Nuff Said

There's a riot going on

2007-09-23T15:22:00.002+02:00

The Summer was quite uneventful when it came to major purchases, in fact I hardly bought anything at all. Normally Summertime is when my spending increases because I'm home from work and get to be on-line more (yes even more) and let's not forget there are bargains to be had during this period.

Lots of people sell off their excess stuff at lower prices because they need money to go visit all the cons. And last but not least, a of of people are on holiday, away from the computer or just outside more and there are less bidders for stuff on eBay. But like I said, I didn't buy a lot of books this Summer, but what I forgot to mention is that I did spend a lot of money this Summer...just not on comics

Ever since the punch in the stomach I got from my AF15 splitting I have taken a step back from collecting, this happens to me about once a year and never seems to last, but this time it lasted three months.
I just wasn't interested in hunting down books or looking at auctions. And I certainly wasn't about to spend even more money, not knowing what my AF15's fate was. So I turned to the side-street of comic collecting and picked up where I left about four years ago. I started buying original art again.

Back in 2003 I bought a John Buscema page with Doom/Superman/Spider-man and a Dave Cockrum Cover recreation of X-men 145 (Doom holding Storm). I was planning to collect Silver and Bronze Age pages featuring the good Doctor, with the crowning piece a nice Kirby Doom-FF battle page.
But at the time I was also very busy completing the Marvel Superhero titles and you can only stretch a dollar that much. I did check eBay every week for a nice vintage Doom page, but the pickings were slim and when I did spot something I liked it was a bit too expensive for me.

The art collecting kinda drifted to the background, but has now resurfaced. The sad news is that due to the increase in price (even in the last few years) a Kirby FF/Doom page will probably be out of my league for a while....we're talking $5000 just for a starter page. The good news is that I've decided not to concentrate on Doom and only Doom any more.
I'm going for published Marvel Superhero art up till around 1985 with the emphasis on Doom, Captain America and Hulk pages.
But if I find a page from a later date which I like (a Sean Phillips Zombie Doom ) I won't turn it down.

I've bought a few pages this month to start me off, and this is the first one I'd like to share.

It's a Sal Buscema splash, majestically showing Captain America going fist-first into a full blown race-riot.
Can't get more dramatic than this.

I decided not to frame my art, but to keep it in a special portfolio, secured next to the comic page with some info attached.

Torn Apart

2007-08-30T16:45:00.002+02:00

Sometimes as a collector you have some bad luck, books gets lost in the mail, you just a miss a super bargain by seconds, someone overcharges you for a book that turns out to be lower grade than you paid for...or you just do something stupid or have bad judgment.

A lot of people bag and board books, comic on board, then insert in bag and then tape the bag shut..safe and sound. Trouble is after a while you need to take the book out and you experience "tape pull" The tape which seems to have a mind of its own gets stuck to the comic while your halfway taking it out and it it won't come off..only way is to pry it loose and take a piece of the cover with it. Your VF+ $350 book is now a $150 FINE book or worse.

I've always been careful and don't even use tape to close my bags, I read the expensive books flat on a table and always use Mylar for the good books...and yet it seems I'm not immune to bad luck.
My most expensive book, the pride an joy of my collection has taken a big knock. My Amazing Fantasy #15 has separated from the cover :(
After only a few months in my possession, I've managed to lower the value by about $1000 and to be honest I didn't really do anything.
I got the book and HAD to read it, most people say I'm crazy to read 45 year old expensive books when I have the reprint, but nothing beats the feeling of opening up a comic some boy bought off the stands all those
years ago and I won't stop doing it.

Anyway, I carefully took the book out of the mylar/fullboard, put it flat on the table and very carefully read it. Now at the time the book had a three inch spine tear, but both staples were still secured and it graded out at 3.0. Once I finished reading (I only read the 8-page Spider-man story, not the two other stories) I put it back in the collection.
Fast forward three months later, I open the book again and to my shock the cover has split in two and has separated from the book itself...I felt sick in my stomach. I talked to some people and then explained that by reading and opening the book I had put some minimal stress on the fibers that still were holding the book together, chances were that the book hadn't been opened in decades and that the paper fibers were nothing more than hardened dust by now. This sudden stress caused them to break down and make the cover separate from the book.

A nice and logical explanation, but I was still screwed. I did the math and found out the book was now a 1.8/2.0 which a better change of getting a 1.8...meaning a $1000 loss in value
So I'm getting the book restored, I got some advice from my buddy Kenny who is training to be a comic restorer with Matt Nelson, arguably the best restoration expert out there.
I sent my book to Kenny and he took it with him to work on while visiting Matt in Texas. Both had a long and hard look at my book and told me some good news, with the proper work the book would again be whole and grade out at 4.5 to 5.5...

I'm going for moderate restoration including solvent and wet wash the cover, wash all interior wraps.and repair all the bent interior corners. and then repair spine, fix tears and other minor things.
If I get lucky the book will get a 5.0 and I should break even (purchase price + resto price = selling price), a 4.5 will mean a small loss, a 5.5 a small profit.
But you never know, the book might look so good that I decide to keep it after all. When he accident happened, I was so sick of the book I couldn't even look at it any more and it my love for collecting took a large blow.

Just like the book my heart got torn apart haven't bought any keys or expensive books since it happened, but Kenny's enthusiasm and his firm belief he'll make the book pretty and presentable again has given me a positive outlook again.
I should have more news in a month or so when the book is finished. Once all work is done, I'm sending it in to CGC and then wait anxiously until I know the grade.

Broke-Bag Mountain

2007-06-25T00:35:00.002+02:00

Many a time I have championed the lowly Mbag, it was truly the people's mail carrier, the cheapest way to get a crapload of comics to faraway places. Sure it took a very long time and was always delayed, but it arrived every time and it arrived in perect shape for little money. Alas, not more... in their infinite wisdom, the USPS has decided to cancel all Surface shipping and thus the Mbag.

Well that's not quite true, the M-bag is still out there, but it's not the grimm and gritty version, it's gone upscale. The Mbag is now the Air Mbag and that's not all that's changed.
I used to pay between $25.00 and $40.00 to have about 100 comics shipped from Anywhere, USA to my doorstep, well last week my first (Air) Mbag took flight and again it was filled with about 100 comics, and it cost me $106. And then I had a moment of clarity

I've reached the point of saturation...no more $1.00 books for me, no more sub $5.00 for me even. Also almost no more slabbed books.
Shipping has always been a major thorn in my side, I'm out about $1000 per year on shipping alone, but with the recent price hike it's become too much.
And with the surface M-bag gone the way of the dodo as well, hard times are here for the European collector who wants to get big collection going.

I guess I have to count myself lucky that I started collecting 5 years ago and not now, I've had close to 10.000 comics shipped to me from the US, the bulk (the cheaper books) via M-bag. And even if sometimes they took over 3 months to arrive, they always did arrive and in perfect shape. The new Mbag is about 2 to 3X the shipping price and frankly I don't think I would start from scratch again today and I'm happy I don't have to.

Basic economy is now that it's impossible to to get any comic shipped for less than a $1.00 a piece, and that first comic will cost you $10.50 at least. And just pray that Amazon or Milehigh has that heavy hardcover you want in stock as they can still ship it for about $10.00, otherwise prepare to pay about $25.00 - $50.00 to have it shipped to Europe.

Luckily (well not really lucky, but you know what I mean) the only books still on my want list are all more expensive books. If you buy a $1000 book it isn't really that important if you pay $20.00 or $30.00 shipping...but I sure wouldn't buy a full run of Rom at 50 cents a piece anymore...

Yeah, I'm bitter....but it's been a rough week comic-wise and I needed to vent. I always figured I would go broke collecting comics, never thought it would be the shipping though.

Unchained !

2007-06-16T14:42:00.002+02:00

60 days....done and gone. This is the day the shackles come off. Sixty days ago I made myself a promise, after spending way too much in a very short time, to not only cut down on spending, but also not to buy anything for the next 2 months. While I was in the middle of my "down-time", I got overexcited and proclaimed, I'd not only do the 60 days, but extend it to 80 days, to have the first day of being able to buy comics again to coincide with my birthday. Well it was a nice idea, but enough is enough. I officially declare "buying-time" is here again.

The first week was pretty hard, but it got easier along the way. Some obstacles were thrown at me, a few dealers had interesting sales, one collector friend was dumping a large amount of Silver Age on the market and there was a virtual comic con that I attended, but I held on. The last weeks were the easier, in fact apathy set in. At one point I wasn't even interested in following discussions on comic boards any more, along with the thrill of the hunt of finding/buying new books, some of my interest inthe hobby waned as well. I even started wondering if the whole thing was still that important to me.
Happily when the final date approached so did my passion and the last few days of waiting were pure hell as there were so many things I was interested in buying again.

So did I really not buy anything ? Well....no (sorry), but I did stick by the rules. During that virtual Comiccon I bought a couple of dollar books, that's all I spent, a dollar per book (and they were all from my want-list).
This was one exception that I had made to the rule, very cheap books that were on the want-list were okay. The other rule was that if I found a treasure for a really low low (stupidly low) price I could buy it. Alas no Action #1's for $100 came my way.

With less than a week to go I also bought some other stuff, but I arranged so that I didn't have to pay before today (in fact I still have a few days before I have to pay). I haven't received the books, (they haven't even been sent) and haven't paid for them...I just kinda pre-ordered them, so I don't think I cheated. Of course your mileage may vary, and if you think I did break the rules, don't hesitate in letting me know.

I pre-ordered an Absolute Edition from Amazon Germany which was heavily discounted and I should get it next week or something. The other item I pre-ordered was a CGC 9.8 of Amazing Spider-man V2 #36 (the 911 issue). It's the book that brought me back into the hobby (I bought it in a shop and the next day I decided I had to have the complete Amazing Spider-man series) and the only comic that I keep buying multiple issues

I have about 10 now,6 raw NM copies 2 CGC 9.4s, 1 CGC 9.6 and soon a CGC 9.8. It's also the only comic book I would be stupid enough to buy as a perfect "Gem Mint" CGC 10.0 one day.

So what next ? Well, I don't have any plans at all to buy expensive books for the moment, I'll try to leave my Golden Age Batman run for next year.
For now I would be content if I could complete the following runs :

Captain America #100 - #400 (need about 50 books)
Hulk #200 - #500+ (8 more books to go)
Batman #200 - #300 (9 more books)

And of course a couple of smaller series...but more on those later

Send me a dream

2007-05-26T15:58:00.002+02:00

Well it's been a while, but I decided to put some distance between me and my collection for a while, not that I'm not interested anymore, but as I'm still in a no-spend-zone, there's no need to make it harder on myself by looking a books I'm not allowed to buy anyway. The good part about shelving the collector part of me is that the reader in me has more time now.
Oh and I've passed the 35-day mark and am now halfway my self-imposed ban.Theoretically I've 25 days left to go, but I think I'll try and hold out a little longer till July 4th which is my birthday.Would be nice to celebrate my birthday with the purchase of some books again :)

Anyway, the white whale of my collection, the book which took me longest to find was not an expensive book at all..it wasn't even an old book.It was released during that age of overprinting we remember as "the nineties" and it was put out by one of the big two. It's not a key book, nothing specials happens, it isn't a variant or a recalled issue. It's a bog-standard comic book and it still took me 4 years to find it.

I'm taking about Sandman Mystery Theater #29. The final issue I needed to complete the, in my view second best DC/Vertigo, series.
As most of you know I've been busy completing most Marvel series for the past 5 years and I waited over 9 months to buy an FF#1 and over six months for an ASM #1.
Were these books eluding me ? Certainly not, you can buy one every day if you want, but I was looking for a low to mid-grade book that presented better than the grade on both occasions...so I needed to be patient.
Same for my AF #15...

But the only book I have never seen on eBay, never in any dealer store and never offered on this board was Sandman Mystery Theater #29...
Most other books in the series are on perpetual discount on Mile High for about $1.00 - $2.00...but this book has been on my want-list from day 1 and stayed there for ever
I ordered it twice from Mile High and both times they didn't have it in stock...but it was on the website
I saw it on eBay a few times but lumped together with at least 20 other books from the series and I really didn't want to spend $50.00 just to get a single book that had zero demand and was worth $2.00 at most.
Finally 3 months ago I got a tip from a friendly collector that it was on the Newkadia website. Much to my surprise he was right, they had a NM copy for $3.00 which I bought right away, they also offered a discount . Only catch (there's always a catch) was that they had a minimum order of $25.00. So I was forced to buy some other books from my want list which were overpriced.

So why was this book so important to me ? Well mainly because the series is just so damn good. It has nothing at all to do with the more famous Gaiman Sandman universe, which also released by Vertigo put the other Sandman title (Mystery Theater) completely in its shadow and did more harm than good sales-wise because of the name-association.
It's not the kind of book you'd pick up on a whim in a comic shop and there was only one TPB (with just 4 issues) available for over 10 years. A book that truly slipped under the radar.

Before I start hyping it, it must warn you that it isn't for everyone, the art isn't pretty...it fits perfectly with the "pulp noir" theme of the book but it's understated, a rather dull color pallet, lots of line-work and small panels. Plus the book has some VERY adult content. Explicit language, very graphic and shocking scenes with lots of misery and poverty.
But it does make me want to jump in a timemachine and head for New York in the 30's. Rarely has a city been so celebrated and so authentically replicated as in this series. If you like New York as a city, as a cultural icon you'll get a lot of enjoyment from the series as well.

The Sandman (the original one, not Gaiman's Morpheus) is one of the original heroes of the Golden Age. This series retells the adventures of Wesley Dodds a millionaire-vigilante whose main weapons are a gun that fires sleeping gas and his brain..Unlike most other superheroes, the Sandman possesses no superhuman powers and relies on his detective skills and gas gun. He does have strange prophesying dreams (the only link with the 'other' Sandman) which torment him and make him go out at night and fight for justice.

But Dodds isn't your typical superhero, he's rather small and somewhat overweight, plus he's pushing 40. His sidekick/love interest is Dian Belmont, a New York socialite who's also pushing middle age, doesn't have a double D-cup or can kick bad-guy ass but is a smart and charming "real world" woman who actually helps the hero solve the case. There are no supervillains, just really evil crooks, deranged rapists, serial killers and corrupt businessmen.

You don't really need to collect the entire series (but you know how it is with me) to enjoy the stories. Each arc consists of 4 issues, with a typical slow start ending in a blistering climax. It's more fun to read all 70 issues in order , but it's not really necessary which is a rarity for a Vertigo series.

So give it a try, visit 1930's New York from the newly erected skyscrapers to the seedy underbelly where the Sandman prowls, I'm sure you'll enjoy the ride in the wonderfully mature and intelligent comic book.
Oh and yes I'm aware that Vertigo put out a revamped SMT mini during the first months of 2007...I did read it, but didn't like it at all. In the mini Wesley and Dian are in their late 70's and the Sandman mantle is passed on to a 20-something war-photographer, action man. They took the Sandman out of the Golden Age, out of NYC...and it doesn't feel right.

Slated for cancellation

2007-05-02T14:39:00.002+02:00

When I finished collecting the Amazing Spider-man series a few months ago, the most asked question I got (apart from "how much did it cost") was "Will you be getting Amazing Fantasy #15". At that time I couldn't really answer it because well, in my mind I had completed the task and more importantly AF15 was and is the most expensive Marvel book.

But after a few months I decided to see if I could swing it, I knew it was going to be expensive, but I planned on not buying too many books this year and maybe, just maybe I would then be able to get an AF15 at Christmas, just like the Christmases before when I got Avengers #1, FF#1 and finally ASM #1 respectively.

Next to the price, availability was a problem too, not too many of these books around, Spider-man #1 isn't that common, but there are at least 3x the amount of that book floating around compared to Amazing Fantasy #15.

A third problem was the condition of the book. I've always tried to buy expensive books that look better than the given grade. Maybe hard to understand, but let me give you an example. A book can look like a VG (4.0) but has a water stain on the back cover that takes the book down to a GOOD (2.0). The water stain is there, it lowers the grade, but it's a defect that isn't too bad aesthetically and it's on the back cover. Trouble is that a lot of low and mid-grade copies of AF#15 have Marvel chipping ("A bindery (trimming/cutting) defect that causes a series of chips and tears at the top, bottom, and right edge of the cover. This is caused where the cutting blade of an industrial paper trimmer becomes dull. Dubbed "Marvel chipping" because it can occur quite often with that company's comics from the late 50s and early 60s")
And as Marvel chipping is considered a factory defect it doesn't factor in to the grade of mid-grade books. Thus you can buy a 4.0 book that looks like a 2.0...quite the opposite of what I want.

Take a look at this AF with the very common Marvel chipping...

So things didn't look to good, but I had originally planned to start looking for a nice one around Winter 2007 with the intent of getting one as a Xmas present to myself...but an opportunity arose and I couldn't turn it down.

I got this copy from a fellow collector by accident really (no seriously, read on). He never put the AF15 on sale, but I was close to buying his Hulk #1...we went back and forth for a while and I told him I didn't really want to buy it as it would mean taking money out of my AF15 kitty...2 minutes later he told me he had an AF15 as well and if I was interested he would sell it to me.
Ten minutes later I had bought it...It was exactly the book I wanted, a 3.0 that looked better than the grade, almost no Marvel chipping and a fair price. Granted it was more money than I had ever spent on a comic book,and it was half a year too early but this is THE Marvel key after all. For me it's still FF#1...but for most comic collectors the first appearance of Spider-man is the holy grail

And to think the Amazing Fantasy series was slated for cancellation and issue #15 was the final one. Because it was the final issue, nobody really cared what was going to be in it. With nothing to lose, publisher Martin Goodman allowed Stan Lee to experiment with a new kind of superhero — one who would be a teenager, but not a sidekick, and who would have everyman doubts, neuroses and money problems...
This "far-out" idea proved to be golden and gave birth to Marvel's flagship title...Amazing Spider-man...which only started a long (especially for the fans who had a taste of Spidey in AF15 and wanted to read more) 6 months after Amazing Fantasy #15 was issued, sold a boatload of copies and got the most letters from readers in years.
Now let's just hope the success of the the third Spider-man movie that came out this week will make my copy of AF#15 even more valuable

Golden Years

2007-04-25T18:27:00.002+02:00

About three weeks ago, I went into unchartered territory, I boldly went where I had never gone before..I crossed a bridge I never thought I would cross...I went to the Golden Age of comic books.

Wikipedia describes the Golden Age of comic books as " a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought as lasting from the 1930s until the mid-1950s during which comic books enjoyed a surge of popularity, the archetype of the superhero was created and defined, and many of the most famous superheroes debuted."
It was also the period where a number of books sold over a million copies per issue, a feet never repeated during the last 50 years.Every kid was reading comic books, which is alas also the weak point of Golden Age comics.
You see, they really were a kid's medium...Most stories are very childish and simple, art is weak and static most of the time and they were simply regarded as throwaway literature to keep kids busy for a while.
As I'm nearing the completion of my Silver Age collection, I have often thought about going back even further in time and start collecting Golden Age books...despite of what I just wrote.
You see the covers of Golden Age books are generally the best of all ages. Most of them are wonderful, dynamic, colourful and show a real artistry. Then even more than now, the cover was everything as it was a means to get the punter to buy the book.
A lot of collectors I know agree with me about the quality of the stories and (interior) art of most GA books, but they persist in collecting GA because of those magnificent covers and hardly take any notice of the contents of the book. But I just couldn't do it, I've always been more partial to story than to art, so I needed something extra.

Of all the GA books I've read over the years (as reprints) two series stood out, Pre-Code EC (Horror) Comics and Batman comics. Both were just written a little better than their contemporaries, art was a little more dynamic and characterization was well thought out. So if I went Golden Age, it would have to be through one of these books.
As I've nearly completed Batman #200 - #400 it seems the more logical approach to go with that title. Trouble is that as a completionist I HAVE to get all the issues and most Silver Age Batman books (from #100 to around #200) just suck, which is the reason I decided to start my Batman run with #200, the tail-end of the Silver Age and continue into those wonderful Bronze Age Bat books.
The other drawback was money-wise. Even if I did bite the bullet and collect #100 - #200, I would also have to dig down and get Batman #1 - #99...
Granted most of those issues are better than the Silver Age run, but Batman #1 in VG is at least $10.000...which I don't see me handing over just yet.

So what to do, what to do ? In the end I came to a decision, I'm going to start collecting Golden Age books as well, Golden Age Batman books, but only the ones that have a Joker cover appearance. I feel it would make for a nice collection as well to have Batman #200 - #400 complete + all the preceding books that have Joker covers. The first Batman issue with a Joker cover is Batman #11 from 1942.
Still a lot of expensive books in that bunch, but feasible over time.
Concluding,here's a scan of the first Golden Age book I have ever bought, it's Batman #37 from 1945, the oldest book in my collection, a very cool Joker cover and hopefully the start of whole new adventure in comic collecting.

Oh and I haven't gone back on my word about not buying books for a while, this book and the ones in the upcoming blog entries were all bought during that week of madness I had a while ago.
I'm at day #10 of not-buying-comics-for-60-days and it hasn't been that hard to be honest. Let's see if I last the whole two months

Out of Control

2007-04-18T19:52:00.002+02:00

This is the kind of Blog entry I don't really like to make, but right now it's pretty necessary.
Lately I've been feeling like a comet rocketing out of control, having fun along the way but knowing, deep down, that the trip has to end. What the hell am I talking about ? Well let's just say that I've spent nearly $3000 the last two weeks on comic books

I haven't made any "stupid" buys, most books have been from my want-list, it's just that there has been so much I wanted that came up for sale and I just couldn't say no and bought most, if not all, of it. I've been trying to work with a rather comfortable monthly budget,I go over each month, but never by this much. It was just one of those weeks, I was home from work, cruising the comic-forums and eBay like an addict and before you knew it I was whipping out my credit card again, and again...and again.

I haven't gotten myself in debt, and I haven't spent money that wasn't mine to spend o r was meant for something else, I've just spent way too much in a short time on something, important as it may be to me, is still just a hobby.
So enough is enough..I decided a few days ago that I'm going cold turkey and will try not to buy anything until at least June 15th. That gives me two months of solitude, two months of getting this monkey off my back and two months to get my budget back on track.
Now I won't make any promises I can't make, if I happen to run into an Action #1 for $1000, I'll buy it, no doubt about it, but let's just say that bar any "incredible-once-in-a-lifetime-deals" I'm not currently buying...well not anything over $50.00.
Today was day #3 of the self-imposed ban and I haven't gone to eBay or other dens of sin in the entire time. Here's to the next 60 days

Cracking a CGC case ...on video

2007-04-07T17:59:00.003+02:00

Ok, I'm going all multimedia on y'all this time...I'vv been asked a lot how come I like CGC comics so much (comics encased in a slab) when I profess to being an collector AND a reader...well the truth is that I liberate most of the comics I buy "slabbed". And trust me it's the best feeling in the world.

Anyway the question that inevitably follows is how I do it. People seem to think it's dangerous or something. Well it isn't, if you're careful and sober you can do it in under two minutes. And just to put my money where my mouth is... here is one I did earlier :

And for the killjoys that don't want to watch the video...here's a starter guide

1) insert a medium sized screwdriver between the slab halves in the middle of the right long edge (only about 1/4 to 1/2 inch in...no where near the level of the comic itself) and push it upward as close to the corner as possible.

2) Turn the screwdriver counter-clockwise until the corner pops/cracks (this will leave VISIBLE evidence of tampering).

3) Once the corner is open, the long edge and the top edge will be open as well.
repeat the procedure for the top left corner.

4) Both corners will now be visibly cracked open. Remove the inner housing. If you want to play it really safe, crack open three corners

5) With a sharp knife or scissor, very carefully cut across the shield approx. 1/4 inch above the comic, being extra careful NOT to exert pressure on the surface of the comic's top edge by pressing on the holder over that point.

7) Smell, read and enjoy the comic

8) Put it into Mylar + a fullback for safekeeping

Oh my God, they killed Kenny's books

2007-04-04T15:39:00.002+02:00

Collecting Silver and Bronze age books in a tiny, remote country isn't always that easy..in fact it's pretty hard. There are no dealers with any stock, no comic shops that sell back issues older than the 90's, no cons...and most important, almost no other collectors. Now I don't want go off on a tangent and lament about my poor poor situation, but I thought it important to state it up front.

So my only option is to buy overseas..America that is, the US of A, the home of the superhero comic book. After half a decade on various comic boards I've build up a large network of friends and contacts and I've imported over 8000 comic books this way. Thanks to these people my collection is ever growing and I don't feel all isolated on my island of Franco-Belgian style.
Comics collectors like to build their collection, that's a give,but what I have noticed is that also like to help others build their collection as well, sometimes being geographically challenged has helped rather than hindered me, lots of people have given me sweet sweet deals, partly because they know they are helping and partly because they know there's only a small chance I'll immoderately (flip) sell the book they gave me a huge discount on.Nothing is more frustrating than selling a book to somebody and giving them a break and then watching them sell the same book for a lot more only a short time later. I'm not saying that I'm Saint Chromium or anything, but there's just nobody for me to sell to. Nobody here wants the stuff, most US collectors won't buy from some collector in some miniature country (and why would they when they have all the books they'll ever need close by) and shipping to the US is so expensive that nobody would even bother.

And so the "s"-word has fallen...shipping, the great barrier, the black hole that just keeps sucking money. The good news is that US shipping prices are among the cheapest in the world. The bad news is that it's still a lot of money. I used to keep data on shipping costs...just for fun, calculating how much I was spending on shipping alone. I stopped doing this in 2005....when I reached $5000...I couldn't believe I had spend the same amount a nice VG/FINE copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 would set me back on stamps...stamps, brown paper and boxes. I just don't want to know anymore how much I've spend on top of that 5K the last two years. If you're looking for me, I'll be next to the ostrich, burying my head in sand.

And next to the cost, there's also the stress, will the books arrive ? And if they arrive, will they arrive in good shape ? Will my $500 NM book be turned into a $120 FINE book because some bored postal employees decided to play "package-frisbee" during their lunch our ? Yes I can insure the books, but that's another lose-lose situation. As long as I import my used comics (back issues are second-hand) as literature, customs leave me alone. If I declare that I'm not a business and these books are for me and me alone...it's all golden and they float through, but once I insure them they have to take another avenue and tax, tax and tax me until I bleed out of all orifices. If I have a $600 book delivered to my house insured, I pay roughly $200 in tax (33%) each and every time. Meaning that even if I lose one book in three it would still be cheaper than to have them sent insured.Lucky for me 99% of all packages have arrived, big package, small ones, cheap books, high dollar books, all have arrived almost always in perfect shape.

Three months ago I would have proudly put 100%, yes even 5 years of importing box after box of comics from overseas, each and every package had arrived..but somehow I knew this kind of luck couldn't not last forever...you can't beat the odds.
So my first "loss" happened a few months ago and it was a very strange one. And this is how we get to Kenny from this topic's title (not that Kenny is strange hehe).
Kenny is one of the good guys, an eternal optimist, proud father and family man and a really BIG comic book fan, interested in all ages, all publishers, all types of books and even in the fringe side like restoration detection..in short the perfect comic-buddy and a very reliable source to deal with. Kenny had some books for sale that I wanted and we quickly made a deal, a deal being the optimum word as he gave me a very healthy discount. We traded some info and he sent me the package. It never arrived. Kenny was very sorry and offered to refund me the money, which he was under no obligation to do, but he did it anyway, coz that's the kind of person Kenny is. Now I didn't want Kenny to suffer any monetary loss because the post office dropped the ball this time,so we agreed that he would send m some replacement books for roughly the same amount. We both were happy and package #2 was sent....it never arrived.

At this point we both agreed that something fishy was going on, the first package not arriving could have been karma finally kicking me in the nuts for always having gotten my packages, too bad it happened on Kenny's deal...but that's Karma for you. But the only two packages out of 100's in 5 years that went missing, coming from the same town ? And sent close to each other ? Coincidence ?? We didn't think so.
We started looking at what could have happened and decided that somewhere en route from me to him somebody was swiping international packages... We wrapped our brain around all of this and then suddenly one of the packages turned up....the second one....and it was returned to Kenny and it looked like this :

The postal label read that it was never picked up (by me) and was then returned to sender...which is impossible. I assure you that I claim my packages each and every time, I get the xmas feeling every time I see a you-were-not-at-home-so-please-pick-the-package-up-at-the-PO slip in my mailbox.
No way any note was left, my mailbox is large and built-in into my house, so the elements can't touch anything and I'm the only one that gets the mail (my wife knows I love mail, so she leaves it to me )

Dunno what happened, maybe it was delivered to the wrong house (and a slip left) and that person saw it was not for them and never bothered to pick it up
Pretty sure it wasn't delivered in my neighborhood, as I'm the only one to receive (large volumes of US packages) and both my neighbors have at times accepted packages for me and then brought them round when I got home from work.

This is what the books looked like :

Box #1 is still somewhere in limbo...address on the label was correct (mine) but I think that the first box was delivered to the wrong address and the people just kept it. Second box was again delivered to the wrong address, but nobody was home and the postman left a slip to come pick it up at the post office. The people at that address probably knew that wouldn't get it at the PO, so never bothered to pick it up and it was returned to Kenny (after somebody used it as a chair for a few weeks) Just for the record, I'm not angry at Kenny at all.... this was in fact the make-good box he sent me...he still is a friend and we can laugh (a little) at this misadventure...oh remember how I said that Kenny was also interested in restoring books ? Well today he told me he sent me another package with the books that were returned and this is what he did to them :

Never change Kenny, you are one hell of a guy...now let's hope box #3 arrives

They killed him, but I'm keeping him alive...

2007-03-15T16:51:00.002+01:00

Well as most of you know Captain America is no more, he was "killed" by Crossbones/Sharon Carter whatever.I won't elaborate on Marvel's latest gimmick, plenty of other blogs for that and I also don't believe that Cap's dead for good. So why am I writing about it at all...because I just got a huge stack of Cap books in the mail.

After all my tales of woe the previous months/years about very slow shipping, I finally caught a break. This morning an 25 lbs M-bag with about 170 caps (Silver-Bronze-Copper) arrived from the US
It was put in the system on Jan 21st and I calculated (based on previous misadventures) it would arrive arrive around the first of May..well it didn't, it got here now and only took 52 days. Or half the time of the previous ones.

I have no idea now anymore how the M-bag system works, my best bet is that they have a 800-pound gorilla working there who tosses the bag and the bag that lands the furthest away from base gets shipped first.
Anyway, I don't care, all I know I have a huge lot of Caps between #106 & #400 to read.
After getting my very first Caps a few months ago, I kinda fell in love with the series and decided to put together a nice long run, initially I was going for #100 (Captain America starts with #100) through to #200...but now I guess I'm going to go up to #400.
The next week will be pretty busy, re-bagging and boarding 170 books, grading them and putting them in my database and then fyscially moving them into my comic cabinets.But let's face it, that's the fun part of collecting.

Here's how 170 Cap books look, fresh out of the M-bag, I put one of the better covers next to the pile to give you an idea of the dimensions.

Amazing Amassed

2007-03-06T16:57:00.002+01:00

My goal for 2006 was to complete Amazing Spider-man #1 - #500... but I got a little sidetracked and was about 4 books short around Xmas, I opted not to go out and buy any old copy just to make it, but to throw in the towel and admit that 2006 was going to be the first year since I started collecting where I didn't manage to complete a large series. I completed Thor #126 - #300 in 2006 (starting from scratch) but it really wasn't that hard.
But now, two months later, I'm proud to announce that I finally did it and have ASM complete up to #500. I completed the series around Valentine's day last month, but wanted to wait until #20 arrived safely as not to jump the gun. It arrived today so I'm very happy.

Unlike Avengers and Fantastic Four which I completed the two previous years I don't have the time/energy to make a scan of all 500 covers like I did Avengers HERE and FF HERE
Instead here are the covers to the first 9 issues..

I feel like I've come full circle now. ASM V2 #36 (the 911 issue) was the comic that got me into collecting, I bought it, read it and then decided to start collecting Marvel and haven't looked back since. Initial plan was to collect ASM #100 - #500 but then I went to see the second Spiderman movie and just had to buy a copy of #50. Suffering from completionist disorder I then HAD to fill in all the issues between #50 and #100. Second plan was to collect #50 - #500 and get #1 - #49 as Marvel Masterworks. But once that was done I knew I was kidding myself and decided to get all the issues.

Plan for 2007 is to complete JIM #83 - #125, complete Batman #200 - #400 and just maybe get a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15

Gothic

2007-02-21T00:51:00.002+01:00

Remember about half a year ago I decided to make a side-step into late Silver and Bronze DC and try and collect a Batman run ?
Well it's been working out quite well for me and I'm making nice progress. I'm with issue #200 and ending the run at #350, at the moment I'm about 15 books short..So it should happen before the Summer

The really fun part has been, the lack of pressure...I've never had to actively seek Batman books out, I just bought a few when I was dealing on other books. When somebody had one or more books that I needed for
one of my Silver Age marvel runs, I always asked them if he didn't have any Batmans I was looking for...
Nice and easy way to collect.

I never dreamed it would be so easy, seeing as the start of the run is nearly 40 years old, but it was. Most books were very reasonably priced and easy to obtain. Of course once I get down to 4 or 5 issues left, I'll have
to let go of this free-flowing collecting vibe and actually start actively looking for the last books...

Anyway, I got no less than 22 issues the last two weeks..from various sources. I included some of the better cover scans to see what you are missing if you never got into Bronze Batman.

This is batman #227 and is the only difficult book to get out of the run, reason is the fantastic cover by Neal Adams. Adams went back to September 1939 and swiped the cover to Detective #31 and made his own
homage. Both covers have a wonderful gothic tone and thanks to the fact that the cover to Batman #227 is considered the best overal DC Bronze Age cover prices have gone out the window.
Guide for a VF/NM is about $44.00....You wont even be able you get a decent FINE for that price. Expect to pay about $200 for any copy that's even close to NM...it's a much loved book

Friends of Ol' Marvel

2007-02-15T15:37:00.003+01:00

If you are a Marvel Comics collector of the 1960's or 1970's then you know Marvel was always trying to get a lot of fan participation through the form of fan clubs.
The first one was the historic Merry Marvel Marching Society (M.M.M.S) started in 1965.
Later; in 1969 "Marvelmania" debuted, always more of a business than a labour of love for Marvel fans, it never really took off. Only 6 issues of the Marvelmania magazine were published and a lot of the merchandise advertised in the catalogs never came to fruition.

Probably the best thing about Marvelmania were the gorgeous posters. This merchandise and others could only be purchased by members . Now for some reason (availability, lack of interest, high price?) not a lot of them were sold and now some of these are very rare and very expensive.
Check out this link on eBay Steranko Captain America Marvelmania
If you read this more than three months from now, the link will be dead, let me just say The 1970 Steranko Captain America Marvelmania poster went for....$710.00

But probably the most loved and best known Marvel fan club was FOOM. Created by both Stan Lee and Jim Steranko, another talented artist at Marvel, it made its official debut in 1973. Readers already knew what FOOM stood for because it was the title of the popular magazine which had been in circulation for several months. Ads went out declaring that it was the "Ultimate" fan club for just $2.50.
FOOM lasted until the late 70's and was a huge success.
The FOOM magazine was a lot of fun, a fellow collector gave me a few issues a while ago and they are a great reading...Fan participation was very important and Marvel (Steranko and Lee) went all out to convey a spirit of community, of belonging even. I can imagine if you were a kid in the 70's, picking up a few Marvel comics every month, FOOM really made you feel at home.
A four-issue subscription was US$3. An additional dollar bought a club membership I.D. card, six decals, and a poster. Running 22 quarterly issues (Feb. 1973 - Fall 1978) FOOM touched the heart of many a young Marvel fans and a lot of today's creators were FOOM members as a kid and remember it fondly.

FOOM also went the poster way and made available 12 different posters. Classic covers with art by Buscema, Steranko, Colan, Windsor-Smith, Kirby, Romita, Severin & more. Truly a delight to behold.

Now Marvel learned a valuable lesson with the failure of Marvelmania and made sure there were enough posters to go round and that the price was reasonable. But again you had to be a FOOM member to be able to buy them (mail-order only). Now the FOOM merchandise isn't as expensive as the Marvelmania stuff, but prices have been creeping up during the last decade as supplies dwindle. I always wanted the FOOM posters, but I only wanted a full set of all 12 images and I wanted them to be in NM - MINT condition, unused.
A nice bit of trivia is that the full set of FOOM posters can be seen in the later "Mister Glass" gallery scenes of the movie "Unbreakable" starring Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson.

Last week I managed to find just that and now have them here in my comics room. They look as if they came of the press yesterday rather than 37 years ago and I'm hesitant to flatten them and put them on the wall somewhere. They would make a very nice impact on the comics room...but it also would be like destroying a bit of history...

To be concluded.

Zut alors!

2007-02-04T12:16:00.001+01:00

Remember about a month ago I purchased my very first Captain America and was pleasantly surprised by the Kirby signature ? Well I enjoyed that book so much I decided to start collecting the series as well....yeah I know yet another Marvel series to complete

Anyway I've decided to go for #100 (first issue in series) through to #300...nice chunk of books. I'm already setting up deals to buy the later issues in larger quantities to save on shipping and am seeking out nice mid-grade copies of the first 50 or so issues.I was lucky to find these early Silver Age ones in decent shape and at a good price

Now #107 is clearly the pick of the bunch and one of the best Cap books ever IMHO.
Jack and Stan collaborated on a mere 10 issues of the Captain America series (issues 100 through 112, with the exception of Jim Steranko's work on issues 110 and 111), but those 10 issues are pure dynamite. #107 is a brilliant story, with a twist worthy of a Christopher Nolan or a M. Night. Shama-lama-ding-dong (whatever) movie.
Kirby's raw pencil-driven artistic powers were never better and keep perfect pace with Lee's intense and driven narrative.
The issue's focus is on Steve Rogers, who, having been frozen in suspended animation for 20 years, is still trying to cope emotionally with the death of his World War II fighting partner, Bucky Barnes. Cap's turmoil is ripe with realism, from the sorrow over his friend's loss to the personal guilt that weighs on his shoulders for having been able to save so many during the war but not his own partner.
And for once the cover perfectly alludes to the story inside and entices you to enter and read.

But I actually started off wanting to write about issue #105...
Ok #105 isn't the masterpiece #107 is, the art is still classic Kirby and the story is decent and action packed, and the cover, action packed as it is, is nothing really special...but it has Batroc ! Yes I admit I'm a closet Batroc fan...

I'm also ready to admit he's more of a comedic character than anything else, that stupid Dali-moustache, no special powers (ok, he knows French-boxing and can leap a bit), his use of Franglais/Frenglish (butchering both languages in one fell swoop)...
But he makes my day when I see him fighting a hero (and most of the time running away when he's about to get beaten) while keeping his own outlandish style.

I can't imagine what Cap must think, in between fighting The Red Skull, The Kree and the Skrulls, he has to put up with this pesky clown..Georges Batroc

Whoever created him (Stan ?)really went all the way this time. The name Batroc the Leaper ("Batroc ze Leapair"),itself is a joke, "Batrock" is the animal order to which frogs belong to...And Americans like to call Frenchmen...Frogs

But Georges wouldn't really be upset by this...in his own words :"Alas, you are too sensitive, mon cher! But, c'est la vie!"

Threesome

2007-01-31T17:16:00.001+01:00

Once again, back is the incredible, the comic animal, the incredible…late, very late “Nuff Said” Blog
I’ve run out of excuses, so I won’t make any for my tardiness, let’s just say once again work and real life got in the way of fun and I didn’t get around to do much writing or even spend time with my collection. I did however not stop buying

First of all, I failed in getting the entire ASM collection done before the end of 2006…I was only two books away…but it wasn’t meant to be.
It’s not necessary a bad thing, it gives me some more time to find decent and affordable copies of #14 & #20. Believe me when I tell you that I’ve spent a few minutes of every single day during the last 6 weeks to find a VG to FINE copy of #14 for a fair price, all to no avail.

In the meantime here are the three ASMs I picked up before the deadline :

A nice surprise

2006-12-18T14:14:00.001+01:00

It's been a month, I know...sorry but my calendar is broken
Anyway, on to bigger and better things. I finally found some time to check out the books I have bought the last few weeks. Alas no Spider-mans at the moment (why do we
say Spider-MANS and not Spider-men, when talking about multiple books ??) because, well I want the right copy, not the right now copy. Trying to complete the series before the end of the year is really working against me, as I feel I almost have to grab the very first available book.

So what did the mailman bring this time :

From the need-these-to-complete-a-series collection

Hulk #254,#255,#256,#257,#261,#262,#265,#269,#271,#272,#311 (need 1 more book to complete #240 - #540)
Rom #70 & #37 (series complete)
Batman #280,#219,#218 (still need a lot of books)
Miracleman #22,#17 (need one more book to complete the series)
What If ? #1 #8,#17,#18,#20,#23(still need a lot of books)
Silver Surfer #4 (finally ! series complete)

But then I got carried away, like I always do and also bought a nice bunch of Silver Age books, which weren't really on my want-list. This of course now means than I'm going to have to start collecting these series as well

Journey Into Mystery #100, #102, #115 - #125. The series changes into Thor with #126, so it's a logical progression that since I've completed Thor I'm starting getting the Thor JIM run (#83 - #125) This is going to be expensive and hurt like hell !!

Now for the last few books I have absolutely no excuse at all...it doesn't continue from or to another series I've completed, I've no emotional attachment to them...nada.In fact to be honest these are the first books of this character I have ever bought...but I just had to get them...

Captain America #100 (first book in series), #106 & #109. So now I've decided to start a Cap #100 - #150 run as well...

Oh, I forgot all about that "nice surprise"...well the Cap books are Kirby books, and I absolutely adore Kirby, so when I was grading the book I couldn't help myself but start reading it...and look what I found on the bottom of the first page

HOLY *SPOON*

Yeah, that's a Jack Kirby signature

Bag #2

2006-11-16T21:03:00.001+01:00

Well, like I promised here's what was in the second M-bag I received last month...
During the early 70's Marvel had a lot of succes with the Marvel Team-Up book (MTU) , which featured Spider-Man and a different guest stars each month. Spidey had the Midas touch at that time and every book that featured everyone's favorite webcrawler was an instant succes. So Marvel decided you can never have enough of a good thing and launched a copy-cat book.

Marvel Two-in-One was a comic book series that featured the Fantastic Four member, the Thing, in a different team-up each issue with a different character, and lasted for 100 issues, from January, 1974, through June, 1983.
Many of the characters paired with the Thing were more obscure superheroes/supervillains, and the series never really attained the popularity of Marvel Team-Up, but for a lot of fans it was the better book.
A reason for this is that there weren't so many rules set in stone as for the Spidey book, using lesser known characters the writers had more freedom to walk away from the beaten path. In MTU a lot of A-list characters teamed up with Spider-man and both had to be victorious and get equal share of the glory...not easy to write.

Now I have to be honest, I own full runs of both Marvel Team Up and Marvel-two-in-one, but I haven't read more than 3 or 4 issues of MTU's 150-book run, (only reason is not enough free time), but I have read a lot of the Two-in-One's and for me the main reason MTiO is better is because of Ben Grimm...
I love Spidey as much as the next guy, but Ben Grimm, often overlooked, is one of Kirby/Lee's most important creations in the Marvel Universe.

During the 50's comic books weren't very good, the implementation of the comic book code and the fear installed by Wertham and the U.S. Senate hearings on the link between comics juvenile delinquency, had all but castrated most publishers and what they brought to the stands were bland, stupid and silly books written to not even upset the most delicate of 5-year olds.
Most Superheroes were lost in limbo and the few that did still have their own book like Superman, Batman and Wonderwoman came across as characters from some far-flung fairy-tale land. Completely out of touch and out of time with the real world.

As wel all know Marvel comics changed all of this with Fantastic Four #1 (1961) a new team for the new age...a team where everyone wasn't perfect, the forerunner of an new breed of superghero. They weren't friends all the time, they had problems, they complained and some were downright miserable...just like real people.
The most "human" of all was the one who looked the least human..Ben Grimm aka The Thing. The everyman, the working class joe, the grumpy man with a heart of gold.

Marvel Two-in-One annual #7 is one of my top-3 comics of all time, it features (silly idea) an intergalactic boxing match, featuring all of Earth's strongest heroes agains The Champion an Elder of the Universe and a huge boxing fan.
Again it's a larger than life story, featuring more superpowered heroes than you can shake a stick at, but in the end, it's the most human of all,Ben Grimm who carries the story and makes for the heartwarming ending..

There's a sentimental reason why I like this book as well, but that's for another time...

It's on..

2006-11-11T16:43:00.001+01:00

Here's a follow-up I didn't think I was going to write this year...My entry concerning the purchase of ASM #1 was one of the most read and reacted-to pieces I've put up (meaning more than 2 people read it). Again only one person chose to comment IN the thread, but I received a lot of mails and pms...
Most were very encouraging and told me to go for it and get the rest of the books. Being a weak-willed person when it comics to collectables I've deceided to go for it.

Now let me be honest, it's not only the people egging me on in the hopes of seeing a trainwreck that convinced me, but I feel I just have to try...it's been a good run, getting a series complete for the last 4 years, so it would be nice to make it 5-in-a-row.

So it's officially on...it's going to be an interesting and expensive 7 final weeks of 2006.
And to put my money where my mouth is...here's what I purchased this week

7 weeks and 5 more to go...

Miller Time

2006-11-04T14:26:00.001+01:00

About a month ago I waxed lyrically about the 70's & 80's Hulks I got in the M-bag and used the cover to issue #258 as a showcase..partly because I remember buying that very book back in 1981, but also because I loved the drama of the cover...The Soviet Super soldiers ganging up on the Hulk and beating the snot (well he IS green) out of him...
Now the cover was drawn by comics giant Frank Miller, around the time of his incredible Daredevil run and just before his legendary Dark Knight days.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the original Miller cover for sale on an original art dealer's website.
And here it is in all it's black and white glory

Oh and before anyone goes jumping to conclusions, I didn't buy it, it's still for sale here and can be yours right now...all you need is $8000

Silvio !

2007-10-06T13:06:00.002+02:00

Even when I was a kid, I always was more interested in story rather than art, and there were only a handful of artists I would recognise by their style alone...Sal Buscema was always one of those. Don't like everything he did, but when I saw this action page with the typical "Sal Buscema Hulk face" I just had to go for it

Sal Buscema is, of course, the younger brother of John Buscema. He started his career in the mid 1960s, inking his brother's work but pretty much came into his own a few years later.As a successful penciller at Marvel he was one of the fastest pencillers and inkers working there and was one of their top artists for the next 35 years.

Now even though I seem to keep buying Sal Buscema pages, I'm not a googly-eyed fan boy, some of his work I'm really can't get in to. He is one of the very few Silver Age artists who's style evolved to meet the grittier, sharper-edged look of the 90's and not for the better.
Because of his speed, unfortunately he was often overworked and overused and some of his work shows this.
But when Sal loved a project or a character like The Hulk or Captain America he really aced it.

I picked up this latest piece on eBay and like it very much, lots of action, lots of Sal Hulk-love going on and do I really have to rant and rave about the villain in this page ?
I need to check the time lines on this, but isn't the Brood warrior a dead ringer for the famous Aliens from the same-titles movie franchise ? I wonder which came first ?

Oh and the weird title of this entry ? Sal's real name is Silvio

Little Series part 1

2007-11-02T16:25:00.002+01:00

What's next after you've completed FF ? What's next after you've completed ASM ? What's next; what's next...Well for some reason something is always just around the corner to tickle my fancy and I hope something always will be. But it has to be something I'm 100% committed to, I could never collect something I'm not passionate about. And that's what I also collect the "little" series.

Now let's get some thing straight first, "little series" isn't really the most fitting name for the following titles, but it's the best I could come up with on the fly.I don't mean it as a disparaging or pejorative title, all of these series are excellent and some are even better (in certain runs) than the "bigger" series I've collected. I chose this particular moniker because I'm not going for the complete run this time. I have no desire to own everything from the first to the final issue, I just picked a certain (long) run to collect/complete and I thought today I would give you an update on how everything is working out so far.

I've confessed my love for old greenskin before, both comic- or original art-wise. There's just something about the Hulk I really like. I started out with the intent to collect Hulk #250 - #550, but this changed to #200 - #550. At the moment I only need three more issues out of the 350 to complete the quest. So I guess I can't really count this as a "little" series any more. A few weeks ago I bought Hulk #102, first issue in the series and like always lost my self control and have now decided to go for #102 - #550 and complete the entire series. Sometimes it's just stronger than me.
Of course this means I'll have to get another copy of that horrible, horrible overrated (but most expensive of all the Bronze Books) Hulk #181. I've owned three copies over the years and was always happy to sell them and buy better books with the money, but nobody said being a completionist would be easy.

Probably the fastest series I have ever (nearly) completed. I started collecting old winghead in March 2007 and now 7 months later I've collected 297 of the 301 books I was after. Meaning for those of you that read playboy during maths class that I just need 4 more issues to complete #100 - #400. I should finish this before the end of the year. From start to finish less than 9 months, I don't know what this says about me , but I'm glad I did it. It might sound strange, but with 300 issues I still consider this to be a "little series". After all there are about 180 more books (after #400) that I don't want/need/collect. So basically this is just a run, a big-ass run, but a run just the same

Ok, this might classify as the closest to a real "little series" possible. JIM counts 125 issues, but only the last 43 issues are of interest to me because Thor "starts" in Journey into Mystery #83 and ends in #125.
When I started collecting Thor last year I started at Thor #126 (which is the first issue in that series) and continued until issue #400. Deep down inside I knew one day I would go for the first 43 issues and this year I made a modest start. Modest because these early Silver Age books aren't exactly cheap. I still need 14 out of the 43 books, and alas the four most expensive ones aren't in my possession yet, but on the bright side, I did manage to get almost 30 books this year.

Stay tuned for Little Series part two..."the DC connection" in a few days time, including rants about Batman, Weird War Tales & Brave and the Bold

Little Series part 2

2007-11-09T17:51:00.002+01:00

Here is the second part of how my collection is doing at the moment, things are coming to a close, that much is sure,my want list is ever decreasing and if I hadn't recently included Hulk 102 - 199 then it would have fit on a single page. The last series I'm collecting/completing are Batman, and a really small series/run called Weird War Tales.

Let's start with the big one, Batman. Most of you out there know that I'm a hardcore Marvel fan and only occasionally dip into the DC pool, in fact Legion of Superheroes and Batman are the only "core" titles I collect.
Batman is probably the most iconic figure in Superhero-dom, even surpassing Superman and Spider-man, everybody loves Batman, alas like I mentioned in a previous entry not all decades have treated Batman with the deserved respect and some runs are sloppy seconds.
Now when I set out to collect Batman, I decided to collect #200 through to #400 and started in the Summer of 2006, about 14 months or so later I'm almost finished. The Batman run took a little longer to collect than I anticipated due to the fact that I never managed to score a run larger than 10 books and mostly bought book per book.At the moment I need 6 more issues, and none are really expensive or hard to find, I just have to stumble on someone that has more than one for sale, as I'm not going buy these book per book and end up paying $11.00 shipping everytime I find a $5.00 book or something.
Now, in the Spring of this year I also decided to extend the Batman collection a bit as well, I'm still unsure if I'll collect Batman from issue #1 onwards to #199 as that would mean spending anywhere in the region of $75.000 to get all these books. But what I did decide was to go and collect all Joker covers, if I do decide to collect the entire series, I'll already have these and if I don't then I'll have some of the coolest Batman covers from the Golden, Silver and Brozen Age to spruce up my collection.

Here are the three latest Joker covers I bought this month

Now the other DC series I'm collecting is the much less heralded Weird War Tales. This horror-war themed series ran the entire Bronze Age up till 1982 and was one of the series I read as a kid because when I managed to find a store that sold comics, these were always left over...yeah it wasn't a very popular series. But I kinda like it, warts and all. Strange really as I don't care for horror or war comics, but somehow this title does entertain me. Now I'm only collecting a small run this time. I'm going for #75 through to #125, the last 50 books of the series. Mainly because I think the later stories are better and because of the Creature Commandos. Now issue #114 isn't a very good issue at all, art is run of the mill and the script has so much holes you could drive an 18-wheeler through it...but when I bought this book new it was the most coveted book in my possession. Probably because of the totally out of this world cover featuring Adolf Hitler getting freaked out by the Creature Commandos.

After re-reading it as an adult I came to the conclusion that the writer had no idea what he was doing and just tried using shock value to sell books. The books actually feature the CCs performing as circus freaks in a concentration camp (and then liberating it)
But when you are 13 years old, this is a cover that screams "forbidden fruit" and you feel guilty just reading it. And for that very reason all my friends wanted this book, I could have gotten any book in trade for it, even my friend J's Iron Man #150 (classic Dr Doom vs. Iron Man cover) which was our group's "got-to-have-book" (and only J had it). But I didn't cave and held on to my Weird War Tales, and I still have it.
I'm now 9 issues short of getting the run complete, I'm not going after them like I do my other books, but when I run into them I gladly pick them up for a buck or two a piece

Back in Black

2008-01-04T15:57:00.003+01:00

Don't want to start on a somber note, but I actually started collecting because of the fallout of one of the world's greatest tragedies. The book that got me into collecting was a new (for the time) comic...Amazing Spider-man V2 #36, the all-black WTC cover.

I walked in to a comic shop looking to buy some supplies to bag +- 250 issues from my childhood which I had recently re-discovered when I saw this issue.
The shop,typically, had no supplies at all but I walked in when the owner was opening up his weekly Diamond box with the new issues. The most striking of all was the 9/11 Spider-man book.Of course I had seen some news about this comic on TV, Joe Quesada had been invited on several talk shows to discuss Marvel’s “handling” of the World Trade center disaster within the pages of Amazing Spider-Man.

This J. Michael Straczynski written book, shows Marvel Comics heroes reacting to the tragedy and helping with relief efforts, working side by side with New York fire fighters, cops and relief workers. While the issue itself is part of the regular series, it isn't exactly part of continuity but a stand-alone issue which speaks for itself and was released November 14th 2001.

Now I won't go into the rights or wrongs of this book, many people applauded Marvel for this salute to the "real heroes" but a lot of people didn't.
Somebody described it as "By shoehorning the WTC events into a comic book world populated with flying Norse gods and umpteen ubermen, it cheapens the struggles of the police, firemen, and regular joes who were faced with horror two months ago. I’m sure they would have appreciated having The Thing heaving girders out of the way in the search for survivors." echoing the sentiments of a lot of people.

But to me it had a profound impact. When I left comics in 1985 they were 100% fantasy, totally disconnected to the real world. I missed the grim and gritty 90's, I missed the tackling of social issues. When I left comics Spider-man was still fighting the Beyonder in some Secret War, when I returned he was trying to save people from the aftermath of the Twin Towers destruction. Like everyone with half a brain the 911 tragedy changed me and made me realize we now lived in a different world. Maybe starting reading and collecting comic books again was my way to try and relive "better" and more innocent days.

Once I read #36 I started a pull list, granted I stopped buying new books two years later but it DID get me back into comics. I had three ASMs at the time, the #36 issue, issue #211 from my childhood and...another copy of #36. For some reason I went back to the store and saw they had a copy left and I just had to buy it as well. From that moment on I told myself "I'll now go out and try to collect the entire ASM series" .Three years later I had #1 - #500 complete and almost 10.000 other Marvels. I had become an obsessive and unrelentless collector and swept all my other hobbies aside just for the sake of comics...all because of issue #36.

But it didn't stop there. Normally I can't stand having doubles of issues. I also don't like "loose" issues (I like loose women though...badda-bing), I'm a completist and want to have full runs or, even better, complete series. So single issues don't do anything for me, and why would I want multiple copies of anything ? I just need the one issue to complete the series and I'll always sell the double issues, mainly to get them out of my house..well except ASM v2 #36.
For some reason I can't stop buying this book, it's one of the most expensive modern books, but I just have to pick it up when I see it. I don't go out and actively search for the issue, but when someone is trying to sell me some books or is selling a collection, I always check the "modern section" for this issue.
I'm also not a high grade comic nut, conditions is not that important to me as I collect books to read and crack most of the CGC-slabbed books I buy. But yes I would be crazy enough to one day spend a fortune on getting an ASM #36 V2 in CGC 10.0 Gem Mint.

Now a little info about the pic, I photographed my higher grade issues, in all I have 14 of these. The 9.6 and 9.8 issues are both Direct Editions, while the 9.4 is a newsstand copy. The 9.6 issue is still the old CGC label and doesn't call it the "9/11 story", but the "World Trade Center story".
The other 5 raw issues are NM to NM+ ... but as I'm sure none would get a 9.9 or a 10.0 I'm not going to submit them. Strange thing for me to be talking about grade/condition/value for once..but this is a strange part of my collection.

This little comic book symbolizes a lot of things for me, some bad, some good. It touches me on various levels, I don't really like the art that much, some parts of the story make me cringe (when Doc Doom starts crying..P-lease) but it is one of the first books I would try to save in case some disaster happened to my collection.
What can I say...it's my little black book.

One is the magic number

2008-02-14T20:46:00.011+01:00

Short and sweet entry this time. Just wanted to share this picture with you. Last week I pulled my Silver Age number 1s for a photo op.
Why I did it I'll explain later, but at the moment I just want you to take a look at the pic and look at the number 1s...and think about when #1 isn't #1. Confused ? Read on.

I put my nine most important (Silver Age) first issues in the picture, but only 6 of them have a #1 on the cover...but I assure you they are all "first issues". So what's up .
Well Fantastic Four #1, Avengers #1 Amazing Spider-man #1, Iron Man #1, X-men #1 and Silver Surfer #1 are self explanatory, but what about Amazing Fantasy #15...why does this Marvel Uber key carry the number #15 ? Well because it was the 15th issue in the series that spotlighted various new heroes/concepts and nobody had any idea that this Spider-man character would stick. Well he did and because of this we are stuck with this strangely numbered issue as the first Spider-man issue.

And what about Hulk #102...In 1964 the Hulk became the backup feature in Tales to Astonish (sharing the book with Giant-Man) and when in 1968 Marvel finally was able to renegotiate their distribution deal they seized the opportunity to expand their monthly titles and gave the Hulk his own book.
Tales to Astonish had run tot #101, so it seemed logical to continue the numbering on the first Hulk issue and so it came to be that the first issue of Hulk V2 was issue #102

Same thing with Captain America. Tales of Suspense had run to issue #99 when in 1968 Marvel could finally give both heroes (Cap and Iron Man) their own books. Cap continued the TOS numbering and started at #100. For some reason they didn't follow this logic with Iron Man and the first Iron Man issue got a #1 on its cover. But it could have easily (and logically) been #100 as well.

But why did I pull the issues and take the pic ? Why now ? Well mainly because this is the last time these books were all in my possession Two of the books in the pic have left my collection. I no longer own Amazing Fantasy #15 or X-men #1. I didn't sell them, I didn't lose them and they didn't get stolen. Nothing like that...I traded them.
To find out why I was prepared to do away with these two super keys, and more importantly what I got in trade...tune in next week