Doohickamabob

Nice GGA/headlights cover! The lettering of the title is unusual, and I don't just mean the candy colors. Are the black dots for the H and the A supposed to be little hurricanes?

You can get penicillin for that.

Motherload?

There is always more to learn. I still haven't figured out Abraham Lincoln's middle name.

Nice copy and grade!

I'm with all of you -- I love reading the original comics. However, when I know the comic in my hands is worth $200 to $1,000 or whatever, I can't fully relax and enjoy the experience in an unfiltered way. Give me a decent reprint and can read it the way it was meant to be read: At night, falling asleep, finally collapsing with the pages turned out and my drooling face smashed into them.

That comic wants to be graded... No it doesn't. If it was, it would be of no good to me. +1,000!

That comic wants to be graded...

Thanks for sharing your stories... It's fun to live vicariously through your treasure hunts. I've had many of those types of cool, "I can't believe how lucky I am to find this" moments, but usually on a much smaller value level, and not nearly as often as you. Your persistence is admirable. Sometimes life and personal sloth get in the way for some of us less-persistent types.

That's right, the title wasn't coming to me. I've only read a couple pages... Don't tell me anything...

I've been reading Stephen King's book "Different Seasons," which is a volume of 4 short stories/novellas that each correspond to a season of the year. The first story is "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," which was made into the movie starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. It's possibly one of Stephen King's best non-horror stories, as it is nearly flawless in detail and execution. It's interesting how closely the movie adheres to the story. There's almost nothing in the story that isn't in the movie, and vice-versa, with only small elements shifted around or re-focused to make things more cinematic. If you've seen the movie, you know this is a very satisfying story with a slowly building set of circumstances and developments. The 2nd story is "Apt Pupil," and it's the longest story in the book, so it's more accurately described as a novella rather than a short story. I think it's 130 pages or so. This is the story that Stephen King says he wrote to wind down after completing the novel "The Shining," which he wrote in part to confront his personal demons relating to being an alcoholic. King has joked that "Apt Pupil" is the actual story that the writer character of Jack Torrance is working on throughout "The Shining," and that makes sense, because "Apt Pupil" gets more evil and homicidal as it progresses. As storytelling goes, "Apt Pupil" is kind of an undisciplined mess, and it does come across more as an exercise for Stephen King than as something he carefully planned out and plotted from start to finish, like he did for the "Shawshank Redemption." It's pretty entertaining in parts though. The story involves a young teenager in a Southern California suburb who discovers that a high-ranking WWII German Nazi is living incognito in his neighborhood. Instead of turning the Nazi in, the teen is fascinated with the Nazi's evil exploits and he blackmails him into telling him stories about all the people he killed. One interesting thing, from a CGC board perspective, is that the main catalyst for this boy's fascination with evil is the day he finds a cache of war magazines in a friend's garage -- magazines like "Man's Story," "Men Today," etc.... the kind of magazines that had paintings on the cover of leering Nazis holding hot pokers over half-naked women who were hog-tied and strapped to torture contraptions, etc. In a way, "Apt Pupil" seems to be Stephen King's way of dealing with his disgust over the kind of people who enjoyed and created a market for that sort of magazines. Or maybe it's King's way of working out his own fascination and self-disgust with such material. In any case, the story is almost random in how it unfolds, and at times it seems it could go in any direction, but finally it does choose a direction. "Apt Pupil" was made into a movie and the screenwriters/filmmakers chose a different direction. The director of that movie, Bryan Singer, also made the "X-Men" films, and he chose Ian "Magneto" McKellan to play the aging Nazi. The third story in "Different Seasons" is one that probably most people know because it was the basis for the movie "Stand by Me." The story is called "The Body" because, of course, it's about 4 boys who go on a sort of coming-of-age pilgrimage to satisfy their morbid curiosity by seeing the dead body of a boy who has gone missing in a nearby town. Like "Shawshank Redemption," this story is set in Maine, which is Stephen King's own real-life stomping grounds, though he fictionalizes the main town of Castle Rock. (Get it? Stephen *King* sets his stories in a "Castle"... One funny thing about "Different Seasons" is that the stories occasionally reference each other: The Nazi in "Apt Pupil" received investment advice from the banker in "Shawshank Redemption," for example. Also, "The Body" references the dog in King's novel "Cujo.") So anyway, "The Body" is a pretty good story and it made a strong basis for "Stand by Me," right up to the "Lard " blueberry pie barfing story. The filmmakers (which included director Rob Reiner, of "Spinal Tap" and "Princess Bride" fame) did switch around some elements, such as which boy is holding the gun at the end, and also there's a lot of follow-up information in the story that the movie glossed over because it was too downbeat or would damage the momentum. It's hard to tell how much King is writing about his own childhood, but the main character is a kid who grows up to be a famous horror/suspense novelist, so clearly there are a lot of touchpoints. Stephen King fluctuates a lot between passages of great invention and brilliance, and also areas where he seems kinda hacky and like he's struggling to hold up the quality. "The Body" mostly holds together, and thematically it's both a memoir of childhood and also a meditation on youthful mortality, since the characters come close to death several times, and many of the childhood friends depicted in the story ended up dead in the decade or so after the events described. It's almost like the 4 boys are on a quest to confront their future dead selves. Pretty strange story, but interesting. I haven't finished the 4th story yet, but it's the shortest in the book, and as far as I can tell it's the only one that wasn't made into a movie. All told, "Different Seasons" is pretty good readin', with some "eh" parts here and there. I had never actually read a Stephen King book before, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. He's an interesting writer, more hard-working wordsmith than literary artist, but he does have talent.

I'm still bummed I didn't win...

Anybody here know what the page count is supposed to be on Katy Keene Annual #1 (1954)? The page count is listed as "?" in the Grand Comic Books Database.

That's great! Do you work in the comics industry? P.S. Nice IDW books...

Why do they call the magazine "Titter" -- because it's full of funny jokes, right?

Those are awesome! Who's the artist on most of those? I recognized one page that looks like Wally Wood art.

Wish I could go back in time for so many of these comics. About 8 or so years ago, I watched an eBay auction for a VF copy of Seven Seas #4. It ended at around $700. At the time, I thought the price was crazy and couldn't imagine spending that much on a comic like Seven Seas #4. Today that price would be a steal.

One of Baker's best covers... And one of his more upbeat images as well.

You're looking for graded 1980s Mad magazines? I can't imagine there will be many people who have graded them, but I look forward to seeing them anyway.

I think you can still do that. Check your seller preferences. Mine is set the highest it can go is at -1, I only have a choice of-1 through -3... ? Just checked -- you're right.

I think you can still do that. Check your seller preferences.

Those are so cool. I knew about his "Bar Flyze" cards but not about the Fink buttons. As always, your collection is what I would consider one of the best out there.

Just noticed this on the Mad website Happy Birthday, Bill Gaines! By The Editors Tuesday, March 1st, 2016 CLASSIC MAD DEPT. William Gaines, MAD Magazine’s founder and fearlessly foolish leader, would have turned 94 years old today. Since he died in 1992, his attendance in the office has been spotty.

Haha no politics on the board!! Really sweet collection!! Curious if you have the Spider-Man ones too? Looks like you've been reading the archives of this thread... You're referencing posts I forgot I had written. Regarding the Spider-Man cover Mads, I don't think I have any of those. I don't own most of the Mad mags from the 2000's (or the 1990s for that matter) onward. Looking at Doug Gilford's Mad cover site, I see there are Spider-Man covers for the following issues: -- #418: June 2002 -- #444: August 2004 -- #478: June 2007 -- #516: August 2012 Those correspond to the Sam Raimi movies, and then to the first reboot movie.