This Month in My Magazine Collection, or "How I Got Most of the Warren Mags in a Month" 2 2

[Axe Elf]

On 1/25/2023 at 8:22 PM, OtherEric said:

First Buck Rogers.  Probably the single most valuable science fiction pulp, although I haven’t done a thorough comparison.

Awesome!

[Axe Elf]

[Axe Elf]

February 5 was the day I placed my first order for a Warren magazine in 2021.  I haven't given up on finding a HELP! #12b in the next ten days, but it looks like I will come that book and an EERIE #1 (that I will probably never have) away from collecting all of the magazines Warren ever published (other than the Famous Monsters of Filmland title) inside of a year.

I usually don't like to talk much about prices on here, other than my infamous $50 max per book guideline (which I obviously violated with all four After Hours books and both the Heidi Saha and House of Horror Special Editions)--but I listed all the fees I paid to the Upgrade Wizard for a reason.  The way the finances have all worked out for me over the past few weeks to finish my collection in under a year could almost be seen as divine intervention.

First of all, my dad was a farmer with a lot of common sense who made several good investments over the course of his life, so when he died about five years ago, he left my mother pretty much set for the rest of her life, and she likes to see us enjoying the money with her, so she gave each of us 3 kids $2000 for Christmas.  My wife's parents aren't living, so I let her do whatever she wants with $1000, and I planned to use my half to work on my Warrens--maybe I'll get one of the big ticket books that I need!

Then I also thought I was going to be receiving $410 in fantasy football winnings this year, but the way Yahoo handled the cancelled game between the Bills and Bengals was in my favor, and I ended up winning two leagues in which I thought I would be taking 2nd place, so my winnings ultimately totaled $640 in fantasy football winnings.

So I upgraded 12 EERIEs, including obtaining a 2nd low- to mid-grade EERIE #17, for $199.67--but when you include tax and shipping fees, it was actually a total of $286.40.  Add $20.20 for the HELP! #12c and I'm at $306.60.

The After Hours #4 pretty much rounded out the first $500, with a winning bid of $145.50 and shipping/tax of $24.32 for a total of $169.82--bringing the running total to $476.42.

The second $500 was eaten up by Heidi Saha.  As I mentioned, I negotiated a price some $58 above the last two sales on daBay ($458), and with shipping and tax I landed Heidi for $510.20.  That brought me $14 short of the $1000 from my mom.

The House of Horror had been sitting at MyComicShop for some time, with a price of $609 there and $700 on daBay--but it had a "Best Offer" option, so I started with an offer of $500 but eventually settled on $575.  Of course there was a $17 consignment fee, so after that and tax/shipping, my fantasy football winnings covered $640 of the $656.87 total charge.  So I'm $17 over there, but $14 under for mom's gift...

...so upgrading 12 EERIEs and plugging the final holes in my collection with HELP! #12c, After Hours #4, Heidi Saha and House of Horror cost me $3 of my own money.  (Or I guess you could say it cost me $210 of my own money, if you include the $207 I paid in fantasy football league fees back in August.)

God is good.

And that is how I spent my sixtieth year on this Earth--down the Warren rabbit hole.

[Axe Elf]

Parenthetically, I just got home from getting my first haircut and beard trim since starting my Warren quest.

[Jayman]

On 1/26/2023 at 7:02 PM, Axe Elf said:

Parenthetically, I just got home from getting my first haircut and beard trim since starting my Warren quest.

This is the BIG news. Isn’t it? 

[Axe Elf]

While I understand this comes from a place of selfish self-centered narcissisitic butt-hurtness, I really thought there would be more genuflecting and applause upon my near-completion of the Warren mags in under a year.  I mean it seems like ever since I joined last February my progress has been met with congratulations, encouragement, information and even some amazing grace from boardies helping me reach my goal.  Back on page six or seven when I snagged all four Blazing Combats in one fell swoop, some people nearly lost their minds--and then I magically come into the money to land nice copies of arguably the three most difficult Warren mags in the space of a week, bringing home the full collection in just under a year, and all I get is a couple of likes...?

Hmph.

I mean, I'm not saying I'm fishing for compliments, but I'm fishing for compliments here!

And if that's too petty for you, I hope you can at least join me in giving God the credit for making this story possible over the past year--and for a Christmas miracle to bring it all full circle.

Edited January 28, 2023 by Axe Elf

[OtherEric]

Sorry if my response was a bit underwhelming by the end, but I just couldn't think of anything to add that I hadn't really said so went with the simple "likes".  I think part of that is, of the three books, I personally consider the House of Horror the least interesting of the three, and the After Hours the most interesting.  So the books, while all genuinely impressive, were moving backwards on my personal interest scale. 

There's also the fact that the issue are all somewhat reserved for the true Warren completest... lots of us have gone looking for the Blazing Combat run, for instance, and instantly grasp your achievement in getting them all at once.  But most of us have filed those three books as unobtainable or not ones we're looking for, so we don't have that visceral "you beat me to the deal" reaction that we did on the Blazing Combats.

Getting those books is an amazing achievement, and you have my congratulations and admiration!

[Jayman]

On 1/28/2023 at 6:27 PM, OtherEric said:

Getting those books is an amazing achievement, and you have my congratulations and admiration!

Here, here! @Axe Elf Three great gets to be sure. I agree with @OtherEric that the After Hours is the most interesting. I don’t own any, but the Heidi book has some bad press attached to it (some like it - some don’t). The HOH book also has the stigma of have being stolen from Forrest J. Ackerman’s home. 

[Axe Elf]

On 1/28/2023 at 5:27 PM, OtherEric said:

But most of us have filed those three books as unobtainable or not ones we're looking for, so we don't have that visceral "you beat me to the deal" reaction that we did on the Blazing Combats.

That's interesting.  I guess I recognize that as fellow Warren collectors, yes, we're all technically in competition with each other--but it's always felt like a very cooperative competition here in the Comic Magazines forum.  Like when you PMed me a few months back when we both needed a Comix Illustrated 3 to point out the one that was up on daBay and to see if I was going for it too.  You'd seen it first, so I agreed not to bid on it unless it went higher than what you were willing to pay for it, and then I could bid on it up to my $50 limit.  You ended up landing that copy, and I found mine a little while later.  Then later you tipped me off to the HELP! run for sale here.

The Blazing Combat copies I got really aren't even all that good.  If there's one book I regret not going over $50 for, it's probably Blazing Combat #1, and that may be one of my most urgent upgrade goals in this coming year would be to find a solid sixish/sevenish Blazing Combat #1.

I'm sorry if I ever made anyone feel "less than."  I took vicarious pleasure in seeing some of the rest of you here reach goals that you've held a lot longer than I've had mine, and I just assumed my Year of Collecting Warrens was just another story that gave us all pleasure.

I mean, you guys are really THE ONLY people in my lives I can talk about this stuff with.  If I showed a Heidi Saha to anyone in my family, at work, on Facebook--nobody would even know what it was.  If you'd showed ME a Heidi Saha a year ago, I wouldn't have known what it was.  So I was just kind of excited to have you guys along on my journey, and ride along on yours.

It's a competition, yeah, and I've "won" in a lot of ways, and some of y'all's amazing acquisitions have had me beat in a lot of ways, but at the end of the day, I consider us all just birds of a feather.

On 1/28/2023 at 5:55 PM, Jayman said:

I agree with @OtherEric that the After Hours is the most interesting.

I don't have much to go on other than the cost of acquiring them, and by that metric, they went in the order I posted them.

On 1/28/2023 at 5:55 PM, Jayman said:

I don’t own any, but the Heidi book has some bad press attached to it (some like it - some don’t). The HOH book also has the stigma of have being stolen from Forrest J. Ackerman’s home.

The "bad press" that I've seen attached to the Heidi book is that it contains child pornography, but it doesn't.  It's basically just a pointless journey through a teenage girl's yearbooks.  But I didn't buy it to put posters of Heidi on my wall; I bought it as a commodity--one of the last pieces of my Warren puzzle.

I hadn't heard that about the HOH books (or do you mean this one specifically?), but if Forry or his estate feel that they would like to make themselves whole at my expense, I will return the book to them free of charge at their request, here certified publicly in writing.

Are we good?

[OtherEric]

On 1/28/2023 at 4:56 PM, Axe Elf said:

That's interesting.  I guess I recognize that as fellow Warren collectors, yes, we're all technically in competition with each other--but it's always felt like a very cooperative competition here in the Comic Magazines forum.  Like when you PMed me a few months back when we both needed a Comix Illustrated 3 to point out the one that was up on daBay and to see if I was going for it too.  You'd seen it first, so I agreed not to bid on it unless it went higher than what you were willing to pay for it, and then I could bid on it up to my $50 limit.  You ended up landing that copy, and I found mine a little while later.  Then later you tipped me off to the HELP! run for sale here.

The Blazing Combat copies I got really aren't even all that good.  If there's one book I regret not going over $50 for, it's probably Blazing Combat #1, and that may be one of my most urgent upgrade goals in this coming year would be to find a solid sixish/sevenish Blazing Combat #1.

I'm sorry if I ever made anyone feel "less than."  I took vicarious pleasure in seeing some of the rest of you here reach goals that you've held a lot longer than I've had mine, and I just assumed my Year of Collecting Warrens was just another story that gave us all pleasure.

I mean, you guys are really THE ONLY people in my lives I can talk about this stuff with.  If I showed a Heidi Saha to anyone in my family, at work, on Facebook--nobody would even know what it was.  If you'd showed ME a Heidi Saha a year ago, I wouldn't have known what it was.  So I was just kind of excited to have you guys along on my journey, and ride along on yours.

It's a competition, yeah, and I've "won" in a lot of ways, and some of y'all's amazing acquisitions have had me beat in a lot of ways, but at the end of the day, I consider us all just birds of a feather.

I don't have much to go on other than the cost of acquiring them, and by that metric, they went in the order I posted them.

The "bad press" that I've seen attached to the Heidi book is that it contains child pornography, but it doesn't.  It's basically just a pointless journey through a teenage girl's yearbooks.  But I didn't buy it to put posters of Heidi on my wall; I bought it as a commodity--one of the last pieces of my Warren puzzle.

I hadn't heard that about the HOH books (or do you mean this one specifically?), but if Forry or his estate feel that they would like to make themselves whole at my expense, I will return the book to them free of charge at their request, here certified publicly in writing.

Are we good?

We were never anything other than good in my book, and you certainly never made me feel "less than" in any way.  I phrased "beat me to the deal" very badly; it's absolutely a friendly competition.  But it means I know what finding the Blazing Combats is like on a gut level that I simply don't on the three books, because I had my own hunt for them.  Goodness knows I gloat about the fact I got a pedigree BC #3 enough, I'm all about showing off as well.  But it's harder for me to react to these books because they're not on my radar like the others were.

I had never heard that about the HoH books either, but it's not something I know much about either. 

[Jayman]

Man, I had to search for my reply on this subject from an old post from 2010 for the answer:

    Jayman said: 

I located the article mentioning the House of Horror magazine for anyone who is interested…

 

The following is an excerpt from an introduction by Forrest J. Ackerman for the 1988 “Collector’s Guide to Monster, Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Magazines” price guide.

 

“This mysterious magazine American oneshot, House of Horror, missing from 99% of completists’ collections: here’s the story on it. There was such a magazine in England. Warren learned they were about to ship a number of copies to America each issue. He didn’t want any extra competition so he rushed into print a domestic magazine with the same name, reprinting 4 articles by me with a 5th reprint by Dennis Billows, an assistant of mine at the time. The edition was extremely limited ---only 400 copies, if I recall correctly, though on a nice white better stock of paper than FM ---because the publisher only had to satisfy certain copyright regulations, such as circulating 200 copies in 5 states (or whatever). This was in 1978. The unsold copies of the “ashcan” edition he gave to me. At one time an assistant (not Billows) stole about 30 copies from me and sold them to a dealer in a nearby city. After the perfidy came to my attention (and the assistant was gone) I bought back my own magazines because they had been sold for far less than I knew they were worth.” 

 

[OtherEric]

On 1/28/2023 at 8:57 PM, Jayman said:

Man, I had to search for my reply on this subject from an old post from 2010 for the answer:

 

    Jayman said: 

I located the article mentioning the House of Horror magazine for anyone who is interested…

 

The following is an excerpt from an introduction by Forrest J. Ackerman for the 1988 “Collector’s Guide to Monster, Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Magazines” price guide.

 

“This mysterious magazine American oneshot, House of Horror, missing from 99% of completists’ collections: here’s the story on it. There was such a magazine in England. Warren learned they were about to ship a number of copies to America each issue. He didn’t want any extra competition so he rushed into print a domestic magazine with the same name, reprinting 4 articles by me with a 5th reprint by Dennis Billows, an assistant of mine at the time. The edition was extremely limited ---only 400 copies, if I recall correctly, though on a nice white better stock of paper than FM ---because the publisher only had to satisfy certain copyright regulations, such as circulating 200 copies in 5 states (or whatever). This was in 1978. The unsold copies of the “ashcan” edition he gave to me. At one time an assistant (not Billows) stole about 30 copies from me and sold them to a dealer in a nearby city. After the perfidy came to my attention (and the assistant was gone) I bought back my own magazines because they had been sold for far less than I knew they were worth.” 

 

 

Thank you.  That makes it sound like less than 10% of the copies are the ones that were stolen, and some of those he recovered.  So the odds of this being one of those copies is pretty low.

[Jayman]

On 1/29/2023 at 12:17 AM, OtherEric said:

Thank you.  That makes it sound like less than 10% of the copies are the ones that were stolen, and some of those he recovered.  So the odds of this being one of those copies is pretty low.

True. It had been a while and I had forgotten how many were stolen and how many were actually recovered. 

[The Lions Den]

On 1/29/2023 at 8:38 AM, Jayman said:

True. It had been a while and I had forgotten how many were stolen and how many were actually recovered. 

Thanks for posting this, Jayman. I had the same problem trying to remember exactly how the HOH story went. One thing's for sure---it's a pretty scarce book.

So, congratulations to "Axe" for scoring one, even though it's really just another example of Jim Warren's notoriously heavy-handed business tactics...  

[Jayman]

Here is the link from the archived thread (which I should have originally posted) for more insight and discussion on rare Warrens.

 

[OtherEric]

On 1/29/2023 at 6:16 AM, The Lions Den said:

Thanks for posting this, Jayman. I had the same problem trying to remember exactly how the HOH story went. One thing's for sure---it's a pretty scarce book.

So, congratulations to "Axe" for scoring one, even though it's really just another example of Jim Warren's notoriously heavy-handed business tactics...  

It may just be me, but as near as I can tell everyone in the B & W comic magazine business was similarly heavy handed when they could be.

[The Lions Den]

On 1/29/2023 at 11:31 AM, OtherEric said:

It may just be me, but as near as I can tell everyone in the B & W comic magazine business was similarly heavy handed when they could be.

The one that stands out to me as always being a good guy was Al Hewetson. By all accounts, a genuine and well-liked human being. And apparently the publishers of Skywald were pretty good folks to work with as well.

But after reading extensively about Jim Warren, it sounds like he wasn't always fair with people, including the artists and writers that made his magazines so great.  

[Jayman]

On 1/29/2023 at 11:56 AM, The Lions Den said:

The one that stands out to me as always being a good guy was Al Hewetson. By all accounts, a genuine and well-liked human being. And apparently the publishers of Skywald were pretty good folks to work with as well.

I still find it hard to believe that Skywald never copyrighted their magazines or stories. They are all public domain now as far as I can tell.

[OtherEric]

On 1/29/2023 at 9:13 AM, Jayman said:

I still find it hard to believe that Skywald never copyrighted their magazines or stories. They are all public domain now as far as I can tell.

The weird thing there is they apparently did copyright their actual comics, just not the magazines.

[Jayman]

On 1/29/2023 at 12:18 PM, OtherEric said:

The weird thing there is they apparently did copyright their actual comics, just not the magazines.

Yes that’s correct. Must be a separate legal process, one for comics and one for mags I guess. 

I only know the mags are public domain because of that company Gwandanoland (sp)? That publishes the Nightmare, Psycho and Scream books. It mentions that Skywald never secured the rights to these titles on the back cover.