 

HI Marwood, just some thoughts on the Journey into Mystery #77 and #80 that you put up - for which many thanks, it's quite interesting. I have to take this in easy stages to reduce the chance of logical error.

Firstly, the cover prices are different obviously. This would require either two black K plates (one for cents and one for pence), or a quick and dirty way of replacing the 12c circle text with the 9d circle text, which for all I know is perfectly possible. Does anyone know whether they made two plates or scraped off the 12c and tacked on the 9d? The discussion below doesn't make any assumptions either way as it refers only to the colour plates and how they created the issue number and month lettering - but I would be interested to know about the price number on the K plate as a side issue. I'm sure it has been covered elsewhere in this thread? Perhaps in the price font discussions, which I must dig back into.

So, for the cents copies, both have the issue number as "reversed-out" white digits on the coloured JIM logo banner. This is created solely by the colour plates and the K plates have no part in it. Remembering what I read about printing, we have our four CMYK plates - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (Key, K). To print the issue numbers like that, there had to be NO ink on any of the four plates in the exact area occupied by the digits - in other words the digits were not printed at all, but were reversed out, not printed, leaving the white paper stock still white. You cannot print white on top of anything as there is no such thing as white ink printing, at least not with this technology. The surrounding logo banner area was of course picking up ink from very probably all three of the colour plates, but in the area of the issue number digits, the colour plates and the K plate had all been etched away during their production.

Continuing thinking about the cents copies (we'll get to the pence copies later), the simplest way to do the month lettering would be to do it exactly the same way as the issue digits - reversed out with the lettering etched away on all four plates, so no ink from any plate in that area - result is white cover stock visible, to make the lettering. So the question you obviously raised is - why didn't they do it that way for both issue number digits and month letters? And how does the need to modify the printing to make the pence cover inform this?

So, the only difference between the cents and pence copies is in the month lettering. For the cents copies, they needed lettering of some visible kind, but as the lettering is reversed out it couldn't be on the K plate, which leaves creating it on the colour plates. For the pence copies, they wanted no lettering visible (because of the shipping delays), but they didn't mind having an empty lozenge there - who cares, it's only kids' comics. So, if they started with the cents plates, IF they etched all four plates as per the issue number, they would have no trouble printing the cents month as "white on colour" (actually no ink at all, like the issue number), but when it came to the pence copies they would have had to scrape off all the surrounding area from all three colour plates  - looking at the banner colour that would have been all three plates that needed scraping, which would finally give an empty white lozenge. They could have done that, but they didn't. Why? Well, it would have been a tricky process if they wanted to leave a blank white area - they would have had to scrape away to the exact lozenge shape on all three colour plates in order to get a clean white blank lozenge area. That would be time-consuming (Time = Money).

The alternative they chose, again I am assuming, was to be as non-labour intensive and easy at the print shop as possible, and was to make plates that required only one scrape at the printers.

I am assuming of course that they did not use separate sets of colour plates for cents and pence - this would have required probably two different complete sets of the three colour plates, which I would say is a huge hassle and cost for one tiny area on the cover, for what was probably a print run of 2% of the total. I have to prefer the more time-saving alternative which is that they designed and made only one set of CMY colour plates, ran off the US covers, then quickly scraped one colour plate in the press shop and ran the second lot. If that assumption is valid, then the pence copies could not possibly have been run first (fight!!) because to print them all the lettering surround in that area that would be needed for the cents copies to make the surrounding to the month lettering had been scraped away to make the blank lozenge. The only other way to do it would have been to add material to the pence plates to make cents plates which has to be impossible, as it would be adding lettering surround, not lettering - because the lettering is reversed out.

So what do the cents copies tell us? The month lettering is white (letter area etched away on all three plates), but the surrounding area is probably* Cyan, a primary colour i.e. no Yellow or Magenta ink. The surrounding banner area on JIM #80 (it's similar but not quite the same for #77) is a dirty brown (what you get when you mix 100% Magenta with 100% Yellow and 100% Cyan - not black, which is why you need a K plate for solid black). So to get the white lettering to stand out on the cents copies but still be usable to easily make a pence cover, they created plates with Cyan but no Yellow or Magenta in the surrounding lozenge area so it prints Cyan, then to do the pence copies they scraped out the Cyan plate, so you get an all white lozenge. They had the option of using one of the other plate colours for the lettering surround, but I suggest chose Cyan because Magenta would have been too close to the logo banner colour (so look odd) and Yellow too close to white - so not very readable. Cyan was the simple one-plate choice which was different enough from both brown and white.

[*This is assuming the area surrounding the white text IS Cyan. There's not many pixels to look at! It could have been green - i.e. Cyan plus Yellow, which would have required two scrapes. But even two is less hassle than three.]

Another query one might have is why have an empty lozenge on the pence copies at all - why not "fill it in" with logo banner colour so there's nothing visible at all? The problem here is that the cover designers have already made the decision to use a heavy dark logo banner colour, and then add cents issue details reversed out in white - it looks pretty cool too. Once that decision is made, you have to photograph and then etch away all the four plate areas that correspond to the numbers or letters. You cannot add back material (I am assuming) to "fill in" colour on plates so it matches the surrounds. The only changes you can make to that area is to scrape away more material, so it can only get lighter and eventually white, when all three colour plates lack that material. Empty white lozenge.

This means there is no road that takes you from the pence copies printed first, with this reversed-out scenario. But by making a "month lettering lozenge" at the photographic stage with just one colour plate containing the lettering surround, you have a quick and dirty way to get from cents to pence with just one careful scrape, then you can run off the pence copies ready for the gloomy watery hold of the SS Britannia. I expect the professionals who did the origination work were past masters at rapidly coming up with the required quick and dirty strategies to spend the least cash and waste the minimum print time.

Does that make sense? It is a related but different (reversed) set of arguments when you are looking at say black lettering printed on a white or coloured cover, but it's still a scrape - in this case, an easy one as you just scrape away the raised lettering on the plate, not the surrounding area to match a particular shape (like the lozenge) on all three plates.

As I said at the top it may be that they had two K plates, one for each price, or they had a way of swapping prices on the cents K plate. But the method described here only needs one set of colour plates.

Geoff

Addendum: they COULD also have photographically created two Cyan plates I guess, one for the cents copies (with the month lettering surrounds in cyan) and one with nothing there for the pence copies (to match the other two plates, making an empty lozenge). That would obviate the necessity to carry out the Cyan plate scrape, and I am not competent to judge the additional costs and hassle of doing it one way against the other, but my instinct tells me that Atlas would rather die than create more colour plates than necessary, particularly for such a small print run. However if they did have two Cyan plates, they could do the cents and pence runs in either order.

Any views? Geoff

 

Edited June 11, 2020 by Pinkerton
further thoughts!

[Pinkerton]

2 hours ago, Kevin.J said:

My mother used to give all my stuff away when I was a kid, some aunt would visit with young cousins and they would be given my toys and comics, I didnt have much and when I eventually moved out aged 16, my whole life was in 1 bin bag

I should have mentioned that the actual "real" monthly Marvels we had collected in Blackburn and Bedford were carefully boxed up by me before I went on the course. The UK comics were treasure but the monthly US Marvels were far more valuable even than that to all of us kids, so no chances taken there. I still can't believe that I didn't think to take the same trouble with the UK weeklies.

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, Pinkerton said:

Any views? Geoff

Hi Geoff, I've spent a lot of time as someone with no direct printing experience debating various printing scenarios and what they could mean on the books I have been researching. Those debates are scattered among the threads I started, like this one, but also in many other members threads. I've lost track of all the scenarios I've illustrated, or tried to illustrate. Many of the best ones, annoyingly, are in threads long since buried.

I could again list out a whole series of scenarios now that indicate possible different printing approaches in response to your post. My non-expert assessment however is that the printing approach probably differed day to day, month to month, year to year. The one consistent thing about the printing of books from the 1960's I have found, at least in respect of the finished printed product, is that there is no consistency in evidence. There may have been separate plates for cents and pence. There may have been one plate, etched out, or added to, once it had served its first currency run purpose. I have posted examples where full prices are overprinted by a new one and also where you can see the original price in the background (e.g. Kings Comics / Canadian Charltons). I have posted examples where you can see remnants of original cents prices behind pence prices, e.g. Amazing Spider-Man #5, and I have posted examples where elements of one currency's book appear illogically on the others. There are many scenarios.

Often, my layman's analysis has indicated a possible printing order but, again, they can often be taken both ways operationally.

So my current position is this:

• UK Price Variants exist
• Their existence is almost certainly responsible for, or linked to, some of the cover / pricing / font variations and issues that we see on some early cents books 
• It is unlikely that we will ever know which currency was printed first, whether that was a consistent schedule or whether it varied. My guess would be the latter but either way there is no appetite in the collecting community that I can detect to consider either book differently were an order of printing proven - they all remain part of one sequential print run / request and those that like their particular books do so regardless
• Everyone involved in the production in the early 1960's is either dead, senile or can't remember so the only people who can add any value are those with direct printing knowledge of the four colour process but even they appear to be hampered by 'not being there'

My original research purpose was to identify which comics received the pence treatment and in doing so I've strayed into other areas of analysis. I enjoy speculation, always have, but I think I'm all speculated out on this topic now and have nothing more to add myself until someone hits the jackpot with a definitive explanation. We just need that 85 year old chap from Sparta with the great memory to drop in and....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pinkerton]

3 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Hi Geoff, I've spent a lot of time as someone with no direct printing experience debating various printing scenarios and what they could mean on the books I have been researching. Those debates are scattered among the threads I started, like this one, but also in many other members threads. I've lost track of all the scenarios I've illustrated, or tried to illustrate. Many of the best ones, annoyingly, are in threads long since buried.

I could again list out a whole series of scenarios now that indicate possible different printing approaches in response to your post. My non-expert assessment however is that the printing approach probably differed day to day, month to month, year to year. The one consistent thing about the printing of books from the 1960's I have found, at least in respect of the finished printed product, is that there is no consistency in evidence. There may have been separate plates for cents and pence. There may have been one plate, etched out, or added to, once it had served its first currency run purpose. I have posted examples where full prices are overprinted by a new one and also where you can see the original price in the background (e.g. Kings Comics / Canadian Charltons). I have posted examples where you can see remnants of original cents prices behind pence prices, e.g. Amazing Spider-Man #5, and I have posted examples where elements of one currency's book appear illogically on the others. There are many scenarios.

Often, my layman's analysis has indicated a possible printing order but, again, they can often be taken both ways operationally.

So my current position is this:

• UK Price Variants exist
• Their existence is almost certainly responsible for, or linked to, some of the cover / pricing / font variations and issues that we see on some early cents books 
• It is unlikely that we will ever know which currency was printed first, whether that was a consistent schedule or whether it varied. My guess would be the latter but either way there is no appetite in the collecting community that I can detect to consider either book differently were an order of printing proven - they all remain part of one sequential print run / request and those that like their particular books do so regardless
• Everyone involved in the production in the early 1960's is either dead, senile or can't remember so the only people who can add any value are those with direct printing knowledge of the four colour process but even they appear to be hampered by 'not being there'

My original research purpose was to identify which comics received the pence treatment and in doing so I've strayed into other areas of analysis. I enjoy speculation, always have, but I think I'm all speculated out on this topic now and have nothing more to add myself until someone hits the jackpot with a definitive explanation. We just need that 85 year old chap from Sparta with the great memory to drop in and....

 

 

 

 

 

 

And you have fulfilled that original ambition superbly. Forgive me if I verbosely chewed over stuff that is new to me but very much old hat to those who have been writing and researching these topics for years - like you I enjoy trying to figure out how or why something came out on the page like that. It is not for me an issue about which was printed first (like you I suspect it varied wildly), but more trying to solve a puzzle. Currently I am half way through your Price Font thread and it is fascinating, because the crumbs of evidence are there for all to see, but... how did they get there, and why? Particularly that cowboy issue with three different cents fonts as well as the pence one. Geoff

[Get Marwood & I]

2 hours ago, Pinkerton said:

Forgive me if I verbosely chewed over stuff that is new to me but very much old hat to those who have been writing and researching these topics for years 

Not at all, sorry if I gave that impression. Read my posts and you'll hopefully see that I always try to support new takes on things and support new members going over old ground. I think I was just fed up this morning when I wrote that, having just read it back. Carry on Geoff! 

[Pinkerton]

Don't worry I will.

My most recent exchange was with GCD over submission of pence covers (I had a few Bronze Marvels they didn't have). I uploaded about 20 over a few days, insisting on calling them all "UK Price Variants" instead of just "British" which they prefer - as you know from your own experience. After a day or two I got a message to say that could I please re-edit them all to be "British", sending links for the purpose. I replied to say that, as far as Overstreet and CGC were concerned, it was more correct to refer to them the way I had done so, and I very politely suggested that they might carry out a global find-and-replace on all their "British" editions, so that they could be facing the same way. They declined. I also pointed out that the linked pages they sent me to carry out the re-edits were indecipherable for this purpose, so they said they would do it.

I have to say this was a rare piece of frustration with GCD. I have used it hundreds of times during my "comics reawakening" over the last couple of years and in general I love it. I guess running it is a largely thankless task and I'm assuming all the people doing routine approvals are volunteers.

[Get Marwood & I]

16 minutes ago, Pinkerton said:

Don't worry I will.

My most recent exchange was with GCD over submission of pence covers (I had a few Bronze Marvels they didn't have). I uploaded about 20 over a few days, insisting on calling them all "UK Price Variants" instead of just "British" which they prefer - as you know from your own experience. After a day or two I got a message to say that could I please re-edit them all to be "British", sending links for the purpose. I replied to say that, as far as Overstreet and CGC were concerned, it was more correct to refer to them the way I had done so, and I very politely suggested that they might carry out a global find-and-replace on all their "British" editions, so that they could be facing the same way. They declined. I also pointed out that the linked pages they sent me to carry out the re-edits were indecipherable for this purpose, so they said they would do it.

I have to say this was a rare piece of frustration with GCD. I have used it hundreds of times during my "comics reawakening" over the last couple of years and in general I love it. I guess running it is a largely thankless task and I'm assuming all the people doing routine approvals are volunteers.

The GCD is an invaluable, free resource that I use often, and I applaud those that maintain and add to it. But my experience was the same as yours and they also wanted me to crop all my images. I think that is wrong, as it often can look like the copy presented is not a picture of an actual comic rendering it unreliable for research purposes (e.g. JIM #76). You need to see the whole comic. So the combination of insisting on cropped images, the incorrect naming convention (which spreads misinformation) and the fact that I found the actual uploading / submission process so cumbersome anyway, lead me to not contribute further. That's a shame, as I have hundreds of images that they don't, but I don't want to support the cementing of misinformation however well intentioned the owners are. 

It does spur me on to develop my own website though, for all my research strands, and that reality gets more likely as the days go by now that I am officially unemployed. 

[Redshade]

1 hour ago, Pinkerton said:

Don't worry I will.

My most recent exchange was with GCD over submission of pence covers (I had a few Bronze Marvels they didn't have). I uploaded about 20 over a few days, insisting on calling them all "UK Price Variants" instead of just "British" which they prefer - as you know from your own experience. After a day or two I got a message to say that could I please re-edit them all to be "British", sending links for the purpose. I replied to say that, as far as Overstreet and CGC were concerned, it was more correct to refer to them the way I had done so, and I very politely suggested that they might carry out a global find-and-replace on all their "British" editions, so that they could be facing the same way. They declined. I also pointed out that the linked pages they sent me to carry out the re-edits were indecipherable for this purpose, so they said they would do it.

I have to say this was a rare piece of frustration with GCD. I have used it hundreds of times during my "comics reawakening" over the last couple of years and in general I love it. I guess running it is a largely thankless task and I'm assuming all the people doing routine approvals are volunteers.

This very issue is being discussed on a FB page that I am a member of, may I quote you on said site?

 

[Get Marwood & I]

13 minutes ago, Redshade said:

This very issue is being discussed on a FB page that I am a member of, may I quote you on said site?

 

Which one is that Stephen - can you post / send me a link?

[Redshade]

7 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Which one is that Stephen - can you post / send me a link?

It is : Foreign Comic Collector Magazine (Official Group). I'll try a link but my attempts at such are inept at best.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/274684996585171/594815314572136/?comment_id=601342583919409&notif_id=1591942847597343&notif_t=group_comment_mention

[Get Marwood & I]

2 hours ago, Redshade said:

It is : Foreign Comic Collector Magazine (Official Group). I'll try a link but my attempts at such are inept at best.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/274684996585171/594815314572136/?comment_id=601342583919409&notif_id=1591942847597343&notif_t=group_comment_mention

Drat, members only. Plus I'm not on FB. What's the word there then Stephen? Spill the beans. 

[Redshade]

3 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Drat, members only. Plus I'm not on FB. What's the word there then Stephen? Spill the beans. 

Don't worry about it Steve, there are too many to read. It was started this time by the news that Tim Bildhuaser had been "let go" by CBCS. He was their Foreign Edition specialist. The posters all agreed that Tim was the bees' knees and that they would all be boycotting CBCS, then the usual moaning ensued about all of the wrongly labelled stuff that people had had back from CGC who it seems is very cavalier when describing foreign comics. It then descended into the whole Editions or Reprints argument. I'm staying out of it for now, we've heard it all a thousand times. I'm glad now that I didn't drag Pinkerton into the swamp.