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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

ACK!

Why did no one tell me?

There aren't 26 issues of HELP!...  there are 27!

There is a #12A ("JULY" in black) and a #12B ("SEPT" in white)!

Sigh...

 

Oh well, 700 steps forward and 1 step back still isn't a bad rate at all.

 

On the plus side, the Halloween purchases--and a few other surprises--should be arriving soon.

Stay tuned...

Edited by Axe Elf
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On 11/5/2022 at 8:41 AM, Axe Elf said:

ACK!

Why did no one tell me?

There aren't 26 issues of HELP!...  there are 27!

There is a #12A ("JULY" in black) and a #12B ("SEPT" in white)!

Sigh...

 

Oh well, 700 steps forward and 1 step back still isn't a bad rate at all.

 

On the plus side, the Halloween purchases--and a few other surprises--should be arriving soon.

Stay tuned...

The only variation on the #12 is in the position and nature of the dates.

And there are three variants on Help #12, not two.

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I actually don't think any of the variants have July on the cover... or if one does, it's covered completely.

One has a black box on the left covering July and Sept on the right in black.  One has Sept as black on white over where the July was previously.  And one has Sept in both places.

Covers taken from the GCD, although one of them is actually my copy... I just don't have the original scan handy.

1.jpg

2.jpg

3.jpg

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On 11/5/2022 at 12:24 PM, OtherEric said:

I actually don't think any of the variants have July on the cover... or if one does, it's covered completely.

One has a black box on the left covering July and Sept on the right in black.  One has Sept as black on white over where the July was previously.  And one has Sept in both places.

Covers taken from the GCD, although one of them is actually my copy... I just don't have the original scan handy.

1.jpg

2.jpg

3.jpg

I don't see a difference between 2 and 3 here.  Don't they both have SEPT in black lettering on a white background?

EDIT:  Ohh, I see, one doesn't have the extra "SEPT" in black on the right side near the top.

Well poop... 28 issues of HELP! to go, then.

Edited by Axe Elf
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So that's the Comix International 4a and 4b, the Vampirella #4 purple and #4 orange, and HELP! #12a, #12b, and #12c.

Any other double-super-secret variant editions out there I should know about?

EDIT:  Not counting foreign editions and such; don't care about those.

Edited by Axe Elf
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On 11/5/2022 at 12:57 PM, Axe Elf said:

So that's the Comix International 4a and 4b, the Vampirella #4 purple and #4 orange, and HELP! #12a, #12b, and #12c.

Any other double-super-secret variant editions out there I should know about?

EDIT:  Not counting foreign editions and such; don't care about those.

I think there’s a few in Famous Monsters.  Not positive 

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On 11/5/2022 at 5:40 PM, OtherEric said:

I, personally, stopped at 1.  But to each their own, I'm not going to tell anybody else how to enjoy their hobby.

I don't bother replying to him any more.  I just report the posts and let Mike remove them/him.

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On 11/5/2022 at 4:53 PM, OtherEric said:

I think there’s a few in Famous Monsters.  Not positive 

Yeah, there are, but I don't care about those (yet) either.

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This weekend I was treated to the kindness of a fellow board member, @Makmorn, who saw that I was seeking the After Hours series en route to completing my Warren collection, and offered me the first three issues in excellent condition!  I won't say the price, but I will say that these are the first books for which I have paid more than $50 each--but for the condition they're in, he still made me what I considered to be a very generous offer!

It's that kind of thing that makes this board a great place to be.  May we all take care of each other like that.

2043337728_AfterHours1F.thumb.jpg.7b03ea4fa7f2ccbb3fc0f268e86dec27.jpg

352040048_AfterHours2F.thumb.jpg.291198ab487c820f18eb6d6968ff36f2.jpg

161652146_AfterHours3F.thumb.jpg.15ec6d2c6de386f32d6568b5bbd57cc7.jpg

My Comix International 3 also arrived today, but that's almost incidental to the After Hours acquisition.

1454406870_ComixInternational3F.thumb.jpg.38a4849bf7b7bb466f90b16e37dafc18.jpg

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Upgrades arrived for EERIE #35 and VAMPIRELLA #89:

From this:

62129383_ALTEERIE35F.thumb.jpg.a5ae30d7c92df6d06d9d3e91258be2e3.jpg

To this:

576488929_EERIE35F.thumb.jpg.4f2dce648013f939454f81ad5431a429.jpg

And from the worst book in my VAMPIRELLA run:

280762892_ALTVAMPIRELLA89F.thumb.jpg.6559b787d3c6a699030b1766e0909d81.jpg

To this:

1969603721_VAMPIRELLA89F.thumb.jpg.3cef31082d2c7d267d0e0b419e489f93.jpg

Ironically, I paid about $30 for the first one as part of the full run, but only about $10 for the individual upgrade, including shipping!

Truth be told, I bought the #89 in a package deal for it, #90, and #92; all 3 for $20 + $10 shipping/tax.  So now I have $10 undercopies of #90 and #92 as well.  The #90 almost wasn't even an undercopy; the front cover of the new one is probably just slightly better than the one I had, although the back cover of the new one is noticeably worse than the one I had.  So the original is technically the better overall copy, although the new one looks slightly better when bagged and boarded (because you can only see the front).  I'm keeping the original as the primary copy, but the new one isn't bad either.

Old:

941976747_VAMPIRELLA90F.thumb.jpg.e1a1d12b21c6fbe50c48c119a50c96e6.jpg125013370_VAMPIRELLA90B.thumb.jpg.219f48971d4ff742b754a6e85794cf49.jpg

New:

990044249_ALTVAMPIRELLA90F.thumb.jpg.e4739505564e52f28d76535b2aced33f.jpg1139476385_ALTVAMPIRELLA90B.thumb.jpg.c19983197a68fdcb8fd0f3eb4aed6bf0.jpg

Lotta scuffing on the back of the new one, and some kind of smudge in the center of the copy at the bottom.

Edited by Axe Elf
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On 11/7/2022 at 3:02 PM, Axe Elf said:

This weekend I was treated to the kindness of a fellow board member, @Makmorn, who saw that I was seeking the After Hours series en route to completing my Warren collection, and offered me the first three issues in excellent condition!  I won't say the price, but I will say that these are the first books for which I have paid more than $50 each--but for the condition they're in, he still made me what I considered to be a very generous offer!

It's that kind of thing that makes this board a great place to be.  May we all take care of each other like that.

 

352040048_AfterHours2F.thumb.jpg.291198ab487c820f18eb6d6968ff36f2.jpg

 

 

Huh.  Ernie Kovacs got name checked on the After Hours #2 cover, then actually appeared on the Help! #2 cover.

Help_02.thumb.jpg.4977637298747855031971a240a6203e.jpg

Nothing terribly exciting, but I find it an interesting coincidence.

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On 11/10/2022 at 11:04 PM, OtherEric said:

Huh.  Ernie Kovacs got name checked on the After Hours #2 cover, then actually appeared on the Help! #2 cover.

Help_02.thumb.jpg.4977637298747855031971a240a6203e.jpg

Nothing terribly exciting, but I find it an interesting coincidence.

Kovacs was very influential in comedy; must have been a favorite of Warren's.

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Since I recently upgraded the last of my EERIEs that was under 3.0, and upgraded the worst book in the Vampirella run, I started thinking about which were the worst books in my CREEPY run and might therefore be targets for upgrades to that series.  Probably my worst CREEPY is #29, but that one's going to be a little pricey to upgrade.  I did find six others that pain me a little, though, and started looking them up on daBay.

By some coincidence, someone was selling off all their individual CREEPY issues in auctions that were all ending from a few minutes from when I searched to a couple of hours later, many at very attractive prices.

I missed out on a #47 and a #118 because they were bid up over $30, but I managed to land upgrades for my #41 for $15.50, a #45 for $7.69, and a #46 for $10.83.  $8.15 for tax/shipping on all three makes $42.17 for upgrading 3 of my 7 worst CREEPYs.  They aren't huge upgrades, but they are appreciable.

And all that would be fine and dandy, but when I looked at some of his other sales that had ended shortly before I started searching today, I found this:

image.thumb.png.26472defd7c5167654fd21462b21bfa8.png

AARGH!  It may only be a 5.5, but it's way better than my copy.  A nice upgrade for my worst CREEPY for $17.75 would have been awesome!!!  LINK

I sadly watched an auction for a reasonably nice copy of the Heidi Saha Special Edition close at $400 earlier today, too.  Though that's a couple hundred less than I've ever seen any other copy priced at--and even though I recently broke my $50 per book barrier in acquiring the first three After Hours issues--I'm just not quite ready to put down HUNDREDS of dollars on a single book yet.  I know I will have to eventually, if I'm going to complete the Special Editions with Heidi Saha and House of Horror.  Maybe with next year's tax refund or something.

Oh well, patience is a virtue...  and I've done some good work this month already, between these upgrades to the CREEPY, EERIE and VAMPI runs, the After Hours windfall, and finally nabbing a Comix International 3.

My SHUDDER and VAMPIRESS CARMILLA back issues (through December 2022) should be arriving soon too...

Edited by Axe Elf
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On 11/12/2022 at 12:25 AM, Axe Elf said:

I managed to land upgrades for my #41 for $15.50, a #45 for $7.69, and a #46 for $10.83.

Well, I THOUGHT they were upgrades.

Turns out the only one that is clearly an upgrade is the #46, from this:

568715091_ALTCREEPY46F.thumb.jpg.ae2b82c6d09de12576e4b525a6c23933.jpg

660455609_ALTCREEPY46B.thumb.jpg.ecb02f3b3edac4aa24646fcd14c37e72.jpg

To this:

196149198_CREEPY46F.thumb.jpg.53226748fba743c6185a124a4a5cad1f.jpg

1424640652_CREEPY46B.thumb.jpg.55bc2892d6b0b2a66a707a00d8c9bb50.jpg

The #41 and the #45 are clearly upgrades on their back covers, but the front covers on each of the new books appear to be slightly WORSE than the ones I had originally.  Which means that even if the better back covers make the new books technically "upgrades" overall, they'll look worse in bags and boards where you only see the front anyway.

So I'm not really sure which of these to call my main copy and which to call my undercopy.  For now I think I am leaving the original copies with the better front covers as my main copies, but feedback and opinions are welcome.

The old #41:

2082327582_CREEPY41F.thumb.jpg.c98d2cd8f399c8227f6c626229645d9f.jpg

568503511_CREEPY41B.thumb.jpg.9b4349e9c2127dabfa768ec3217ff55f.jpg

The new #41

1561593881_ALTCREEPY41F.thumb.jpg.231833c54b22a4b0836c2295df41f909.jpg

1627802819_ALTCREEPY41B.thumb.jpg.4c5b7511a9d85d7b1c4177ea5e9f173f.jpg

The old #45

623239980_CREEPY45F.thumb.jpg.cbd04e870e880077957da1a3bb385fbd.jpg

1136048240_CREEPY45B.thumb.jpg.c2c9de4f8950265443ad4d8109dbff7c.jpg

The new #45

441062561_ALTCREEPY45F.thumb.jpg.986d0ecc5f25d6c1a2b6600a2226756f.jpg

750278966_ALTCREEPY45B.thumb.jpg.c9172d9c1da4ba53597a9b83df2bc8eb.jpg

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I was kind of hoping that the SHUDDER and VAMPIRESS CARMILLA orders would arrive in one shipment, but I had to place the orders separately, so I guess they shipped them separately as well.  The SHUDDERs arrived on Saturday.

I was a little disappointed in the condition of most of them.  I realize that getting books directly from the publisher doesn't necessarily mean they are going to be Gem Mint or anything, but I'd like to think they'd be at least "9.0ish" or better.  A couple of these have stacking bends near the spine, a few have some other bends to them, there are a couple with small corner creases, a few spine ticks on some, a stark white back cover has a few small areas of scuffing on it, etc.  A couple would probably grade more like 8.5 or even 8.0, at least without pressing, although they seem to present pretty well in the scans.  That said, I don't expect these to be worth any real money or anything in the next 50 years or so; it would just be nice to think I'd get back some pretty nice copies when I order direct from the publisher--like the CREEPS run I got earlier this year.  Oh well...

I'll be posting all of them with the back covers to the "Other Warranted Warrenesque Warrenness" gallery soon, but here's a quick look:

650580996_SHUDDER1F.thumb.jpg.618adb5ec1ec05c226d7b40b1f097098.jpg639243773_SHUDDER2F.thumb.jpg.4f9cb67a0506b865118386a784e40d59.jpg415848490_SHUDDER3F.thumb.jpg.c5908785468aad2966da60f4cd6ab25c.jpg1080717764_SHUDDER4F.thumb.jpg.9c38b9109e72f82462ed3f0f90a07f04.jpg1237205269_SHUDDER5F.thumb.jpg.d180e706600c46e6dbd49053b3a776c7.jpg849529617_SHUDDER6F.thumb.jpg.b177b13b4fb19d1d29b5a7d626031112.jpg942306964_SHUDDER7F.thumb.jpg.c382c5471e707fe399607382968afb16.jpg689339729_SHUDDER2023AnnualF.thumb.jpg.d364042b8f7fa9e5644b7605ab93ef99.jpg

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So it's November 30, basically 10 months after my official "start" date of February 5, and the VAMPIRESS CARMILLA shipment arrived today.  I'll be getting them posted when I have time to scan them, but fortunately they appear to be in better shape than the SHUDDERs were, in general.

So after 10 months, I guess I'm basically down to the Hs left on the wish list...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The HELP! series (28 issues)

The Heidi Saha Special Edition (1 issue)

The House of Horror Special Edition (1 issue)

After Hours #4 (1 issue)

EERIE #1 (2 issues, if I want to have both 1st and 2nd printings - I know, dream on...)

(And of course the entire Famous Monsters of Filmland run, other than the 10 that are actually Monster Worlds.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If I just get the first 4 by February 5, I'll have collected a near-complete set of Warren mags in a year.

So if you know anyone who has a full run or near-full run of HELP!s reasonably priced (they don't even have to be in great condition)...  drop me a note.

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On 11/30/2022 at 2:41 PM, Axe Elf said:

So it's November 30, basically 10 months after my official "start" date of February 5, and the VAMPIRESS CARMILLA shipment arrived today.  I'll be getting them posted when I have time to scan them, but fortunately they appear to be in better shape than the SHUDDERs were, in general.

So after 10 months, I guess I'm basically down to the Hs left on the wish list...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The HELP! series (28 issues)

The Heidi Saha Special Edition (1 issue)

The House of Horror Special Edition (1 issue)

After Hours #4 (1 issue)

EERIE #1 (2 issues, if I want to have both 1st and 2nd printings - I know, dream on...)

(And of course the entire Famous Monsters of Filmland run, other than the 10 that are actually Monster Worlds.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If I just get the first 4 by February 5, I'll have collected a near-complete set of Warren mags in a year.

So if you know anyone who has a full run or near-full run of HELP!s reasonably priced (they don't even have to be in great condition)...  drop me a note.

The offer of a couple low-grade extra Help!s from me stands, but complete runs seem to be scarce on the ground.  As I’ve mentioned, I think I’m the only forum regular who has claimed a full run in their personal collection.

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On 11/30/2022 at 6:44 PM, OtherEric said:

The offer of a couple low-grade extra Help!s from me stands

I do totally appreciate that, and if I ever decide to start acquiring the run issue by issue, I may in fact take you up on the offer.

Right now I'm still kind of hoping to get the bulk run discount at some point--and not have to pay $6 shipping on top of every single $30 issue.  So a full run would be ideal, or maybe two or three larger lots and then I could fill in the holes--but averaging around $40 per issue for most of them, once you add tax and shipping, isn't particularly attractive--especially with the two other big-dollar Hs still out there (Heidi Saha and House of Horror).

I feel so close, but I'm probably still almost $2k away from realizing the dream (not even counting EERIE #1 or any Famous Monsters)--and that's not an insignificant percentage of what I have spent to acquire the rest of the collection.  The other two Hs will probly run about $600-$700 each, and another $100 or so for After Hours #4, so if I can keep the HELP! run down to $500-$600, that would, well, help!

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