The Joke's on you Batman !

I once heard somebody say that Batman is so good he could be a Marvel character... which as a Marvel zombie myself, struck a chord. Now I must admit I have nothing against DC, it's just that I chose a side and am sticking with it.

But there is no denying that Batman is one of the all-time great comic book characters, maybe the most iconic one of all. So even I couldn't help but start collecting Batman. My initial target was to get #1 though to #500 ... But that's a very tall order. I still haven't broken the top ten issues yet, but I do have a nice #11.

I still need about 40 issues to get them all, but I went for the Joker covers first.
Everybody loves the Joker and he really knows how to jazz up a cover.
In this video I'm showcasing my complete set of Joker covers from the Batman series from the Golden and Silver Age, from Batman #1 to Batman #200.

I didn't bother with the Joker covers from #200 onwards as it would have made the video too big and most of you have probably seen them all. But who knows there might be a few GA or SA covers here you've never seen. Enjoy !

The New World

As some of you know I've spent the last few weeks gallivanting all over the US of A and had a splendid time.Met up with some old and dear friends, a lot I'd never met in person before and geeked out over a lot of comic books.

I also got to visit a lot of US comic shops and got to rifle through Superworld's warehouse and pick out some nice books.

I flew into Boston on July 2nd and spent the next few days at a friend's Summer house in New Hampshire, enjoying watersports, BBQ's, campfires and a lot of drinking. I celebrated my birthday and Independence Day and had a real relaxing time...but the best was yet to come.
After a few days I went back to Boston and met up with some of my New England friends and co-collectors. There were also two Southern boys that flew in to join us and geek out for a while.

We spent the first day eating and drinking and playing with all the high grade funny books from one of my friend's collection.
This fella, let's call him Nik, also acted as our local tour guy and drove us to the local comic book hotspots. I had also planned to pick some of those massive Treasury editions as these are way too large to send through the mail and picking them up in person was the only viable solution.
Alas NONE of the comic book stores I visited during this trip had any in stock, but Nik did and he graciously gave me a bunch of them from his personal collection.

First Comic book store I visited was Bedrock Comics and I must say that I was very impressed, as my first visit to a LCS I could have done much worse (which I later did) as this was a very nicely laid out store with a lot of back issues. Most people are under the impression that most US comic book stores are a veritable treasure trove for Golden and Silver Age books, truth is that most stores have a whole bunch of trades, a nice selection of moderns and almost no or few older back issues. But this store did but we really didn't have the time to go digging through the boxes. Still I bought my son a nice Flash action figure (the kid's a DC fan....go figure *sigh*)

Next on the tour was Ted Van Liew's warehouse. Ted is the owner/operator of Superworld comics (http://www.superworldcomics.com), one of the East Coast's bigger dealers and probably one of the nicest and coolest dealers I have ever met.He was nice enough to open up his warehouse for us and In fact I'm pretty sure despite his years of dealing and his massive inventory Ted is still more fan/collector than dealer. I spent more time yapping with him about books, original art and the hobby itself than I did going through all the boxes. Still I managed to find some SA and GA Batman books, including a Golden Age Joker cover that was one my want-list. The rest of the day was spent eating and drinking (again) and I got to spend some time with Paul who is the man responsible for bringing those cool Superhero glasses to the market (http://www.toontumblers.com)

Our tour guide had to get back to the real world the next day but my friend Andrew from Golden Age Collectibles (http://www.golden-age-collectibles.com) stepped us to the plate and true to the previous metaphor took us to Fenway Park, the oldest Major League Baseball stadium in the US where We had a blast.
After dropping of the two Southern boys at the airport Andrew and I went to one of hos favorite comic book stores, Webhead Enterprises in Wakefield MA.
Again a very nice store, massive inventory of back issues and I was happy to find three books that were on my want-list. Score ! I also picked up a few more action figures for my kids (yeah...DC again).

Andy also gave me the addresses of another few comic stores, as I was still looking for more Treasuries and wanted to find a Supergirl action figure for my daughter.So the next day I took the train into Boston center and proceeded to walk a little over 4 miles visiting all the shops that were on my list.

First went down to Cambridge, went to The Million Year Picnic , nothing from my list, no treasuries, no Supergirl figure.
Then WALKED to Kenmore and the Comicopia store...They didn't have a single book older than 6 months and no Supergirl action figure...but the owner was super nice, I didn't spend a dime and told him I was looking for that figure for my little girl and he gave me a free Supergirl sticker and a free Supergirl comic he had left from FCBD, he also called two other shops to find out if they had any Supergirl AFs...but nothing.
Really sweet guy, I wished he had anything I wanted so I could spend some cash with him.

As I had walked that far, I walked a little longer to Newbury comics and bought one of Paul's Captain America Toon Tumblers there for my buddy and again no backissues and no Supergirl, but I did get sweet Poison Ivy action figure which she will like as well.

I was so hot from the 3 hours of walking in the sun I walked into a nice cool Apple store and enjoyed the AC for 15 minutes and tried one of the new Mac books to read my mail.

You may have noticed that there are no scans of the books, what I did this time was make a quick movie featuring all the comics I brought back from the US and put it up on my youtube channel. Here it is, of course if you click on it you will be take to the channel where you can watch it in HD, which as always is the best way to see more detail.






I had a blast during the Boston part of my trip and would like to thank my friends from the bottom of my heart for making it possible.

Nik : I want to thank you for opening up your lovely house for us,letting us hang in your basement and playing with your toys.Also thanks for the Treasuries and driving me all over the Boston area, I really appreciated it, plus you taught me a whole new batch of cuss-words which I can use in traffic when I get home.

Dick Pontoon : thanks for getting me 38 lbs of supplies and driving me all over the place, giving me the revelation that life is short (after said drives) and I need to fully enjoy while I can. Give my regards to your car ; "Christine"

GACollectibles : Andy I was a pleasure to meet you and a blast to hang out.
I enjoyed your stories and am looking forward to hearing the point to most of them some day. Thanks not only for taking us to Fenway Park and driving me to those comic book stores, but mostly because you volunteered to ride in Pontoon's car so I didn't have to anymore. Sorry she ate your keys

Silverandbronze : Paul good yapping to you about all things important and fun, we only met up the one day but had a cool time.

And then last by not means least... my buddies from down South.
Arex after all those years of mails and PMs I was great to finally meet and be on the receiving end of one of those bear-hugs. Happy to say my ribs are only sprained and not cracked as we first feared. I was good to finally thank you for taking care of my books all those years. Keep on rocking coach.

DrWatson : Thanks for the doughnuts
It was a pleasure hanging out with you Jim, picking up the little nuggets of "Ancient Tennessee Wisdom". You were smaller than I expected but your sense of smell makes up for that...just work on your sense of fashion (think green, think shoes) and I'm sure you'll be alright.

You complete me

Well about 6 weeks I announced that I had just started collecting Daredevil and would try to finish #1 - #100 in a relative short time. As usual I went overboard and went completely Colonel Kurtz about the whole thing. After 6 weeks I can proudly (?) say that I only need 3 more issues to complete the entire run. I pestered and hounded everyone I knew to sell me the books and I'm sure it won't take that long until I get the 3 remaining books and I can read them back to back.

Here's a pic of issue #1.
I just love the old-school costume which I think was designed by Bill Everett and Jack Kirby. The red one is more dramatic and probably more iconic, but this one just plains rocks..even though his bum looks big in it (the stuff I notice when I read comic books...)

Anyway with a little luck I'll be able to complete this series before the end of the year. 2008 hasn't been my best year for completing series/runs. Of course the previous years were the salad years as was able to complete all the A-series. This year original art took most of my focus, time and not to mention money. But I've grown a little sour on art as the prices continue to soar into the stratosphere. So 2009 will hopefully see my return to the fold and will reap completed series galore.

I'm not sure, but the only series I think I completed this year was Captain America.
But I did start collecting a few other series/runs that I hoped to complete this year. Alas it was not to be, but I'm very close to some of them and maybe just maybe I can pull another rabbit out of the hat before the end of the year.

Here's a little breakdown

• Tales of Suspense - need 7 more issues to complete the series


• Incredible Hulk - need one more book to complete the series


• Journey into Mystery - need 10 more books to complete the series

And then of course there are the smaller runs I'm working on, but more about those in a later update.

The Golden Path

I remember a few years ago I was having an online conversation with some (modern) comic fans and someone referred to me as the "Golden Age - Silver Age Collector". Well I objected to this "term of endearment" and corrected him. Mainly because I always considered myself to be a "Silver and Bronze Age" fan and secondly because I didn't even own a single GA book and frankly wasn't interested in this segment of the hobby at all.

But how times change...In the past year or so I've come to appreciate certain Golden Age books or titles and even started collecting them. I have a big fondness for EC pre-code horror (which, frankly are among the best comics ever made)and Shomburg-cover Timely's (even thought most of the Timely interior stories are a little "innocent").

And a few months ago I decided to go with DC's best character and try to collect a full run of Batman books with Joker covers. Maybe one day I'll try and complete the full Batman run from 1940 to 1990, but the Joker covers are a neat way to start.

But this is old news as I blogged about this in the past, but today I received this little beauty. Agreed I already bought another GA Batman/Joker cover in 2007, but this is the first that cost me serious coin. As a Xmas present to myself I went out and bought the very first Joker cover in the Batman series, Batman #11 from 1942...now the oldest book in my collection.

This book has one of my favorite covers of all time, I think it's just fantastic. Batman knocking out the joker with a firm right-handed punch, the magnificent deck-of-cards background and Robin almost out-grinning the Joker himself.
Truly an early GA masterpiece with all the credit going to writer/creator Bill Finger and artist/creator Jerry Robinson. The most work that Bob Kane did on this book was probably sign his name on the cover, if he didn't have Robinson do that for him as well

And to think the original cover art to this book actually still survives to this day.
Here's Heritage's Ben Samuels who discovered the art a few years ago, before it was sold for nearly ...$200.000.

Little Series part 2

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

Little Series part 1

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

Unchained !

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

Golden Years

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

Oh my God, they killed Kenny's books

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

Gothic

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