CGC grading "invisible" comics? 10 10

[Tony S]

Now publishers print and CGC grades invisible comic books. Seriously, if Reminds me of the children's story/folktale - The Emperor's New Clothes.

I'm surprised CGC would go along with such....gimmickry. One would hope the leading comic book grading and certification company took their business seriously. Not throw in with such foolishness.

Wouldn't all invisible comics grade a perfect 10? Any defects are....wait for it...INVISIBLE.

Link to story.

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/bad-idea-comics-offers-collectors-an-invisible-slabbed-comic/

[THE_BEYONDER]

It’s an acetate cover with staples

 

It’s the new Wizard First 

[Ride the Tiger]

This is like so last week.

[Tony S]

On 12/30/2021 at 2:46 PM, Ride the Tiger said:

This is like so last week.

My apologies. Has this been posted/commented on before? I searched and did not find anything here on the boards

The article itself is dated Dec 27 and the original Bleeding Cool article was just the day before - Dec 26. 

If it's been discussed I'm fine with mods removing it. 

[B2D327]

Gimmicks are a good way for a company to shoot itself in the foot. 
Why would they even entertain this foolishness?

 

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 12/30/2021 at 3:02 PM, Tony S said:

My apologies. Has this been posted/commented on before? I searched and did not find anything here on the boards

The article itself is dated Dec 27 and the original Bleeding Cool article was just the day before - Dec 26. 

If it's been discussed I'm fine with mods removing it. 

It was posted about last week in this thread, which was started when the bad idea company started having ideas.

 

 

[Cat]

So the acetate is bare? They could have at least etched something onto there. What a stupid idea. 

[Crops068]

On 12/30/2021 at 3:49 PM, Mecha_Fantastic said:

So the acetate is bare? They could have at least etched something onto there. What a stupid idea. 

I wonder if they put invisible ink on it.  So it LOOKS bare but it actually has wording under the proper light conditions.

I mean this is Bad Idea we are talking about.

[StillOnly25Cents]

with the turnaround times sure seems a like all our books are invisible to CGC

glad they had time on their schedule though to address this one

[Ryan.]

On 12/30/2021 at 5:06 PM, StillOnly25Cents said:

glad they had time on their schedule though to address this one

It's certainly not a good look for CGC to spend time on novelties when it takes them upwards of 7 months to grade a regular comic. 

[Beyonder123]

This is the definition of a stupid cash grab. Bad Idea is really living up to their name. And good job CGC for playing along. Maybe focus on getting out the books that are backlogged rather than feeding into gimmick.

[Qalyar]

I have two concerns here, neither of which is "Bad Idea is synonymous with stupid gimmicks," because that's self-evident at this point. The census report on this book is extremely, extremely concerning.

1. Why was CGC willing to assign grades here at all? This is, all other nonsense aside,a published cover-only book. Yes, a blank acetate cover, but whatever, that's not the point. CGC has previous advised that the Sensational She-Hulk #14 Brian Bolland variant would only be eligible for slabbing with a CVR no-grade. For those who aren't familiar with this book, they originally printed Sensational She-Hulk #14 with the wrong cover. To "fix" the problem, Marvel printed the Bolland cover without any interior pages (but with interior cover text that is unique to this printing) as a sort of weird giveaway item. They're actually kind of hard to find in good condition, and I'm sure there are collectors of the title or of Bolland's work who would like to have copies graded. So why is a book intentionally produced as a cover-only item, but with legitimate unique cover and interior art work, not considered eligible to be assigned grades; but this book, intentionally produced as a cover-only item but with no art or text or any production elements at all except for staples, qualify for grading beyond the CVR no-grade label??
2. Perhaps more importantly, how is there the full spectrum of grades on these? I find it, shall we say, extremely unlikely that they submitted copies that just happened to result in 1 book scoring almost every possible non-9.8 grade from 0.5 to 10 (there is no copy in 1.8), with all the rest in 9.8. Which means that there was some arrangement between Bad Idea and CGC to issue labels to these books in those specific grades. There are two options there, and neither is very satisfying:

• Are the labels legitimate grades that reflect defects or the lack thereof in the slabbed acetate? If so, were there other copies of these acetate books submitted but not slabbed (not like we'd know, really)? In particular, pre-screening isn't even normally available for 9.9 and 10 grades, so how did unique, specific copies in these grades come to pass? As for the lower graded books, were books intentionally manipulated by adding defects to produce the requested grades? If so, did Bad Idea perform this manipulation, or did CGC?
• The alternative is that these aren't real grades, and CGC acceded to Bad Ideas gimmick and simply created slabs in each grade upon request. This is far more disturbing, but I suspect is what actually occurred. If so, what assurances do we have that publishers cannot do this in future with books that have actual content? Let's say that I self-publish a book tomorrow. Can I pay to ensure that copies exist in every specific grade? How much? What if -- instead of just a cover -- it's an 8-pager that's entirely blank acetate? What if its blank acetate except for a printed title? Is there some threshold of actual content above which CGC actually grades books versus handing out specifically-purchased grade labels? Or was this a service that was only available to Dinesh and Bad Idea?

@CGC Mike I'm sorry to be a curmudgeon here in what was probably thought of as just a silly gimmick. But especially after a year with concerns about QA across the board and concerns about double standards as displayed by the Promise Collection books, this is not just a silly gimmick. Yes, I get it, that this is a dumb piece of acetate and not a "real" comic book, but CGC has given these slabs their imprimatur. As a customer of CGC, and on behalf of other customers of CGC, I'd really appreciate some explanation as to why this was allowed to take place ... and some assurance that it is not simply possible to buy grades from what was and ought to be this neutral authentication and grading company.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Qalyar

[Transplant]

On 12/30/2021 at 4:22 PM, Qalyar said:

So why is a book intentionally produced as a cover-only item, but with legitimate unique cover and interior art work, not considered eligible to be assigned grades; but this book, intentionally produced as a cover-only item but with no art or text or any production elements at all except for staples, qualify for grading beyond the CVR no-grade label??

BC no one has offered CGC the right amount of cash to do so yet, unlike what likely transpired here. 

[Qalyar]

On 12/30/2021 at 4:22 PM, Qalyar said:

I have two concerns here, neither of which is "Bad Idea is synonymous with stupid gimmicks," because that's self-evident at this point. The census report on this book is extremely, extremely concerning.

1. Why was CGC willing to assign grades here at all? This is, all other nonsense aside,a published cover-only book. Yes, a blank acetate cover, but whatever, that's not the point. CGC has previous advised that the Sensational She-Hulk #14 Brian Bolland variant would only be eligible for slabbing with a CVR no-grade. For those who aren't familiar with this book, they originally printed Sensational She-Hulk #14 with the wrong cover. To "fix" the problem, Marvel printed the Bolland cover without any interior pages (but with interior cover text that is unique to this printing) as a sort of weird giveaway item. They're actually kind of hard to find in good condition, and I'm sure there are collectors of the title or of Bolland's work who would like to have copies graded. So why is a book intentionally produced as a cover-only item, but with legitimate unique cover and interior art work, not considered eligible to be assigned grades; but this book, intentionally produced as a cover-only item but with no art or text or any production elements at all except for staples, qualify for grading beyond the CVR no-grade label??
2. Perhaps more importantly, how is there the full spectrum of grades on these? I find it, shall we say, extremely unlikely that they submitted copies that just happened to result in 1 book scoring almost every possible non-9.8 grade from 0.5 to 10 (there is no copy in 1.8), with all the rest in 9.8. Which means that there was some arrangement between Bad Idea and CGC to issue labels to these books in those specific grades. There are two options there, and neither is very satisfying:

• Are the labels legitimate grades that reflect defects or the lack thereof in the slabbed acetate? If so, were there other copies of these acetate books submitted but not slabbed (not like we'd know, really)? In particular, pre-screening isn't even normally available for 9.9 and 10 grades, so how did unique, specific copies in these grades come to pass? As for the lower graded books, were books intentionally manipulated by adding defects to produce the requested grades? If so, did Bad Idea perform this manipulation, or did CGC?
• The alternative is that these aren't real grades, and CGC acceded to Bad Ideas gimmick and simply created slabs in each grade upon request. This is far more disturbing, but I suspect is what actually occurred. If so, what assurances do we have that publishers cannot do this in future with books that have actual content? Let's say that I self-publish a book tomorrow. Can I pay to ensure that copies exist in every specific grade? How much? What if -- instead of just a cover -- it's an 8-pager that's entirely blank acetate? What it's its blank acetate except for a printed title? Is there some threshold of actual content above which CGC actually grades books versus handing out specifically-purchased grade labels? Or was this a service that was only available to Dinesh and Bad Idea?

@CGC Mike I'm sorry to be a curmudgeon here in what was probably thought of as just a silly gimmick. But especially after a year with concerns about QA across the board and concerns about double standards as displayed by the Promise Collection books, this is not just a silly gimmick. Yes, I get it, that this is a dumb piece of acetate and not a "real" comic book, but CGC has given these slabs their imprimatur. As a customer of CGC, and on behalf of other customers of CGC, I'd really appreciate some explanation as to why this was allowed to take place ... and some assurance that it is not simply possible to buy grades from what was and ought to be this neutral authentication and grading company.

For that matter, grade aside, CGC is an authentication service. There are quite a few undergrounds, indies, APAs, fanzines, and even a few valuable rarities that CGC will not authenticate because they are deemed too easily reproduced. How was this eligible for authentication?? If I crack one of these out, can I resubmit it? Can I send it to CCS? If a case is damaged, is it eligible for reholdering? Even if it is damaged enough that case integrity is compromised, typically warranting a regrade? What happens if one of these is submitted for an in-house signing? And so on, turtles all the way down.

What were you thinking allowing this??

[mattn792]

On 12/30/2021 at 2:30 PM, Tony S said:

Now publishers print and CGC grades invisible comic books. Seriously, if Reminds me of the children's story/folktale - The Emperor's New Clothes.

I'm surprised CGC would go along with such....gimmickry. One would hope the leading comic book grading and certification company took their business seriously. Not throw in with such foolishness.

Wouldn't all invisible comics grade a perfect 10? Any defects are....wait for it...INVISIBLE.

Link to story.

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/bad-idea-comics-offers-collectors-an-invisible-slabbed-comic/

[THE_BEYONDER]

@mnelsonCGC

Really?

Edited December 30, 2021 by THE_BEYONDER

[Tony S]

On 12/30/2021 at 4:52 PM, Qalyar said:

For that matter, grade aside, CGC is an authentication service. There are quite a few undergrounds, indies, APAs, fanzines, and even a few valuable rarities that CGC will not authenticate because they are deemed too easily reproduced. How was this eligible for authentication?? If I crack one of these out, can I resubmit it? Can I send it to CCS? If a case is damaged, is it eligible for reholdering? Even if it is damaged enough that case integrity is compromised, typically warranting a regrade? What happens if one of these is submitted for an in-house signing? And so on, turtles all the way down.

What were you thinking allowing this??

Some really good points here that I had not thought about. How hard would it be to trim a piece of acetate to size, fold it and stick a few staples in?  Then submit to CGC for authentication. 

[Catwomancomics]

On 12/30/2021 at 3:41 PM, Tony S said:

Some really good points here that I had not thought about. How hard would it be to trim a piece of acetate to size, fold it and stick a few staples in?  Then submit to CGC for authentication. 

They would know it was a fake when they do the page count.

[CGC Mike]

I will check into this.  CGC is closed tomorrow so, it's possible I won't have a statement until next week.  

[Fisionbomb]

On 12/30/2021 at 8:46 PM, CGC Mike said:

I will check into this.  CGC is closed tomorrow so, it's possible I won't have a statement until next week.