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Miracleman
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Started by october,

919 posts in this topic

Kimota444

Kimota444

Posted
Posted

Hi Guys, Derek here :)

Just had to step in here to clear the air slightly.

As you say Ewan I was the underbidder, I think I gave you that info.

Unfortunately I did not secure the comic as several people have suspected; I will complete the tale..............

The seller contacted me to say that the sale had been cancelled and whether I was interested in a second chance offer. I agreed to pay the equivalent of my final bid, assuming the last bid was cancelled and he initially agreed.

I asked for more pictures of the comic via my email address and he made excuses as to why he couldn't send more photos, claiming that he didn't want to damage the comic by handling.

Here is where it gets strange; the seller now started making excuses as to why he now wanted to back off the sale completely and re-list the comic later, even though I pointed out that only 2 buyers were prepared to bid so generously, but he still backed off and refused to sell.

He now doesn't answer my emails and MM 26 hasn't been re-listed, even though he is still selling comics at 99p.

I don't know where he got the photo of 26 from but I now firmly believe that it was a scam and he didn't have the comic to sell.

I only hope I am wrong as it is the only copy I have ever seen and you are correct Jonathan, I have 721 / 722 MM; YM; MMF comics and all 20 Annuals, so this issue was rather important for me.

Maybe another will turn up eventually but I won't hold my breath.

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JTLarsen

JTLarsen

Posted
Posted
Hi Guys, Derek here :)

Just had to step in here to clear the air slightly.

As you say Ewan I was the underbidder, I think I gave you that info.

Unfortunately I did not secure the comic as several people have suspected; I will complete the tale..............

The seller contacted me to say that the sale had been cancelled and whether I was interested in a second chance offer. I agreed to pay the equivalent of my final bid, assuming the last bid was cancelled and he initially agreed.

I asked for more pictures of the comic via my email address and he made excuses as to why he couldn't send more photos, claiming that he didn't want to damage the comic by handling.

Here is where it gets strange; the seller now started making excuses as to why he now wanted to back off the sale completely and re-list the comic later, even though I pointed out that only 2 buyers were prepared to bid so generously, but he still backed off and refused to sell.

He now doesn't answer my emails and MM 26 hasn't been re-listed, even though he is still selling comics at 99p.

I don't know where he got the photo of 26 from but I now firmly believe that it was a scam and he didn't have the comic to sell.

I only hope I am wrong as it is the only copy I have ever seen and you are correct Jonathan, I have 721 / 722 MM; YM; MMF comics and all 20 Annuals, so this issue was rather important for me.

Maybe another will turn up eventually but I won't hold my breath.

 

Hi Derek, thanks for sharing this. WOW. I think it was not a scam (where's the part where they make money? Why cancel the sale on me?) -- my guess is that they've decided to try for more money. The guy was willing to sell it to me for, I think, $50 before he knew about the intense interest. He told me there was other family involved in the sale--I assume this was a dead relative's comic. And the rest of the family wanted to get more than that $50, which is why he canceled. So my guess is that, with Bleeding Cool and others writing about what a big deal this was, the family pressured this guy to pull it...and maybe seek an auction house to get the riches the dream of.

 

Not realizing that they've just pissed off the two people (who WERE) willing to spend that kind of money. I certainly wouldn't again.

 

Oh, and I'd love to know WHEN they approached you--I'd be interested to see how that syncs up with the timeline of when they jerked me around on the (ALREADY-AGREED-TO) shipping to the US and, ultimately, their cancellation.

 

For what it's worth, if I wasn't gonna get it, you (or Ewan!) woulda been my first choices. Sorry it didn't happen for you.

 

#boycottMarvelman26

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EwanUK

EwanUK

Posted
Posted
Hi Guys, Derek here :)

Just had to step in here to clear the air slightly.

As you say Ewan I was the underbidder, I think I gave you that info.

Unfortunately I did not secure the comic as several people have suspected; I will complete the tale..............

The seller contacted me to say that the sale had been cancelled and whether I was interested in a second chance offer. I agreed to pay the equivalent of my final bid, assuming the last bid was cancelled and he initially agreed.

I asked for more pictures of the comic via my email address and he made excuses as to why he couldn't send more photos, claiming that he didn't want to damage the comic by handling.

Here is where it gets strange; the seller now started making excuses as to why he now wanted to back off the sale completely and re-list the comic later, even though I pointed out that only 2 buyers were prepared to bid so generously, but he still backed off and refused to sell.

He now doesn't answer my emails and MM 26 hasn't been re-listed, even though he is still selling comics at 99p.

I don't know where he got the photo of 26 from but I now firmly believe that it was a scam and he didn't have the comic to sell.

I only hope I am wrong as it is the only copy I have ever seen and you are correct Jonathan, I have 721 / 722 MM; YM; MMF comics and all 20 Annuals, so this issue was rather important for me.

Maybe another will turn up eventually but I won't hold my breath.

 

Wow... that's just incredible Derek. I can't imagine why he'd take it elsewhere as between the 3 of us he isn't going to get any higher price.

I don't think it's a scam either. There was no Marvelman 26 photo ANYWHERE on the web.

Very, very strange though.

We can watch for the major sites though.

 

Anyway, Derek, nice to hear from you. Thought it was you. Who else!

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Count Zero

Count Zero

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.....soooo I had this on preorder for at least 3 months. Anxiously awaiting the lost Grant Morrison story....Went to my LCS after work and to my utter disbelief my preorder had mistakenly been canceled in the system according to the kid at the register AND they are sold out till next Thursday.... :sorry:

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EwanUK

EwanUK

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Hi all, got this PM from Tim, thought I'd answer for all

 

 

Dear EwanUK,

 

Hi - my name is Tim, and I'm a US Miracleman fan. I'm writing because I came across some old posts of yours about Jim Clements' Kid Miracleman essays, "The Devil and Johnny Bates, Parts 1 and 2" in FUSION magazine issues #4 and #6 (http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=6307390).

 

After years of waiting, I finally got to read Grant Morrison's long-lost Kid Miracleman story yesterday in Marvel's MIRACLEMAN ANNUAL #1. I enjoyed it, but it's tone was different from what I expected after reading so many online rumors about its content. In the end, I was left wondering whether those rumors had been based more on Clements' work than Morrison's, so I started nosing around online to see if I could find a place to read the FUSION essays. I don't think you'll be surprised to learn that I couldn't.

 

Then I found your posts, where you mentioned that you had never owned original copies of the very rare FUSION issues #4 and #6, but had copies of each. I thought I'd take a chance to write you (I really do want to find a way to settle my curiosity about those essays!) to see if you could either point me to a website where I, too, could find copies of Clements' work or, barring that, if you might be willing to share scans of the essays themselves with a fellow Miracleman fan.

 

Many thanks in advance for reading, Ewan - I would really appreciate any help you could give!

 

Best,

Tim

 

 

I think the route of the rumours was a combination of various snippets from collector, fans etc that I was speaking to in the early 2000s. Dez Skinn (editor of Warrior) first told me about GM's "lost" KM story.

As I began indexing the Miracleman fanzines, I came across the Scottish fanzine, Fusion, of which I knew GM was a contributor. I made an ASSUMPTION therefore that he was the author of the KM "story" (which at the time no-one could contradict. It then somehow became the accepted truth!

 

Here are the facts

 

Fusion - edited by Hugh Campbell - ran nine issues, 1983 to 1987. Highest print run was just 150 copies. Most issues were probably 100 or less. Obviously this makes all remaining copies incredibly rare.

 

Known copies & relevant details

1 - 2

2 - 5 Alan Davis MM cover, AM interview

3 - 3 GM rear cover

4 - 2 GM KM cover, "The Devil and Johnny Bates" (Part 1)

5 - 4 GM art

6 - 2 GM MM cover, "The Devil and Johnny Bates Part Two - The Shadow From Within"

7 - 2 GM interview

8 - 2

9 - 1

 

I have owned all issues apart from no.6, and only now own no.4

From memory the article is what I'd call a "retrospective review" i.e. a feature re-telling the story.

Pretty sure it is on-line somewhere?

Hope that helps

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EwanUK

EwanUK

Posted
Posted

from Googling "The Devil and Johnny Bates"...

 

Comics beat

 

 

KID MARVELMAN (1986)

 

 

Morrison's solo Kid Marvelman tale was intended to appear in Dez Skinn's Warrior magazine as a placeholder for Alan Moore's Marvelman strip, then on hiatus due to Skinn's legal wrangles with Marvel Comics over the Marvelman name.

 

 

 

Dez Skinn, speaking in George Khoury's Kimota! - The Marvelman Companion:

 

 

"... Grant did submit a Kid Marvelman story, about a discussion between Kid Marvelman and a Catholic priest, and it was quite fascinating because Kid Marvelman argued a very good case against organised religion. Nobody was flying, no beams from anyone's eyes, but a bloody clever -script, clever enough that I sent it to Alan Moore for his opinion. Alan's reply was, "Nobody else writes Marvelman." And I said to Grant, "I'm sorry, he's jealously hanging on to this one." Grant did have an answer, but again, I shouldn't really speak for him."

 

Moore had a similar response when Skinn proposed the idea of Morrison taking over the Marvelman strip after Moore threatened to leave the strip over the planned name-change to Miracleman, recounted in Patrick Meaney's Grant Morrison - Talking With Gods documentary, though this may be a simplified varaition on the story related above.

 

 

 

Though Morrison's Kid Marvelman -script was long rumoured to have seen publication in issue #4 of Hugh Campbell's Fusion fanzine, It turns out that 'The Devil and Johnny Bates' from that issue was actually an in-depth character study of Kid Marvelman by one Jim Clements. Clements, a legendary figure whose published output amounts to one 6-page Future Shock in 2000 A.D. Prog 713, was cited by Morrison in the 15th Anniversary Arkham Asylum introduction as a big influence in his formative years. Morrison goes on to say that essentially he wrote the book entirely to impress him.

 

 

 

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JTLarsen

JTLarsen

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Posted
Annual is out but I haven't gotten it yet. Any reviews? Also, looks like we're a few weeks ago from reprinting MM 15!!

 

I was dreadfully disappointed by the Grant Morrison story. The Milligan story was fun, I thought, and well done (he's STILL underrated). But the Morrison story had such a history to it, you expected it to be a little (lot) more substantive.

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JTLarsen

JTLarsen

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Thanks. Good Lord that item description is hilarious and exhausting. This IS a very cool item. But $10,000? Not hardly.

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