It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

I love a good tag line.

I made a lot of progress this year on my X-Men 1-201 run, including buying some real dogs, grading, and "laddering" up to a better condition copy after selling the worse one. It's been a bit tedious though, but I moved up to a rank of 26 in the total score in the set. This is where the quality stalls me. I'm actually ranked 4th in terms of set completeness, but those low grade early issues really handicap my score. That's okay, I want a complete set, not necessarily all 9.8s... because I have a mortgage to pay haha.

I continued to slack off this year with doing scans. I promise promise promise I'll do more; I should at least scan my first 10 X-Men tonight when I get home so I can do something. 5-10 a day would complete me in a month.

In working in selling off the tremendous volume of chaff from my collection, I've found some great hidden gems like the late 80s Catwoman LS which I may get graded if money allows. Forgot I had these great black covers!

Also, I'm finding some other fun comics from the 80s-90s in my longboxes. Anyone remember Body Bags? Ultra Violence with little girls with knives before KickAss was a baby... and a ton of wonderful Breyfogle Detectives... just ebay "Breyfogle" and there's a great selection for sale. Wonderful wonderful dramatic covers.

I finally obtained a copy of Skyman #2, in Good/Good- condition, so I can finish getting my Skyman 1-4 graded. Ahhh a complete set!

I was looking to get a high grade copy of Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love #1 but have recently decided to make the full run (1-15 of the title and the revised title) as another side project. Some of these are also tossed in the backbins accidentally by casual collector sellers at shows.

So next year should be a good year. I've been price tracking X-Men #1 (the only one I'm missing in any condition, graded or ungraded) so that's on my 2012 pursuit list. Perhaps some Green Lamas to flesh out my run there, but otherwise, the sky's the limit.

Happy holidays to all, and have a great 2012!