Back in Black

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.

Spending Jumps

Who truly tells the people close to him how much you've spent on your collection ? If you don't then chances are you are feeling guilty about spending too much, or just know that nobody will understand why you just have to pay Xamount of money for a bunch of smelly old books printed on recycled newsprint paper originally aimed at a 10-year old.
And spend is wat the collector does, and I'm certainly am guilty of overindulging myself on a regular basis.

But what I've learned from conversations with other collectors is that almost nobody goes out and spends a large chunck of change out of the blue.
You gradually build up to it...making little spending jumps as it were.

The psychology of this is that you set bounderies for yourself, lines in the sand that you will not, never ever, no siree Bob, cross. Until you do just that and draw another line in the sand, this time just a little further.
I remember when I started collecting around 2002 and I was spending on average about $3.00 per book and was completing the Wolverine series.
Somebody offered me issue #1 of the series for $12.00 and I bought it and felt a little uneasy at spending this amount of money on a book.


My next step was when I bought my copy of Amazing Spider-man #300 for the princely sum of $30.00. I emailed the seller and told him I would take it and went to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night, wondering if I could still get out of the deal. My first case of buyer's remorse.
Once that target was shattered I felt comfortable buying books up to $40.00- $50.00, of course I hadn't yet ventured into that domain called "The Silver Age".




A few months later I bought a copy of Amazing Spider-man #122, one of the uber Bronze-Age keys and I had to cross the $100 line and again it felt uncomfortable and stupid, but again I got over it and drew a new line in the sand. $100 books were now a regular occurrence and for the longest time I stuck to the plan..until Doctor Doom came around messed things up.

I still had no intention of collecting Silver Age (we're talking Spring 2003) but I was and still am a Dr Doom nut and I was offered the opportunity to purchase Fantastic Four #5, first Doc Doom for a little under $300.
It took me all of 5 minutes to decide make another spending jump, but this was a big one, it had now evolved into more than just a hobby. I was deliriously happy with the book (and still am, one of my top-5 favorite books) and oddly enough didn't get the nauseating sensation in my stomach when I woke up the next day. Was I getting immune ?

Sure looked that way,as for the next 6 months or so I was buying sub $500 books left and right (well I was completing the Fantastic Four series and there are some seriously expensive books in there) but I never went over the magical $500 mark. Deep inside I knew that one day I would have to if I wanted to get all the comics that were on my want list, but I kept postponing it until the day where I had complete the entire FF series, save one issue...yes #1 the first Marvel Silver Age book that was ever published.
$500 wasn't going to cut it, and alas neither was $1000, so as a Xmas present to myself I got a nice copy of this holy grail and paid over $1000 for it. The nausea came back and stayed with me for a few days, but this also passed as I was happy as a lark, not only because of getting the book, but also because I had just completed FF #1 - #500.

The next year I completed Amazing Spider-man and again I gave myself a Xmas present, Spider-man #1 and this time the line was crossed at $1500+. This hobby thing was getting out of hand, but the good thing was that there was only one more book that would cause me to raise the bar again and that of course was the key of all keys, Amazing Fantasy #15.

The plan was to purchase this as my 2007 Xmas present, but in the Spring of this year I was offered a copy that fit the bill perfectly and bought it, months ahead of time and not CGC encapsulated/graded like I had always done with my major purchases.
I crossed the $2000 threshold and lived to regret it, what happened to my AF #15 is well documented in an earlier blog entry.

But let's not end on a sad note, on the one hand the line should now never be crossed again, I've jumped as far as possible as AF#15 is the most expensive book to get. Sure I could upgrade some of my books or get a real high grade expensive copy of another book, but that's not the way it works for me. I've reached the end of the line and I don't see myself crossing the $2500 mark for a comic book any time soon.
But then again a few years ago I would have never imagined I could pay more than $30.00 for any book. Live and learn

Slated for cancellation

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

Amazing Amassed

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