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 !

A 1000 comics in 2011 Indian Summer

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, but I was almost buried under a mound of comics..a bit like Spidey when Kraven put him 6 feet under. That's how many comics I read the past two months.

I knew that August would be good as I had a lot of free time, away from TV and computers and just me, a deckchair, the beach and some adult beverages. You gotta love a holiday in the sun when half your luggage consists of trades and comics.
Plus I had to make up for July where I only managed 141 comics.
August made well up for that slip, in fact I have now fully accepted that I have no life to speak of as I read 311 comics in August (-insert mocking graemlin here -)

Much to my surprise I was able to continue in the same vain throughout September and clocked up another 274 comics in that month. Mainly because I started reading a really long run of Hellblazer in August (260 issues) and just continued reading in September.

So after all that I'm now less than 100 comics away from breaking my target of reading 2011 comics in 2011. October looks like the month where I reach my goal, but I've already decided to just continue until January 1st just to see how many I manage to read in one full year.

Anyway, for you librarian-types out there here's what I read the last two months :
(deep breath)


August 2011 311 comics read.

Lone Wolf & Cub Book #3 (3 comics)
Fafhrd & Gray Mouse Book #1 (2 comics)
Reload 1-3
Wolverine the JUngle Adventure (2comics)
Iron Age 2 (2 comics)
Iron Man 2.0 #6 + #7
JIM 625
Logan's run aftermath 2 + 3
Marvel zombies Supreme 5
Mighty Thor 3
Moon Knight 3
Mystery Men 2 + 3
Planet of the Apes 3 + 4
RASL 11
Red Skull 1
Red Skull 1 + 2
Red Sonja Revenge of the gods 4
SHIELD 2
Sherlock Holmes Year one 4 + 5
Supreme Power 2
That Hellbound train 2
The Mission 5 + 6
The Strange case of Mr Hyde 3 + 4
Ultimate Fallout 1-3
Batman the Dark Knight #4 (2011)
Conan, island of no return #2
Conan Road of Kings #6
Conan the Barbarian The Mask of Acheron (2 comics)
Creepy #6 (2011)
Criminal the last of the Innocent #2
Daredevil #1 (2011)
DC Comics the new 52 (2 comics)
DC retroactive Batman the 70's
Fear Itself #4
FF #5 - FF#7 (3 comics)
Formic Wars Burning Earth #7
Hellboy the Fury #2
The Boys #56 + #57
The last mortal #2 + #3
LOEG Century 02 1969 (4 comics)
The Mis-adventures of Adam West #1
The Walking Dead #86 + #87
Ultimate Avengers vs New Ultimates #5 + #6
Warlords of Mars Dejah Thoris #5
Warlords of Mars Fall of Barsoom #1
Warlords of Mars #8
Northlanders #1 - 42
Saga of the Swamp Thing 1-7
Thor Viking 1-5
Hellblazer 200 - 237
Hellblazer 1-110
Red Prophet Tales of Alvin Maker 1-6
Orson Scott Card's Goldbug
Criminal - The Last of the Innocent 3
Ultimate Fallout 4/5/6
The Walking Dead 88
The Cape 1
Ultimates V5 #1
That Hellbound train 3
Supreme Power 3
Mystery Men 4
Moon Knight 4
Kick Ass 2 #3
JIM 626
Iron Age 3 (44 pages, counts as two)
Iron Age Omega
FF 8
Fear Itself 5
Elephantmen 32
Daredevil (2011) 2
Conan Road of Kings 7
Batman the Dark Knight #5 (2011)



September 2011 274 comics read.

Criminal Bad night 1-4
Hellblazer 111-199
Hellblazer194 - 199 + 238-257
Fables 19-27 (8 comics)
Hulk (2008) 1-21
Justice League (2011) 1
The Rinse 1
Ultimate Hawkeye 1
Hulk (2008) 22 - 37 ( 16comics)
Drums #1 & #2
Iron Man 2.0 #8
Planet of the Apes #5
Red Skull #3
The Last Mortal #4
Conan (Dark Horse) #1 - #50
Catwoman #1 (2011)
Chew #20
Conan Road of Kings #8
Daredevil #3 + #4 (2011)
Fear itself #6
Hellboy The fury #3
Moon Knight #5 (2011)
Mystery Men #5
Northlanders #43
Planet of the Apes #6
Proof Endagered #4 + #5
The Boys #58
The Vault #1
Ultimate Hawkeye #2
Warlords of Mars Dejah Thoris #6
Warlords of Mars Fall of Barsoom #2
Warlords of Mars #9
The Umbrella Academy Apocalypse Suite #1 - #6
House of Mystery #1 - #41 + annual #1 + #2

A 1000 comics in 2011 JULY Summer slacking

Well Summer finally arrived and with that my 9-week long holiday began, weather was awful in July so all of this should have combined in to a perfect storm and made for excellent comic book time. Alas things turned out differently.

I really have no idea how it happened, but July was my worst month this year concerning the amount of comics I read. I had a lot of free time and still only managed to read less than 150 comics. A pittance compared to the previous months.


Now before all of you start thinking that I spend all my time at work reading funny books and that's why the amount is so low this month I need to clarify some things.
I entertained my friend Andy for about a week and took him to Holland, France and the UK and there was just not time (or inclination) to read comics at all, we just had way too much fun.

I also cleaned out my attic and spent half a week migrating one of my systems from Xp to Win 7 (64)....and believe you me, I would have much rather spent that time reading comics.
Set up a new laptop and spent days trans-coding video files for my Ipad²

In August I'm going on holiday again, but this time it's a beach holiday, so I'm going to pack about 150 comics (and a few books) so let's hope I get my numbers up again.

Anyway, the results of the Belgian jury for the July month of the year 2011 :


JULY (141)
Marvel Team -up #51 - #80
The Horrorist (90 pages counted as 4 comics)
Chiaroscuro 1-3
Detective Comics #395
Lucifer Nirvana (48 pages)
Blade Runner #1 & #2
Raiders of the Lost Arc 1-3
Wulf 1
Ironjaw 1
America Vs The Justice Society 1-4 (counts as 9 comics)
Books of Magic 1-4 (counts as 9 comics)
Conan Savage Tales 2 + 3
Eerie 32/33/34/35/36
Creepy Archives #10 (Creepy 46/47/48/49/50) 290 pages : 13 comics
PVP Awesmology 600 pages 27 comics
Marvel Team-up #81 - #98
Alpha Flight #1 (2011)
B.P.R.D. Hell On Earth Monsters #1
Batman - The Dark Knight #3
B.P.R.D. Casualties #1
Captain America #1 (2011)
Chew #19

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.

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