Doohickamabob

When a comic is in condition like that, the whole debate over slabbing goes out the window. You want to keep a comic like that as perfect as possible.

Cool, Terry! But do you have the Spy vs. Spy cufflinks? I have a set of those, though I've never had occasion to wear them. If you have time, it would be cool to see photos of some of your collection, especially now that your Christmas ornaments are likely to be up on a tree. Also, 1963 was a terrific year for Mad -- the humor was really coming into its own, hitting its satirical stride. (Not that they were any slouches for the previous 11 years.)

I'd take the 7.0 plus cash, then I'd wait a couple months and sell the 7.0 for $600k. I'd use that to buy a 3.0 Det #27, a 3.0 Action #1, a 9.4 Phantom Lady #17, and any copy of Suspense #3 over 5.0.

Anybody need to marry a copy of Tales From the Crypt #20 (that is, #1, from 1950)? Somebody sold me TFTC #20 and neglected to mention that the center wrap page is missing. So it has 32 pages, not 36 pages. I am going to get a refund, but before I do, I want to find out if anybody out there might happen to have the center wrap lying around -- or a coverless copy. How much is TFTC #20 worth without a center wrap? It's probably a 3.0/3.5 otherwise. Man, I hate that feeling of getting something in the mail, thinking, "Cool, I always wanted this," then paging through it and discovering a severe flaw. I go from "Cool!" to "Oh, come on, that sucks!" in seconds flat.

#25 = Hello Pal #1!

The discrepancy is ridiculous, and Heritage should take full responsibility for it. For a professional, multi-million-dollar company to misrepresent its product that way is unacceptable.

Ginger #1!

WANT

It's probably for the best that the romance covers don't show a lot of movement.

Surfin' U.S.A.!

Romance comics aren't a bad choice because they would be most likely to display LB Cole's figure-drawing skills for a teenage audience -- stuff like Pop Teenagers or School Days Romances. I agree it's hard to see LB Cole's style in this, but if you look at the leg and crotch area (yeah, I know you want to) you can see some potential Cole style in terms of the shading and movement technique. Notice the fabric lines with a slight teardrop shape at their edges. Also look at the main character's face. Notice the squinty half-eye on the right, and the weird lines forming the lower lip. You can see the same thing done in LB Cole's romance covers. Also notice the stark black shade lines forming where the main guy is holding the football, and also on the right guy's back curving up into the number 13. Those are consistent with LB Cole shading style. LB Cole wasn't always the best at figure drawing and I can see why he might avoid signing his name to this cover, which looks pretty rushed.

The Robert Crumb-looking grown man with coke-bottle glasses and creepy Boy Scouts uniform doesn't do it for me either!

That issue is hard enough to find in 2.0 grade, let alone one as nice as yours. Best cover of the run, in my opinion. #5 takes 2nd place.

Let's see -- the best Fight cover, the best Rangers cover, one of the best Wings covers. Good start there. Two of L.B. Cole's best, most colorful, and most hallucinatory covers. A couple of matching Bambi and Raggedy Ann covers. Nice GBA on the first one (good deer art). Excellent Wood/Orlando cover for Captain Science (probably the best cover of the run)... The one issue of Exciting Comics that I would kill a shark to obtain... Some superhero stuff I don't know much about, including Batman and Robin riding an eagle like Gandalf and Frodo... The best Buccanneers cover by Reed Crandall... A Baker romance with a face that is practically a template for every other woman he ever drew... The most notorious of all EC comics... Yeah, that's a pretty good Top 16 for the year.

I'll get those out (next time I open the crypt) and take some closer pics and interior shots. Somebody else was asking about Jane the Oomph Girl in private mail.

I did not see this when it was originally posted. Amazing. Careful your house doesn't sink into its foundation.

WANT! Bigtime... And I've never seen the "Metal" one. Love it. The Post Fantasy Stories book has such a beautiful image (still not as great as "The Green Girl," but what is?). I'm just waiting to find a decent copy with all the gloss on the cover. Terrific score there. I hate to hear about book stores shutting their doors, but I sure would like to be there when it happens, if it means getting books like those.

I really appreciate the responses from Scrooge, Gator, and the rest of you. Means a lot coming from this gang. Okay so here is one more image before I put everything away for a while. This is my fledgling paperback collection. I know it's not section-appropriate, but there isn't a paperback area in the CGC forum (as CGC doesn't grade paperbacks), and most of these represent the same time period as Golden Age comics. Not sure if I'll continue going after collectible paperbacks because it's a little trickier than collecting comics -- and just as hard to narrow your focus. There seems to be less competition than for comics, but when competition does show up it can be fierce. Obviously I haven't figured out how best to store these yet. My favorites are the paperbacks with lurid GGA covers from 1945-1965 or so. Lots of great artwork by people like Reginald Heade, J. Pollack, H.W. Perl, Robert Maguire, George Gross, Bill Edwards, Walter Popp and others. The pre-'60s books are less overt and more coded in their vice-related imagery, which makes them more appealing. A few notes: The Help! paperbacks are somewhat rare, and the 2nd one is the rare variant that still contains John F. Kennedy fumetti gags. The book was being printed when he was assassinated, so only the first run had the JFK images inside. The "Hateful Thoughts for Happy Occasions" book has artwork by Bill Elder. The Monkees book cover is by Jack Davis. The "Fox Two" paperback is an autobiography by Randy Cunningham, a California representative who was convicted of one of the sleaziest bribery schemes in recent political memory. My favorite of all the paperback covers are the Avon sci-fi GGA ones, which also have the best cross-over appeal for Golden Age comic collectors. "The Green Girl" is one of my favorites, but there are about 8 other sci-fi Avon paperback titles I'd like to acquire, including "An Earth Man on Venus," which has a better GGA cover than the comic.

I tried to pull my 40 favorites out of the groups above (the slabbed comics excluded), and this is what I came up with. (If I did it again I'd undoubtedly come up with a different 40.)

Was going through my comics today, trying to assess the collection, determine what should be weeded out, etc. At a certain point a collection gets too large to make any sense out of it. The only thing I was able to conclude is that 8x5 is a much better array size for group photos than 10x7. I have a lot more comics than what's represented here, but I felt these were the most photo-worthy. You are looking at the results of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Beautiful! Woo woo!

The Huffington Post web site has a slide show of "9 Comics Congress Banned in the '50s." It comes from Jim Trombetta -- tying in with his book of course. Pretty entertaining slideshow, with commentary to match. Here's the link.

WTF!!!

For the longest time, I never noticed the chess board, the hooded Death guy, or anything that wasn't in the vicinity of the color blue.

That's so freaking cool.... Also great Halloween colors.