The final bricks in the wall.

Pop quiz hotshot, what do Incredible Hulk #92, X-men #63 and Sandman Mystery Theater #66, #69 & #70 all have in common ? Give up ? I thought you would, well I got them all in a single package this week and they each were the final issues I needed to complete those three series.

It's a nice coincidence that I managed to complete three series all at once, especially considering, the X-men series took me five years, the Hulk four and the Sandman MT books have been on my want list since 2007 !!
So how come it took me this long to get them and was it pure serendipity that I managed to get them all in the same month ?

Now none of them are particularity expensive, the Overstreet Price guide has the Hulk #92 (in NM) at $5, The X-men #63 guides F/VF at $60 and the Sandman Mystery Theater are at best worth a few bucks each. The trouble was finding them in the first place and getting a decent deal in the process.

X-men #63 was easy to find, it's plentiful in any grade and never sells over guide. It's one of the better issues of the first X-men series, Neal Adams goodness and a cool Magneto cover. But for some reason it ended up the last issue I still needed to get. I really don't like paying $14.00 in shipping for a $50 book...so each time I saw one for sale I was hoping to bundle it with something else to save on shipping, but I struck out every time and passed.

By sheer chance a collector was selling a bunch of Silver Age X-men books, including this one AND some modern books..including the elusive Incredible Hulk #92.



Now Hulk #92 is the very first Planet Hulk issue, which is the best Hulk storyline of the last 20 years, so collectors have been scrambling for this book which starts it all. Last year I was able to purchase the entire Planet Hulk run...with #92 missing. Every comic book store I've been to in the last 3 years had this issue missing...Sure they were on eBay, but at 2X to 3X the guide price (and then I would have to break my rule of paying shipping for a single book as well). But like I said I finally found a seller who was selling it a reasonable price and had another book I wanted.

And then there were the Sandman Mystery Theater books. A lesser known Vertigo title, but one of the very best from the 1990's (not to be confused with Neil Gaiman's Sandman series). Sandman MT lasted for 6 years and never disappointed, if you go back to this post from May 2007 you'll see I was already raving about the series...and I was also boasting that I had completed it. Well I wasn't lying, I was only being stupid...I thought the series stopped at #65 and later found out it went on another 5 issues. Which of course,I didn't have.

So I started hunting them down which turned out very difficult. The final five issues didn't have a large print run as the series was slated for cancellation and a lot of comic book stores didn't even bother to order the final two issues.
Issues #69 and #70 were particularly difficult to find. Remember these are basic $3 books which will never appreciate or become valuable..and still Mile High comics is selling #69 for nearly $15 (5X guide) and doesn't even have a single copy of #70 for sale. The only people buying these are the idiots like me who complete series and just have to had every single issue.

But getting all of them was more than worth it, nothing beats the feeling of getting a series complete, and when you manage to do more than one in a year, not to mention a week, it's a real red letter day on my calendar.

With X-men #63 I now have X-men #1 to #250 complete, I used to have #251 - #450 as well, but I sold those in the big purge of 2010.

With Incredible Hulk #92 I now have amassed my longest and completest run ever.
* Incredible Hulk V1 #1 - #6
* Tales to Astonish #59 - #101
* Incredible Hulk V2 #102 - #474
* Incredible Hulk V3 #1 - #112

That's 544 consecutive Hulk issues from 1962 tot 2007 (when the series ended and I did as well)

And with those Sandman issues, I can finally proclaim Sandman Mystery Theater #1 - #70 complete (and yes, this time I've checked to see that #70 is really the last issue)

Think outside the box

Getting comics halfway across the globe is both an exciting and a maddening experience. Sure you enjoy the anticipation of waiting and hoping this will be the day your little box of treasures arrive. But at the same time you get disappointed if it doesn't arrive on the expected date and you hope and pray it arrives at all...preferably intact.

But as I'm geographically challenged there is no way around, this and my gargantuan yearly shipping bill are the darker sides of collection, but once the box arrives, everything is right in the world again and I temporarily forget all the woes and focus instead on the wonders.

The last 2 weeks I was on pins and needles as I was expecting a rather important package and because of all the non-working days due to Easter, it was stuck in transit somewhere. To make matters worse, it got stuck in customs as well. My friendly neighborhood customs official opened the box, even though the value was below the import-duty threshold. Once he opened and inspected the box he came to the conclusion I didn't have to pay duty or tax and all forms were filled in correctly. But I still had to pay $15 to get my box back, because he had inspected it and all inspected packages carry a $15.00 cost... I have given up trying to understand the logic in all of this.

But once the package was finally delivered I focused on the contents and got that stupid grin again. This time the box wasn't as filled as previous boxes, but it did hold some key books.

I made yet another video showing all the goodies, let me know if you get tired of all these vids and want me to post pics again. I filmed it this time as I seem to get a lot more reaction to vids than to pics, I guess that's Youtube for you.

Here goes...



If you really don't care for videos and want to see which keys I'm talking about (yeah go ahead and spoil the surprise) you can click HERE to see a pic of the two keys (but the vid is cooler)

Oh and as always you can check out the videos in higher resolution directly through my Youtube page Chromiumcomics Youtube page

The postman always rings twice

It's been a while since I made and posted a video. But seeing as my previous one just broke the 5000 unique views barrier (I can't believe 5000 people actually watched it) and it's almost Xmas I thought I'd give it another go. it's a bit silly and a lot geeky, but you comic fans know the great feeling when books you bought finally arrive.

As I'm geographically challenged it sometimes takes months before I get my hands on the books I bought as I tend to have a bunch of them shipped together to keep the postage in check. Yesterday two boxes arrived at once and...well watch the vid and let me know what you think. Couldn't find the trademark white surgical gloves this time, so I'm doing it all ,gulp... barehanded




If you want to watch the video in a higher resolution, which I thoroughly recommend, you can click on THIS LINK. Makes it easier to make out all the details.

One is the magic number

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