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About this journal

What happens when a collector startes to deviate from his collecting focus....

Entries in this journal

Rebuilding my Comic Bookshelves

Back in 2014 I began making plans to move abroad. Expecting to have to downsize to smaller accommodations in Europe I sold off a huge chunk of my Comic book library (graphic novels, hardcovers, omnibuses and custom bound editions). Well I'm back in the US now and have started to work to rebuild my library. I thought it would be fun to track my progress here, and provide some reviews along the way.  As it is with books, some books I sold for a pretty penny have gone back into print and are n

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An American Classic drawing the American Classic

Im a huge baseball fan, and I love Wil Eisner's cover here for Baseball Comics #1 (of 1) depicting the Badgers vs Iron City Nine. From 1949, the book represents one of Will's attempts to break out of news paper publishing with The Spirit, that unfortunately did not lead to an issue #2 or more. 

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A first Confession

Ok this lady is rough, subscription crease (ok not really a subscription crease, since this was probably not a subscription order, more likely a "fold it in half so no one sees the cover and shove it in my back pocket" crease) along with a ring "stain" (color loss, we'll see about water damage), and a rough spine... but Intimite Confessions #1 is one of those "Bombshell" bad girl covers, that you just cant hate, no matter the condition... Red dresss, blonde hair, stole, plunging neck line, this

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A very Human Torchy

Just a classic GGA cover in my book, Torchy 4. There are quite a few great Torchy covers (really there are no losers in the 6 issue run). #4 though is the swimsuit edition, with the periscope gag (how do all those subs fit in that space!?!?!).  The old piece of tape that is holding the tear in place on the bottom edge is actually on the back of the cover (with the adhesive making the discoloring thru the cover material). And some cheeky kid decided to draw on the first page in the margin to

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My Favorite Wings episode

Wings 61.  Not the mintiest of copies, but I'll always pay $40 for a favorite cover as long as the cover image presents well. I love the deep colors in this copy. The blacks and dark browns drip. I love the Lee Elias cover with the two gunners back to back with each other, and the frame of the plan around them.  The gunners with their oxygen masks so they can work in the open fuselage at higher altitudes. Just great details. 

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First horror, then romance, and now war!

A few years back Sharonville sold a copy of this book on the boards and I fell in love withheld perspective of the cover shot, and the fact t thatched book was pre-assembled involvement in WWII (1940). So here we go another genre, another deviation from my "focus" Sky Blazers #2!

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Now to add some Romance

Snagged this book from Billy. It wasn't quite the iconic Gga I was looking for, but when someone posts. WINDY city per book for a couple of bills you type take it fast and think about it later."A. Wallace" in small print up near the title, and a bit of a miscut, but it all adds to the charm. And she does have that come hither look in her eyes....

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The book that broke through

For a solid 3-4 years I collected two things only. GA sci-fi and Okajima pedigrees. Luckily for my pocketbook neither came up often or in prices I liked, so I slowly built my collection. But then last year, with a new job I decided I was tired of being on the sidelines for so many other books, so I broke my restrictions and started buying books I thought were good buys, nice covers or just plain cool.  First up was this vampire cover on Mystic 17 that I found here on the boards. A "PCH" for my c

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Sci-Fi before the Space Age

...when all we had was our imaginations So I've recently embarked on a new collecting area, that of Golden Age Sci-Fi. When I first re-started collecting a few years ago I had a few GA Sci-Fi books, but then turned my attention elsewhere. But now I'm back. I'm going to use this journal to 1) show books I've added to my collection and 2) document books I might be targeting. My end goal is to have an example from each Sci-Fi themed title from the Golden Age, and some examples of non-Sci-Fi

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Signings by the greats

Infantino and others... So I try to be pretty tight in my collecting focuses. Green Lantern (priority on signature series) and adding to or upgrading my Gothic Horror Lady in White themed collection. But last year I decided that I wanted to try to get signed books (SS where possible) by all of the greats who laid the foundation for all the comics I'd later enjoy when I was a kid in the 80s. Part of this desire stemmed from my sadness that I'd never get a Signature Series Gil Kane book (s

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Why Roy Thomas had to learn to make dinner

just kidding.... Was having a bad day so I decided to get a nice scan of my recently acquired Night Nurse 2. With only a few books in the set (4) and only a few people on the registry (10) I'm filled with the desire to complete this set and at least be top 3, but we'll see. I have a nice-ish raw #4 for my Lady in White collection, that might get a press before slabbing. I've also toyed with the idea of getting all the female talent at a con to sign a Night Nurse book for SS submission as an ho

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Signed by Lantern Light

... my 2013 focus My 2012 collecting started out with the Points Challenge ($100 to score 1000 points). Which morphed into $300 for 3000+ points, and kept me entertained for the first 6 months of the year. At the end of it I spent $335 and amassed 3500 points on my registry. By years end I had sold them all off and fell from just inside the top 1000 down to the 1400s... Now here we are almost to 2013 (if the Myans are wrong) and Im changing gears and focusing on signature series. But this ti

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Signature Series Goals for 2012 Con Season

if you write about it... it will happen... I've heard people say that if you write about something you intend to do, you are more likely to accomplish your goal. So with my first con season approaching after my discovery of CGC and the signature series I've set some goals for my (likely) 1 day foray to Dragon*con at the end of August. With a 3 year old, a full time job, and a wife who travels internationally at the drop of a hat (thanks federal government!) I can usually only chisel out tim

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My Latest Lady in White

on the run from the Sinister House of Secret Love So far most of my purchases have been of the mid-grade affordable variety (lots of 8.0s and up to some more affordable 9.4s). When I saw this high grade puppy I had to bite. There are two main gothic horror titles Sinister House of Secret Love and Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love. Each title lasted 4 issues. Dark Mansion turned into "Forbidden tales of the Dark Mansion" while Sinister House turned into "Secrets of Sinister House" with both tit

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Lady in White Collection Update

she's still running.... So Im two weeks into my new collecting target, and I've hit the ground running. I have 3 CGC slabs in my collection, one on the way and a raw Batman #227 that will get submitted for encapsulation very soon for my Gothic horror collection. Some of these books have very low #s on the census due to them not being super-collectible so when a book does come available I have to jump at it. There are a few low run/hard-to-find titles like Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love and Sin

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My Lady in White Journal

My CGC Gothic Horror journal I will be journaling my discovery, hunting and purchasing of my lady in white, Gothic horror covers of the 60s and 70s. To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.

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Gallery Enjoyment

who wants to look at the back of a comic book? I like having an inventory scan of my comic books, both the front and back covers. BUT when I want to enjoy scrolling through my slideshow of books, Im not really interested in looking at back covers. Unfortunately I cant "unselect" or "choose" which images do/don't go to my slideshow, so I have just gone through and deleted all of my back covers. I still have them all over in Photobucket if I ever need them, but for here they didn't serve a pur

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RE: First Timer submission expectations vs reality

Face + Palm = Facepalm HELLO I NEED SOME HELP IF YOU WOULD? PLEASE. Help 1. Don't use all caps. Help 2. Use paragraph breaks where appropriate.   I SENT 3 1977 #1 STAR WARS IN FOR GRADING.I TOOK PICTURES OF THEM BEFOR I SENT THEM. I RECIEVED THEM YESTERDAY SATURDAY 14TH JANUARY 2012.THE CONDITION IS NOT WHAT I SENT TO THEM, OR THEY HAVE BEEN EXCHANGED, OR THEY WERE DAMAGED IN THE MAIL ON THE WAY THERE AS I DID INSURE THEM.   If your books were shipped the way they suggest then th

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The Social Network of CGC

lets try again and see if it makes it to the forums this time... I'm enjoying seeing other peoples collections, poking around in sets that I don't personally collect, and sometimes looking at those collections that outpace mine that I do collect. But at this point I think the registry lacks depth an sufficient layers to be more interesting than just staring at a spreadsheet. There have been many complaints around CGC's price increases, and while I think CGC can best determine what is a m

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The Social Network of CGC

some added functionality to the registry to make the community more communal... I'm enjoying seeing other peoples collections, poking around in sets that I don't personally collect, and sometimes looking at those collections that outpace mine that I do collect.   But at this point I think the registry lacks depth an sufficient layers to be more interesting than just staring at a spreadsheet. There have been many complaints around CGC's price increases, and while I think CGC can best det

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My little challenge to me

100 bucks... 1000 points... go! Can I get a thousand registry points with a hundred dollar budget? Lets see! It will require patience and lots of eBay scouring for CGC deals, but for fun this will be my academic exercise of 2012. I will update as I go. No hurries from me since it will require luck and patience to try and pull of a 10x points vs dollars evaluation. Now to see if this posts to the Message Board. To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added

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Uh Oh....

getting bit by the horror bug, must fight urges.... So far I have been able (largely thanks to my budget) to keep my collection to a relatively tight focus. Green Lantern (Original Hal era), Amazing Spider-Man (mostly 101-200 era), Star Wars and some Marvel Team-Ups constitute more than 75% of my newly forged collection. My raw to-be-submitted pile fall into the same categories, or my GA focus of Scifi (mostly Planet Comics). But for the last few days my eye has wandered. Over on the boards

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Choosing my first CGC submission

or... "How to Choose Your Favorite Child (for encapsulation)". First a thanks to clouded9 regarding the checkbox for having journals posted to the message boards. I too spend time on the message boards, and have responded in the Journal forum as well, and thought I had with each of my first two journal entries checked the "Post Journal to Message Boards" each time (in fact it appears to be defaulted to checked. I do even go so far as to log in with my board account. But alas my Journal entr

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Some things I just dont get...

but to each his own... Everyone has their niche in the hobby. We cant all collect everything, so everyone picks their poison. Maybe its Silver age keys. Maybe its a high grade run of that favorite title from childhood. Maybe its a favorite character, artist, or publisher. I can appreciate many peoples specialties, but some I just cant seem to find a foothold for interest in. And when the market on those books is low I understand that its a small niche and the market is reacting accordingly

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Journal of a new collector -Miraclemet

New to the HG and Golden Age collecting world I wanted to journal my slow descent into comic collecting madness. After a 15 year absence from comics (a child reader in the 80s) I dove back into the current slate of comics 5 years ago, but after event fatigue and moving from the weekly Wednesday grind to trade reading Ive refocused my collecting sights on Golden Age comics, High Grade slabbed comics, and anything else that I think is "cool". I've been on these boards for a few months, buying

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