Robot Man Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 19 hours ago, n2wdw said: New CGC Books (Junie!) I also got this Junie from Harley at WW Philly. I'm tempted now to collect the entire run in CGC, as earlier this year I got Junie 5 from @Ricksneatstuff. Others, though, are hard to come by in decent grade. There's a #1 in 7.5, but at $672.99 it's too rich for me (BTW I have never understood the 0.99). "Double Date"? I think she meant threesome... Yeah a tough run. I have 3 or 4 of them and am casually looking for the rest. As cool as they are, they aren't Junior or Sunny money books to me. I don't have that #7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted August 31, 2017 Author Share Posted August 31, 2017 5 hours ago, Robot Man said: "Double Date"? I think she meant threesome... For kinky stuff there's nothing like old paperback art. Amazing what they published in the 50s and 60s. They make the wildest comics look tame! HRCostigan and Ricksneatstuff 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robot Man Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 Yeah, I will second that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robot Man Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 And speaking of Junies... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted August 31, 2017 Author Share Posted August 31, 2017 (edited) 7 minutes ago, Robot Man said: Yeah, I will second that! More back at ya! And I got all of these for way less than a single Matt Baker! Edited August 31, 2017 by n2wdw comicnoir 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robot Man Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 Very cool! I've got a bunch more of them. I really should dig them out and take some more photos. Such a cheap way to collect sleeze! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted September 3, 2017 Author Share Posted September 3, 2017 (edited) A Better Way To Take Pictures of CGC Books This week I bought this photo box (I'm not sure what the official name is) from Amazon for about $60, because I'm looking for a better way to get pictures of CGC books. As we all know, some CGC books don't do well with scanners, because of the way the book sits in the slab. You get glare that distorts the picture. Taking pictures (rather than using a scanner) is better sometimes, but often you have to take extreme angles to avoid the glare. So, I bought this photo box. It's not perfect. But I'm happy with it. You still have to angle the camera a bit sometimes. But not as extreme without the box. Also, I'm thinking about getting a better camera (rather than just my iPhone). Here are 2 Bulletmans I got this week. These pictures are from my HP legal size scanner. As you can see, there's alot of glare. Now here are pictures taken with my iPhone, with the photobox. You see I have to angle the phone a bit, but not so much, and the pictures are much clearer. No glare, and the pictures are a truer representation of the colors of the covers. Now here's the big payoff for the photobox. I've tried for some time to get a good picture of my copy of Spirit 22. There's some apparent waviness in the well of my copy, and that's always caused glare no matter what I did. But with the photobox, I now have good pictures of the book. Edited September 3, 2017 by n2wdw torontodesignguy, Skunkboy, Ricksneatstuff and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricksneatstuff Posted September 3, 2017 Share Posted September 3, 2017 I definitely prefer photos of slabs over scans. At least with my $7500 Minolta Bizhub scanner/printer Did you put a black cloth or something behind the slabs? These look really good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torontodesignguy Posted September 3, 2017 Share Posted September 3, 2017 that looks like $60 very well spent - thanks for sharing the before and afters. n2wdw 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeyc67 Posted September 3, 2017 Share Posted September 3, 2017 Once again thanks for this great thread. Definitely getting one of those. n2wdw 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
comicdonna Posted September 3, 2017 Share Posted September 3, 2017 That photo box is cool. Especially for someone like me, who has never scanned a book. I always use a camera. n2wdw 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted September 3, 2017 Author Share Posted September 3, 2017 11 hours ago, Ricksneatstuff said: I definitely prefer photos of slabs over scans. At least with my $7500 Minolta Bizhub scanner/printer Did you put a black cloth or something behind the slabs? These look really good. The kit comes with 4 backdrops, so I used the black one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted September 3, 2017 Author Share Posted September 3, 2017 A few people have asked me for the model number of the photobox. Here it is on Amazon. Fotodiox has a number of sizes. I got the 16x16 to make sure it would fit the biggest CGC slabs (Playboy size), and it will with room to spare. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted September 3, 2017 Author Share Posted September 3, 2017 Seduction of the Innocent Recently I finally got an affordable copy of Seduction of the Innocent, complete with the bibliography (thanks @SOTIcollector!). I have to say, after years of hearing about it, the bibliography didn't quite live up to my expectations . But anyway, you need only look at some of the titillating and gruesome covers from the golden age, next to the tame and sanitized covers of today (by comparison), and you can see the huge impact of this book on the history and direction of comics. I haven't yet read the book yet, but Wertham certainly picked good examples to make his point that comics were a bad influence on kids: Here are pictures of the book displayed in my comic room: Larryw7 and jimjum12 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted September 4, 2017 Author Share Posted September 4, 2017 Storing Comics In Piles In the map, you can see that Shelf 1A is right next to my desk chair. Underneath those shelves I store some short boxes, with action figures stored behind the boxes. On top of 2 short boxes I have space to store comics. I store golden age GGA there, in mylar with acid free backing boards. I store them in piles, in alphabetical order. The problem is, if the piles get too high, they start sliding around. So I built this 2 sided box. It's wide enough to store 2 piles of comics sitting next to each other. Here are the 2 piles. I know, storing comics in piles is not the best thing to preserve condition. But these books are VG/FN at best. Also, they are what I'd call my misc GGA. I keep the good stuff elsewhere. In the picture above, I've nailed a lip to the front of the box. With the lip, I'm able to display comics in front of the piles. The books standing up are some of my better comics (and pulps). In the above picture, you'll see I position the bottom boxes a little in front of the boxes on top. This forms a shelf to store comics. I also collect modern GGA, and at the moment I'm storing some of those comics on this shelf. Thanks for reading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duffman_Comics Posted September 4, 2017 Share Posted September 4, 2017 I've had to store comics (although mostly magazines) in piles, but I have always "turned" the spines so that the pile doesn't get lop-sided and it minimises the risk of spine roll. Usually five comics then turn another five etc. I hope I have made the procedure clear. From the pics, I think you are doing it anyway. With all of your shelves, ledges and piles I'd be afraid to move something for fear the entire edifice would collapse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted September 4, 2017 Author Share Posted September 4, 2017 27 minutes ago, Duffman_Comics said: I've had to store comics (although mostly magazines) in piles, but I have always "turned" the spines so that the pile doesn't get lop-sided and it minimises the risk of spine roll. Usually five comics then turn another five etc. I hope I have made the procedure clear. From the pics, I think you are doing it anyway. With all of your shelves, ledges and piles I'd be afraid to move something for fear the entire edifice would collapse Actually I don't rotate the comics that way, as the OCD in me wants all the comics in the same direction. That's part of the reason I like the box, as I like to push the comics against the back and sides so they are neatly stacked. Hopefully though the heavy mylar and boards help to keep the spines from rolling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zolnerowich Posted September 6, 2017 Share Posted September 6, 2017 On 9/3/2017 at 9:33 AM, n2wdw said: Seduction of the Innocent Recently I finally got an affordable copy of Seduction of the Innocent, complete with the bibliography (thanks @SOTIcollector!). I have to say, after years of hearing about it, the bibliography didn't quite live up to my expectations . But anyway, you need only look at some of the titillating and gruesome covers from the golden age, next to the tame and sanitized covers of today (by comparison), and you can see the huge impact of this book on the history and direction of comics. I haven't yet read the book yet, but Wertham certainly picked good examples to make his point that comics were a bad influence on kids: Thanks for sharing those pics from SOTI! Never seen the insides before. How/why did the bibliography let you down? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted September 6, 2017 Author Share Posted September 6, 2017 11 hours ago, Zolnerowich said: Thanks for sharing those pics from SOTI! Never seen the insides before. How/why did the bibliography let you down? Usually I think of a bibliography as a formal table of resources, with enough information (citations) to help you find those resources to further explore the subject. The bibliography in SOTI is really a listing of publishers mentioned in the book. But I'm still happy to have it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n2wdw Posted September 6, 2017 Author Share Posted September 6, 2017 One Man's Trash Is Another's Treasure A boardie recently had a sale of signed, raw comics priced at about $6. I guess he wasn't getting enough interest, so he lowered everything by $3 each. I was late to the party and missed out on some good stuff. But when I finally arrived there was still a lot for sale. I had a great time going on a shopping spree and bought a lot at about $3 each. It made me think about how different people value things. For me it was huge getting these signed comics. But clearly others didn't put much value on them, as evidenced by the low prices to get them to move. It made me wonder the impact of CGC on things. Rather than being high grade SS copies, these were raw and probably in FN/VF. Do people (besides me) value such anymore? Here's one example. Stray Bullets #1 signed by Lapham. I mean, really? For 3 bucks? Then there's a surprise when I got the comic. In the bag was this letter from Dave Sim dated March 23, 1995, recommending the comic. So for $3, not only did I get a signed Lapham SB#1, but also a little piece of comic history! Also in my pile I got a Rai 9 Valiant Validated Signature Series, and a Star Slammers numbered ashcan. Probably most people reading this are thinking, "big deal, what's this guy talking about." But for me, these are major treasures! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...