• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

SREW

Member
  • Posts

    33
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  1. SREW

    FF versus Deadpool

    The best and the worst of comic movies Great to see the new Deadpool trailer is so good, really catching the spirit of the comics with Ryan Reynolds obviously born to play this role. Happy. Tragic, however, to see the Fantastic Four movie tank so badly. Shame on Fox for getting this so wrong, and please let them give the FF back to Marvel, where they belong. It beggars belief that with so much money at stake, a film company can squander it through choices that are so blatantly wrong. The good news, however, is that the FF comics really are some of the greatest comics of all time and they should withstand the battering that repeated movie failures are giving to the team. Long live the Fantastic Four! To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.
  2. No insurance for shipping CGC books internationally I was delighted to hear that CGC would be at the London Super Comic Con this past weekend. As an eager Collector's Society member I had a coupon for four standard books in hand and spent a month figuring out the best books from my collection to submit. I settled on some gems such as Tales to Astonish #44, Batman #232, and a VG Tales to Astonish #13, one of my prized books! So then I read online, just before the show, that CGC does not offer insurance on international shipping, and uses Fedex which only insures for up to $100 per shipment, basically the paper cost of the comic. Surely CGC wouldn't do this! How could you submit expensive comics and then not have them insured for the return journey to Britain? I decided to check with CGC before carrying my best books to the Excel Centre, home of the show. So on Saturday I went to the CGC desk and duly asked and the first person I spoke to said of course books were fully insured. And I quote, "otherwise what's the point, right?" I agreed and left reassured. But later in the day I decided to double check and went back to the CGC desk and asked a different person there. This time they explained that no, CGC does NOT insure international shipments and I would have to arrange third-party insurance. I could open a Fedex account and then arrange with an insurer to cover the books when they shipped. As I only had Saturday evening to do this, with no idea about who a reliable insurer might be, I decided the best thing would be to abandon my submission -- I didn't want to lose Groot or the opportunity to buy him back if he was lost. So in the end, because I wanted to use the coupon, I submitted four books that if they get lost in the mail it won't be the end of the world. But I hope they don't get lost or damaged. CGC said it's too expensive for them to offer international shipment insurance. Yet when I asked various dealers and auction houses and others present at the convention if they offer international insurance, they all said yes, they do. It is common practice, it appears, for dealers to offer full insurance on packages sent from the US to the UK. So I'm bemused, disappointed, and slightly annoyed that CGC managed to overlook what I would think is a no-brainer. If you want to build a market in Europe, make it as easy as possible for your customers to use your services. Having to get Fedex accounts and take out insurance policies with some unknown entity put me off making this submission and it is not going to inspire me to make any CGC submissions again any time soon. I can only end by saying I heard that several other people had not submitted at LSCC because of this problem. I wonder if others submitted without realizing their books are not insured? I'd like CGC to be huge in Europe, so I hope they can take account of this experience and change the arrangements. To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.
  3. Dr Who is getting pretty big... Well another ECCC is done, and it was truly excellent. In the end I didn't buy any graded books, but spent most of the weekend talking with artists and starting up a little sketchbook which several were kind enough to draw in - everyone from Jacen Burrows, who provided a creepy Cthulu monster, to Don Rosa, who drew me a Huey and Louie for my two nephews. What a great bunch of people! I also found some nice reader copies of EC horror titles for $20 a peice, one of which looks to me to be a VG, so it might get the treatment later down the road. Two things strike me about the Con. First, Walking Dead reigns supreme. Well, that's pretty obvious. Second, Doctor Who has broken into America - last year no-one was dressed in Whovian gear and this year there were loads - mostly the David Tennant look, with a few people dressed as the Tardis. So now we have the Walking Dead and the Walking Tardis...
  4. Hmmm...? Well it's that time again. Took the bus over to the Seattle Convention Center at 2pm, for the 2012 ECCC. First off, it took 30 minutes to get through the queue - note to self, don't prepay for a ticket next time, it's much quicker to just buy tickets on the day! Then enter the exhibition. It's very crowded, seems busier than last year, and that's with an extra floor added for gaming. This show getss bigger and bigger! Now onto the books. Last year I did three submissions at ECCC and they all came back restored. This taught me not to buy ungraded books on eBay, or to be damn sure a book is not restored before submitting it. So over the last year I stopped buying ungraded books and picked out the best of my existing ungraded books for submission. This all worked fine, but now I'm confronted with all the dealers at comicon, and there are only a few graded books for sale! And they're all really expensive or too low-grade. Darn. And being confronted with all those nice ungraded books is of course a huge temptation. So... I didn't get anything in the end... at least, not yet. Instead, I took a whirl around the con with my 'Monsters and Dames' book, heard lots about assorted titles and new books, and even had a chance to sift through Eric Larsen's original art and sit down with Don Rosa for a couple of minutes. Great fun. Having said all that, I did spot a couple of graded books out there that are promising, but we'll see...
  5. SREW

    One week to ECCC

    Decisions, decisions! I agree with TNerb that the smaller cons are better. I was lucky enough to be in Philadelphia for the Ramada Inn meeting last autumn and it was GREAT! Nevertheless, I am excited about the up-coming Emerald City Comicon next weekend - my local spectacular. It will be my last chance to buy graded books for the rest of the year, so I am thinking about what to look out for. Should I decide on a title to get, or just a budget? Should I drag my Overstreet guide with me all weekend, or trust my judgment? Okay I will take the guide. Should I look for shiny 9.8s or affordable gold and silver? Is it worth the risk buying ungraded but highly desirable items... well, you all know the score. Last year there were enough dealers at ECCC to spend three days browsing old comics. I hope they will all be there again this year! It is also great that Image Comics will have a big presence at ECCC this year. Image, for my money, have been putting out the best comics of the moment, and I thought the new Prophet was fantastic. But will I get to meet the folks that made it? To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.
  6. Avoiding Restored Labels Well, I love my comics but I can't afford to get them graded and most of them aren't worth grading anyway... so once a year, when I renew my CGC membership, I can at least send in as many books as they provide vouchers for. Last year, my first submission, was a disaster -- three went off to CGC and all three came back with PLODs, including a Green Lantern #76 and an ASM #121 -- ugh! Boy did I learn my lesson. So this year I checked the submission very carefully before sending it -- with the help of my local comic shop. And this time... no PLODs -- hooray! The grades were a bit better than I expected too. So stay tuned for the 2013 submission, coming soon...
  7. Does comic collecting harm the environment? It strikes me as a comic book collector that an awful lot of plastic is involved in our hobby. Despite my best efforts to use canvas bags in the supermarket, and to recycle paper and garbage at home, somehow I manage to use or throw out oodles of plastic bags for comics. Add to that the heavy plastic content of a CGC case and we have many pounds weight of possibly horrible pollutants on our hands. Is there an alternative? We hear that many a Golden Age book was stored in brown paper on shelves for decades, and many of these seem to have endured perfectly well, so might an acid-free paper bag cut to size serve as an alternative to plastic? Could the CGC case be made with very stiff card or some biodegradable material instead of plastic? Does anyone have any tips on green comics storage?? Do we know how green CGC cases are? To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.
  8. Qualified Label for Comics with Gifts Many first issues of UK comics came with free gifts up to the 1990s (now every issue likely has one). Marvel UK issued new Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain Britain, etc. comics with gifts. On eBay UK, buying a comic with the gift intact will cost you much much more than buying it without. Mighty World of Marvel no. 1, for example, is $30 without the gift in fine condition, but goes for about $150 with the gift (a Hulk transfer). Now CGC do not include inserts in graded comics, and so they dont include gifts in graded UK comics. Fair enough. But they also give such comics a green qualified label that says the free gift is not included. Now everyone knows that anything other than a blue universal label is equated with there being a problem with the comic. So UK comics are effectively downgraded just for being different to the standard US format! This journal entry is a plea for UK comics with gifts to get a blue label if they are unrestored and a note on the label saying the gift is not present. How about it?
  9. SREW

    Restoration Screening

    Please offer separate restoration check! I sympathize with duckduckmike's gloom on getting an SA grade on his X-Men #3. For all the money we collectors pay to CGC, surely they could offer a service where they just pre-screen a book for restoration for, say, $10 a book, and then let you decide if you want to pay the extra to have the book slabbed. It seems impossible to avoid sending restored books to be graded when CGC's techniques for detecting it are so much more advanced than the average collector's. Of course it's not in CGC's interest to offer this service, but I bet if someone did offer it they could make a packet. Classics Incorporated appear to do restoration checks, but this is only if you're getting a book pressed as well. Does anyone know of a reliable place to get books checked for restoration, prior to sending them to CGC?
  10. SREW

    Emerald City Day One

    Party Time in Seattle! Yesterday was a great first day at the Emerald City Comicon in Seattle. I went two years ago when I knew nothing about collecting comics and just bought a few old dollar-a-piece Hulks. This time, two years of buying later, I think I know what I?m doing (well?I at least now understand why Hulk #181 costs more than a dollar). Of course it was a blast! A treasure trove out there! ?Back on planet Earth I found a nice CGC Iron Man #1 in 5.0 and some reader copies of my CGC books, e.g. a very battered, and very cheap, Avengers Annual #4, which is really a Captain America annual reprinting Avengers #4 and Tales of Suspense stories on the origin of the Red Skull. Bought a copy of Supermouse #33 (which of course is on everybody?s list ? but it includes a firebreathing dragon, which is something I?m always after), then it was time to go home, still with another two days left to go! Next up, I get to submit my first books to CGC...
  11. SREW

    Bone #1

    Information on Bone #1 (July 1991) (updated) Bone is one of those books you can go back to again and again and it?s still fresh and still funny. Jeff Smith?s art is so great ? he has such an expressive style, you could take out all the text and it would still work fine ? always a sign of a great comic book. Bone appeals to children and adults, and it?s a story that?s simple and clever, dramatic and hilarious. I hear they?re making a CGI movie of it (although a retro Disney -styled animation would seem more appropriate), and I hear schoolkids can?t get enough of Bone these days. Good! I?m sure Bone will endure and only get more popular. Anyway, I?m trying to compile information on the first issue, which appeared in July 1991, with a ?fire engine red? logo in Smith?s self-published Cartoon Books imprint. So here's what I know so far: *The red logo is a clear indication of a first print. I?ve heard conflicting reports that some red logo copies are not first prints, but they are. *The print run for the first print was about 2000 to 3000, and the print runs remained around this figure until about issue 12 or 13, when Bone began to take off in popularity, following an appearance by Jeff Smith at the San Diego Comicon. Issues 5 and 6 are the rarest. As of February 2011 there are 78 unqualified universal grade CGCs of this book, with the lowest in 5.5 and the highest in (gulp) 9.8.
  12. Wise words on collecting Once in a while I have to remind myself of Benjamin Franklin's wise words about buying too many comic books on eBay: *BEWARE OF LITTLE EXPENSES: A SMALL LEAK WILL SINK A GREAT SHIP *MANY HAVE BEEN RUINED BY BUYING GOOD PENNYWORTHS *MOLEHILLS, IF OFTEN HEAP?D, TO MOUNTAINS RISE I guess Franklin probably just stuck to the occasional very high end key issue - good for him!
  13. Has a change in the availability of old comics contributed to the reduction in sales of new comics? Has a change in the availability of old comics contributed to the reduction in sales of new comics? When I was a kid, with a weekly subscription to ?Mighty World of Marvel?, the only thing I could know about the Hulk et al was what that week?s issue told me. I never saw a back issue older than the first issue I bought because there were no comic shops or dealers or internet. I didn?t have any awareness whatsoever of when my favorite comic might have started or what it used to look like ? mind you I was, ahem, only seven at the time. Even so, I would have given my right arm for old issues, but they were simply not there to get. Anyway, nowadays a new comic book cannot enjoy this luxury ? it is competing in a real sense against the entire back catalog of the publication because now that eBay and reprints are around, it is as easy, more or less, to read Hulk from 1963 or 1973 or 1983 etc. etc. as it is to read this month?s issue. I wonder how much this has affected sales of new comics, if at all. I know I started buying Hulk again a couple of years ago, but quickly stopped in favor of spending the money on older or collectible issues, which were better, but then I would say that wouldn?t I :-). Today awareness of past stories must have gone up dramatically among readers, so that nowadays if you kill a character, for example, everyone is aware of when and how they have already died in the past. Is the past now a horrible inertia for present comics? In the seventies, unless you?d been reading a title for a long time, you just wouldn?t know, and wouldn?t have access to information about, the details of the back story, so presumably writers could repeat themes again and again and they would seem fresh. Perhaps this is rather obvious but I wonder if it's had an impact. If it has I suppose the answer would be to embrace the old and start printing back issues from the forties through seventies on a month-to-month basis, or come up with some entirely new superheroes whose past cannot catch up with them.
  14. Grading at the Comicon Well, I bought my ticket today for the Emerald City Comicon in Seattle, and now I have to figure out what books to take there to be sent away for grading - my first submission! Today I had the pleasure of finding a near mint copy of John Byrne's Next Men #21 in the 25? bargain bin at a local bookstore, and a first edition of Freak Brothers number one, a bit battered, but still nice! So these could go off, but the Freak Brothers is probably too low a grade to preserve, being about a G. I'll have to make a list... What else... oh yeah, do I book a photo with William Shatner?
  15. Where does the term ?grading? come from and what is its history? When did quantitative grading of goods begin? How is the grading of goods and the grading of people related? Here are a few thoughts, based on the Oxford English Dictionary and a small pile of history books. I'm interested to hear more on the history of grading... The word ?grade? comes from the Latin gradus, meaning a step. In the 1560s in Europe, to grade meant to admit someone to a degree in a university ?he was graded doctor, at the expences of elector Fredericke?. Not until the 1650s did the term ?grade? refer to a process in which, as the OED puts it, one might ?arrange or place in grades or classes?. Interestingly the first use was in reference to the divine judgment, ?They that turn many to righteousness shall be graded in glory accordingly? (a fitting motto for comic book enthusiasts?) We shall all be graded according to our sins. For a long time, grading people was predetermined before it was based on merit. Seating in schools, churches, universities and theaters was ?graded? according to rank or class, a person?s fixed place in society. It took the rise of bureaucracy and meritocracy of the Age of Enlightenment to change the sense of grade from one fixed in social class and seniority to one based on achievement or individual quality. This was perhaps connected to rising industrialization and the growing culture of grading goods for the purposes of taxation. Before the eighteenth century, artisans graded the quality of goods with their senses ? they knew just what looked, smelt and felt ?right?. But Customs and Excise collectors depended on having precise and explicit measures of the quality of goods to know what levels those goods should be taxed at, and in the eighteenth century, formal procedures and quantitative measures for grading goods proliferated. As goods were graded in the marketplace people also began to be graded in the eighteenth century ? Cambridge University introduced the grades ?A, B, C? etc in the 1770s, and German schools introduced the first ?grading tables? in the early 1700s. These ?Censur-Tabellen? provided information on what an ideal student and a disastrous student might be like in terms of a series of tabulated abilities. Teachers could then grade students in a range from ?stupid? to ?proper or decent? in their langauge skills, mastery of the catechism, and general ability. By the 1830s, the new system of written examinations, introduced first in the Civil Service and then in education, determined numerical grades for individuals, while in the marketplace and government, quantification increasingly became the hallmark of objective assessments. The sense that numbers and measures were more trustworthy than people?s opinions and tacit judgments grew exponentially in the nineteenth century, as people believed numbers might solve disputes where opinions never could. In fact, ?objective? measures usually raised as many questions as they solved, giving rise to the perennial argument between those who reckoned numerical measures of quality determined by some form of expert assessor were the best form of judgment and those who reckoned long personal experience and a more intangible ?eye? for quality might be better. Sources: William J. Ashworth, Customs and Excise: Trade, Production, and Consumption in England, 1640-1845 (Oxford University Press, 2003) (on grading goods); William Clark, Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University (University of Chicago Press, 2006) (on grading in schools and universities); Theodore M. Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton University Press, 1995) (on the rise of quantification in the nineteenth century)