TOP 20 COVERS OF THE COPPER AGE!

[Darrell F]

I don't have a scanner. Let me see if I can pick one out though.

[chrisco37]

I always liked this one:

 

[Darrell F]

What exactly are the date ranges for the copper age?

[chrisco37]

What exactly are the date ranges for the copper age?

 

Basically considered early 80's to start of "Image Era" (92/93?). Some people make the case for Cerebus #1 (1977) as the start. Overstreet says 1984. Who knows???

 

I prefer to be simple and say 1980-1992.

[Bonds25]

 

I prefer to be simple and say 1980-1992.

 

[Jayman]

Well are we gonna have a Copper age cover top 20?

I'll participate in this one!

 

I just posted the master list in Bronze, give me the weekend off - maybe next week. I'm still going through the PMs, based on feedback, might consider a few slight changes to the rules. Giving more votes and a few other things. Like I said you need 75 voters, its hard to gauge the support in Copper. And then YOU NEED TO ESTABLISH THE TIMELINE FOR COPPER.

 

Secondly its pretty much a 3 week committment, if you consider the nominations period, answering questions, making everyone aware how many days are left, what the nominations are thus far, logging it all, getting the scans, hosting the scans, creating the spreadsheets etc, etc, etc.

 

IMO you also need a long term board member to help you verify results and count all the votes to make sure the results match.

 

Tell you what if either Bonds or blowout volunteer to give me a hand I will see about something next week / next weekend

 

It might take a 3 week commitment just to establish the CA timeline!

 

First things first. Great job JBud on the BA top 20, enjoyed and appreciated the time and effort put into it by FFB and yourself. We've been exposed to these BA books for so long now that we all have had our established favorites for quite some time. Hence the results did contain certain books that were obligated to be included (especially in keeping with the likes of the forum).

 

Which got me thinking, the Copper Age IMO seems to be an undiscovered country of great covers to choose from. With the CCA becoming almost nonexistant, artists and writers started exploring a broader range of subject matter which found its way onto the covers. Also the explosion of independents adding to the big 2 and some top name artists emerging (Lee/McFarlane/Bolland), could make a Top 20 CA Cover poll far more interesting! Two things would be of importance: 1. As stated above, a timeline needs to be established. Using Overstreets or other criteria, makes no difference to me as long as there are set guidlines. 2. A decision to include/exclude magazine format books.

[jbud73]

Im not so much worried about the start timeline - since I ended BA with Dec 31, 1991, it makes sense to start Copper Jan 1992. Its the end date. Bonds and blowout have both offered to help out.

 

There is also a debate taking place (well my non-weighting hurt X-Men 141 so you can imagine JC is upset) to be fair it also hurt Conan 20 a book I nominated and voted for, so I truly did it because I fee weighting waters down a #1 vote and creates the possibility for TIES in the Top 20 - over the fact that I didnt weight the Data in the BA Poll. There are positives and negative to weighting the Data. IMO the more voters the less there is a need for it, but thats my statistical opinion, again

[Jayman]

Im not so much worried about the start timeline - since I ended BA with Dec 31, 1991, it makes sense to start Copper Jan 1992. Its the end date. Bonds and blowout have both offered to help out.

 

Did you mean 1981 and 1982?

 

And Kudos to Bonds and blowout for pitching in!

[jbud73]

ya sorry Jayman - Jan 1982

[Jayman]

S'ok, I know you know. Just

[jbud73]

 

Which got me thinking, the Copper Age IMO seems to be an undiscovered country of great covers to choose from. With the CCA becoming almost nonexistant, artists and writers started exploring a broader range of subject matter which found its way onto the covers. Also the explosion of independents adding to the big 2 and some top name artists emerging (Lee/McFarlane/Bolland), could make a Top 20 CA Cover poll far more interesting! Two things would be of importance: 1. As stated above, a timeline needs to be established. Using Overstreets or other criteria, makes no difference to me as long as there are set guidlines. 2. A decision to include/exclude magazine format books.

 

What does everyone think about the magazine format books? As I've said before I didn't include them in BA because I did not feel they were held to the same standards as comics.

[Jayman]

Not sure that would be the case in Copper Age. As the code was not as big a factor as in the Bronze Age comic/mag barrier. The Copper Mag. format books could be included IMO without any thought about different standards given.

[tth2]

There is also a debate taking place (well my non-weighting hurt X-Men 141 so you can imagine JC is upset)

JC would have found something to be upset no matter how you set up things. His prattling is so constant that it's just background noise at this point. I think most people appreciated your efforts!

 

I truly did it because I fee weighting waters down a #1 vote and creates the possibility for TIES in the Top 20 - over the fact that I didnt weight the Data in the BA Poll. There are positives and negative to weighting the Data. IMO the more voters the less there is a need for it, but thats my statistical opinion, again

There's a happy medium, in my opinion, which is to significantly overweight the top votes, so that a #1 vote is worth much more than a #5 (and a #2). For example:

 

#1 vote= 25 points

#2 = 12

#3 = 6

#4 = 3

#5 = 1

 

Or you could adjust the weightings further as you wish.

 

Anyways, the point is that this has the benefit of making a #1 vote extremely important, while not entirely discounting the value of lesser votes. The unfortunate side-effect of your voting system was that lesser votes had no value at all except in a tie-breaker situation, or until there were no higher tier votes left. It just seems weird to me that under your system a book that got one #1 vote and no other votes would have trumped a book that got 0 #1 votes but 50 #2 votes. If people truly understood beforehand how your voting system would work, it would have been relatively easy to game the system by using #1 votes on less popular books. My Special Marvel Edition #16, for instance, could've finished as high as #38 if I'd used my #1 vote on it, which would've been an absurd result.

 

Finally, with this very wide combination of points, I think the chances of a dead heat would be pretty small, probably no more than a book getting the exact same combination of votes under your system. You could make it even more improbable by widening the spread of points, so a #1 is worth 100, #2 is 25, etc. In this age of spreadsheet programs, it's as simple as changing your inputs into the formula. Anyways, what's wrong with a dead heat?

 

In any event, as I said in an earlier post, he who takes the initiative to do something gets to be dictator of that something, so whatever rules you choose to use are what the rest of us have to live with, if we want to participate.

[tth2]

Not sure that would be the case in Copper Age. As the code was not as big a factor as in the Bronze Age comic/mag barrier. The Copper Mag. format books could be included IMO without any thought about different standards given.

I agree that it makes less of a difference in CA because the quality of comic covers went up so much, but the purist in me says a magazine is a magazine and a comic is a comic, and they should be judged separately.

[jbud73]

Yes Tim your point is well taken as the system I used is generally seen as the first past the post system and used in election voting schemes. Of course there are 100s of thousands of people voting in those so its effect is lessened. I agree that I would like to weight the number 1 higher as in a straight weight of the BA resutls we see books in the Top 20 where Nobody had them at #1 and books with two 1st place votes not make the list. I just think that one persons 1st is worth more than two 3rd place votes. The % of weighting will still be key of course.

 

I think the straight ranked tabulation holds up rather well in the Top 20 actually, but thats my opinion. Maybe a 7-5-3-2-1. I want to make it fair without making it too complicated for the tabulation

[RDK]

Yes, a weighted point system is definitely the way to go in something like this. In addition, I don't think ties are that big a deal. Personally, I prefer a 5-4-3-2-1 or JBud's 7-5-3-2-1 point spread suggestion, in part because it doesn't give the higher-placements too much added weight over the fourth and fifth place votes. For me, it's hard enough to decide on a top 5 on any given day let alone rank those five consistently. In other words, I'd give more weight to how many votes a particular book gets than in the specific ranking of those votes.

 

Ray

[delekkerste]

#1 vote= 25 points

#2 = 12

#3 = 6

#4 = 3

#5 = 1

 

Ugh, a first-place vote is worth 25x a fifth-place vote? So if some jag-off votes for Rob Liefeld's X-Force #1 as his/her first place vote, that would nullify a bunch of people voting for something else in the #2-#5 position??

 

I don't like that at all...I'd stick with the logical 5-4-3-2-1, ties be damned, or go Fibonacci with an 8-5-3-2-1 system.

[ComicBookGuy]

For what it's worth, the silver age cover contest has started:

 

Silver Age Cover Contest

[jbud73]

For what it's worth, the silver age cover contest has started:

 

Silver Age Cover Contest

 

Can I sue for copyright??

 

Well that kind of complicates things. I personally didnt see any support for it with Silver yet so I didnt press it there, however I wouldnt want to under cut the SA Poll. Then again this thread has been up in Copper for weeks - so in effect I think we've been under cut

[mica]

Well that kind of complicates things. I personally didnt see any support for it with Silver yet so I didnt press it there, however I wouldnt want to under cut the SA Poll. Then again this thread has been up in Copper for weeks - so in effect I think we've been under cut

No please.... I plan on voting in the Copper contest, in fact I can't wait.

There's plenty of love around here. In fact I'm glad to see some agreement on when the Copper Age starts.