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This Month in My Magazine Collection, or "How I Got Most of the Warren Mags in a Month"
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370 posts in this topic

On 8/22/2022 at 3:31 PM, Axe Elf said:

That leaves only the Blazing Combat Anthology, Heidi Saha, and House of Horror of the Warren Special Editions, the After Hours and HELP! full runs, and Comix International #3 (missed one of those this weekend by $1, too)--and of course Famous Monsters of Filmland, if I ever get around to them--to complete my full set of Warren publications!

I'm stoked!

Congrats on the pickups!

The offer of a couple very low grade HELP!s is still out there if you ever want to take me up on it.

Comix International #3 is the one I need as well, but want to upgrade my #4.  If I can find a nicer copy of the 3 Corben story version of #4 I'll call my beat up 2 Corben story copy good enough, but I would like at least one of the two to look nice... or at least better than the #4 I currently have.

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On 8/22/2022 at 5:17 PM, Stevemmg said:

It will definitely be tough to stay under $50 on some of those. 

I think I got all my HELP! run at under $50, mostly well under other than the #1.  The problem is just finding the darn things in the first place.

Kurtzman had a knack for titles that wind up being hard to search for in search engines.  Mad, Trump, Help...

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On 8/22/2022 at 7:17 PM, Stevemmg said:

It will definitely be tough to stay under $50 on some of those. 

Yeah, I'm thinking I can do it with the Blazing Combat Anthology, but House of Horror and Heidi Saha (and the four After Hours issues) will probably have to be special Christmas presents to myself in future years, when I can justify sinking a little more money into the really rare titles.

I'm still kind of holding out to find a complete or nearly complete run of HELP! in one shot, because that should be affordable enough if I can just find one for sale.

But I'm still not interested in taking on Famous Monsters of Filmland, unless I come into an extra $5 grand or something sometime.

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Thanks to @The Lions Den's note on my Vampirella #4 in my Gallery, I've had my eyes open for an "orange" cover to complement my "purple" cover.  But man, individual early Vampi's in any kind of presentable condition are hard to find under $50--and then I have to find an "orange" one under $50?  I've been looking for a while now...

I ALMOST broke the $50 rule for one that MyComicShop had advertised both on daBay and on their site--but even there it was still $72 for a 4.5 copy.  Knowing MyComicShop, it's probably more like a 5.5-6.0, but still, it's hard for me to break the rule for basically a duplicate.  And yet, I was right there a couple of times over the past month...

And then today, a New Listing of an "orange" Vampirella #4 on daBay appeared, apparently in about 6.0-7.0 condition (without having it in hand yet), with a BIN of $45!

SOLD!

I'll wait to post it until I receive it, along with the Richard Corben Special.  It's been almost a week and I hadn't heard anything about shipping on that book yet, so I dropped the seller a note, and he said he thought he had sent it already but he'll try to get it out tomorrow.  Great.  But hopefully both will be arriving by mid-week or so.

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On 8/26/2022 at 7:46 PM, Axe Elf said:

Thanks to @The Lions Den's note on my Vampirella #4 in my Gallery, I've had my eyes open for an "orange" cover to complement my "purple" cover.  But man, individual early Vampi's in any kind of presentable condition are hard to find under $50--and then I have to find an "orange" one under $50?  I've been looking for a while now...

I ALMOST broke the $50 rule for one that MyComicShop had advertised both on daBay and on their site--but even there it was still $72 for a 4.5 copy.  Knowing MyComicShop, it's probably more like a 5.5-6.0, but still, it's hard for me to break the rule for basically a duplicate.  And yet, I was right there a couple of times over the past month...

And then today, a New Listing of an "orange" Vampirella #4 on daBay appeared, apparently in about 6.0-7.0 condition (without having it in hand yet), with a BIN of $45!

SOLD!

I'll wait to post it until I receive it, along with the Richard Corben Special.  It's been almost a week and I hadn't heard anything about shipping on that book yet, so I dropped the seller a note, and he said he thought he had sent it already but he'll try to get it out tomorrow.  Great.  But hopefully both will be arriving by mid-week or so.

I'm pleased that you felt compelled to own both versions. I hope it all works out...  

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OMG... I thought the Corben book would NEVER get here.  So after a week went by with no shipping info, I contacted him to see if there was a problem, and he said he just forgot about it.  He'd try to get it out tomorrow, but Saturdays were crowded at the Post Office.  No worries, says I, get it out on Monday if it's easier.  I just wanted to be sure there wasn't a problem.

Didn't hear anything on Monday--no shipping info.  Wrote him a note, yeah, just would have had to go across town today, but he'll get it out tomorrow.

Tuesday--I get a picture of a car with a boot on it.  Gonna be a couple of days until he gets his car back.

Starting to wonder if I'm getting scammed here.

Wednesday--Got the car back, he'll get it out tomorrow.

Thursday--Finally, shipping info!

Today--Out for Delivery.

Well, the orange-titled Vampirella 4 was also out for delivery today, and it arrived in the mailbox as expected.  daBay showed the Vampi as being "delivered to mailbox," but Corben did not show as being delivered--and was not in the mailbox with the rest of the mail.  :(

I check it again in about an hour, and it says Corben was "delivered to front door/porch," but it wasn't on the front porch.  After despairing for a few moments that my Corben must have been delivered to someone else, I thought to check the side door--and there it was!  Two weeks and two days later, but I'm whole!

WHEW!

210238916_SpecialEdition-TheOddComicWorldofRichardCorbenF.thumb.jpg.a477cf21acfad6cad5a2879caf9bfdde.jpg

The Vampirella isn't as high grade as the rest of the run, but oh well; it's presentable.

1297017520_VAMPIRELLA4(Orange)F.thumb.jpg.f4adca5dc88e24fdfd77e6e15f5682c6.jpg

By comparison:

1511250803_VAMPIRELLA4(Purple)F.thumb.jpg.67d70f5834cc372a7ef645f01f75f5e0.jpg

So, the only books I have remaining to complete my Warren collection are:

After Hours #1 - #4

COMIX INTERNATIONAL #3

EERIE #1

HELP! #1 - #26

Special Edition - Best of Blazing Combat Anthology

Special Edition - Heidi Saha

Special Edition - House of Horror

and then the entire run of Famous Monsters of Filmland, should I ever decide to pursue them.

And of course they're not Warrens, but the SHUDDER and VAMPIRESS CARMILLA issues through Christmas 2022, when we get closer to the end of the year.

Not bad for 7 months' work!

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On 9/6/2022 at 6:15 PM, Jayman said:

Which Vampi 4 is supposed to be more rare, or is it about 50/50? This is the one I have.

I don't know any more about it than what @The Lions Den wrote on my purple Vampi 4 in my Gallery:

I'm a little surprised that more isn't made of the two variants of #4, since it seems like every little detail is its own variant in the world of comics--but nobody seems to really care to differentiate between the orange and the purple versions in any listings I've seen, so I don't think there's much if any of a value difference.

He said in his comment that he had heard that the purple version was less common, but in looking for an orange version, it almost seemed that the reverse was true--it was hard finding an acceptable copy of the orange version at an acceptable price.  But then, that could just be because that's what I was focusing on.

So I dunno...  

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On 9/6/2022 at 7:22 PM, Axe Elf said:

I don't know any more about it than what @The Lions Den wrote on my purple Vampi 4 in my Gallery:

I'm a little surprised that more isn't made of the two variants of #4, since it seems like every little detail is its own variant in the world of comics--but nobody seems to really care to differentiate between the orange and the purple versions in any listings I've seen, so I don't think there's much if any of a value difference.

He said in his comment that he had heard that the purple version was less common, but in looking for an orange version, it almost seemed that the reverse was true--it was hard finding an acceptable copy of the orange version at an acceptable price.  But then, that could just be because that's what I was focusing on.

So I dunno...  

I've seen numerous copies of both versions, but lately I've noticed that nice copies of either version are getting pretty hard to find. That "orange version" 9.6 copy that recently sold on Clink went for pretty good money, too... hm 

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On 9/6/2022 at 9:09 PM, The Lions Den said:

That "orange version" 9.6 copy that recently sold on Clink went for pretty good money, too...

I don't follow such things, but would you care to share?

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From what I've seen magazine collectors haven't really jumped onto the "minor variant" bandwagon very much yet.  Probably because a lot of the general collectors haven't jumped onto the magazine bandwagon yet. 

The two Vampirella 4 variants seem to be in the same ballpark as far as numbers go, so I doubt we'll see one wind up valued above the other.  Although the issue probably has quite a bit of room to grow as an early issue of Vampirella in general.

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There are two unverified theories on the orange vs pink copies of Vampirella 4. One (maybe the most likely) is that when the original ink tank ran out, it was replaced with the wrong color for the remainder of the run. It’s likely that orange was the intention. The second theory was that they went back to print on the issue, and screwed up the ink loading or read it incorrectly. It is strange that there has never been any commentary by people who worked at Warren and would know the answer. 

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On 9/7/2022 at 5:49 PM, Stevemmg said:

There are two unverified theories on the orange vs pink copies of Vampirella 4. One (maybe the most likely) is that when the original ink tank ran out, it was replaced with the wrong color for the remainder of the run. It’s likely that orange was the intention. The second theory was that they went back to print on the issue, and screwed up the ink loading or read it incorrectly. It is strange that there has never been any commentary by people who worked at Warren and would know the answer. 

If it were the first explanation, one would think that there would be noticeably more of one color than the other.  It would basically require that almost exactly half of the full number of copies printed were done with one ink tank, and the other virtually exact half of the run with the other tank.

I could probably figure this out if I applied myself, but maybe someone knows--would the orange lettering look more purple if say the "yellow" ink tank ran out, and the text kept printing on cyan and magenta only?  Since it doesn't seem to affect the cover painting itself, that would require that the cover was printed in two stages, with the painting going down first, and then the text over it.

It just seems really odd to me that both appear to be in equal quantities/value.

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On 9/6/2022 at 5:38 PM, Axe Elf said:

So, the only books I have remaining to complete my Warren collection are:

After Hours #1 - #4

COMIX INTERNATIONAL #3

EERIE #1

HELP! #1 - #26

Special Edition - Best of Blazing Combat Anthology

Special Edition - Heidi Saha

Special Edition - House of Horror

and then the entire run of Famous Monsters of Filmland, should I ever decide to pursue them.

And of course they're not Warrens, but the SHUDDER and VAMPIRESS CARMILLA issues through Christmas 2022, when we get closer to the end of the year.

Not bad for 7 months' work!

And one more purchase to shoehorn in before the official start of the NFL season tonight--a $49 copy of the Best of Blazing Combat Anthology!  It's not beautiful but then none of my Blazing Combats are, and it fills the hole for less than $50!

So, to update the quote, the only books I have remaining to complete my Warren collection are:

After Hours #1 - #4

COMIX INTERNATIONAL #3

EERIE #1

HELP! #1 - #26

Special Edition - Heidi Saha

Special Edition - House of Horror

...and then the entire run of Famous Monsters of Filmland, should I ever decide to pursue them.

And of course they're not Warrens, but the SHUDDER and VAMPIRESS CARMILLA issues through Christmas 2022, when we get closer to the end of the year.

Not bad for 7 months' work!

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On 9/8/2022 at 2:27 PM, Axe Elf said:

And one more purchase to shoehorn in before the official start of the NFL season tonight--a $49 copy of the Best of Blazing Combat Anthology!  It's not beautiful but then none of my Blazing Combats are, and it fills the hole for less than $50!

And here she is...  Man, I thought the Richard Corben book was thick--this thing is like 3/8th of an inch thick--it barely fits in a standard magazine size bag!

1600247367_SpecialEdition-TheBestofBlazingCombatAnthologyF.thumb.jpg.d73187c9a449325876d8e1656b9c5668.jpg

I'll probably drop her into the "Down the Warren Rabbit Hole" gallery later tonight, if you want to see the back cover too.

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A couple of new listings on daBay helped me plug a couple of holes in the near-finished Warren collection on Halloween (appropriately enough).  I'll just post the listing scans so I can make this post on Halloween as well.

I finally found a copy of Comix International 3 that wasn't crappy and wasn't overpriced (and wasn't already spoken for :) @OtherEric). 

s-l500.jpg

And I upgraded my EERIE #35 as well, from this:

1997031579_EERIE35F.thumb.jpg.0d51322482a4836f9e3eeb9906c1693a.jpg

To this:

s-l500.jpg

That was the last of my primary EERIEs that I had graded in the "Good" range, so all my primary EERIEs are now at least 3.0 or better.

I will probably never have an EERIE #1, but outside of that, with the Comix International run completed now, I need three complete series to have all the Warren mags:

After Hours #1 - #4

HELP! #1 - #26

And I will probably never have the Famous Monsters of Filmland series, but it's out there.

Besides the true Warrens, there are the two Warrant series I still need; I'm listing the issues that will be dated and hopefully acquired before Christmas:

SHUDDER #1 - #7, 2023 Annual

VAMPIRESS CARMILLA #1 - #11, 2023 Annual

So 30 more Warrens (31 counting EERIE #1) and 20 Warrants (and 200+ Famous Monsters of Filmland) and they're all MINE!!!

Edited by Axe Elf
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Oh good grief, what am I thinking?

I still need the Heidi Saha and House of Horror Special Editions as well.

Duh.

So 33 more Warrens counting EERIE #1, the 20 Warrants, and Famous Monsters of Filmland.

Edited by Axe Elf
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