vaillant

So that’s why Peter spends stupid money on original US editions?

Yes, but I do not use the term "variant", as I have already explained several times, as these are – foremostly – foreign editions of a US originated comic series. They can be seen as "variants" but it is a misleading term. I will scan and post the italian #2 if you like, but I have to dig it out. It came out around 1970. This is a scan of the #6 which I have at hand:

Don’t you have a national collecting market in Portugal, Elisa? If so, you should have an idea on how much it’s worth.

Splitting them in more posts would have probably been more handy but… some great editions here… (thumbs u (Especially fond of the FF of the Skrull-aging ray story arc… )

Hi Elisa, welcome from a fellow european! @SciFiWasabi: Wonder Woman called "Marvila" makes some impression…

I never realized I can afford the story by buying the Marvel Tales reprint (which has also a cool red cover, better than the yellow one, IMO)…

I’m really sorry I already sold my italian #4 as it was in awesome condition. But I hope to find some other of interest to you…

The Smurfs are a comic. The cartoons have been realized for kids, but the Smurfs is a high quality comic, with lots of social commentary, not famous as Tintin, Alix or Blake & Mortimer but nonetheless a milestone here.

Nick!

Yeah me too for various reasons [mainly because I was a teenager at that point] but the quality did go in the krapper and man the '90's in generals were just As an italian I grew up with high quality Marvel bronze stories and the silver age stories which were reprinted as well, but I must admit that when I returned to comics I found some series of the second half of the eighties to be of high quality as well. The New Mutants and X-Factor, when written by Louise Simonson, offered great issues, and here and there many series had top-notch runs (like the "Under Siege" arc in the Avengers). The second half of the 1980s was generally better but yes… the 1990s started really bad.

That is awesome – the Smurfs are a great comic. The cartoon is just a byproduct. Not necessarily, it depends on the country, and on how the stories and the characters appear first. Many publications were antologies, but so were many Golden Age early comic books (even Detective and Action, for example). It is also true that collecting follows the same "blind" rules even here: often an album collecting for the first time a story appeared on a journal, has a lot more value. The Smurf example is not explanatory: we should see how much the first editions of hardbound volumes are valued. But we should also see for how much the earliest Petit Vingtième issues featuring Tintin go in the French market. Surely they are not cheap… Then the absolute scale value: you won’t find many $50000+ books in Europe (or at least in Italy). Even the most expensive single books can barely go for ten thousands.

@pmpknface: You entombed another Iron Man #55 and I still don’t have a reader copy…

But it is more reasonable, and more even, as ages are in fact just labels, as most terminology is. Each and every isolation is a means, not an end, the timeline is a whole. I am interested in Marvel, so my perception is mostly related to Marvel and I tend to agree with the 1980-81 model. For me, in general, it has a lot to do with editors and their choices as well, so surely the Bronze Age for me is under Jim Shooter as opposed to Marv Wolfman and what went on before, and the modern age is shared between DeFalco and Quesada. Surely not 1986 anyway, it’s between the late 1970s and 1984, in this most evaluations coincide.

Not unanimously defined, but surely not starting so late as 1986.

From what I know of Claudio, I don't think this was directed at you Whet - just how the market is reacting to this book. Right, I did not even think about Whetteon, I was just commenting on how this book is selling. The first time I really don’t care about it, as I have it, but it’s really an irrelevant #1. The King Solomon frog? Ugh, give me a break.

Oh, stop this, please. As much as I love Jack Kirby and the Panther, this is one of the most irrelevant #1 issues as far as the Panther goes. The initial storyline is weak, and things get good when Jack starts the Vibranium storyline, involving the Wakanda royal family – it makes no sense for this issue to go up in value… just because it‘s a #1.

Usually the chinese stuff is unauthorized. If you scroll back in the pages of this thread, I made a on-the-fly investigation on the japanese 1970s editions, which inversely are fully authorized (and there is even a volume with the #129, using the cover of #135).

Thank you but, honestly, from all that I have read, it makes little sense to me as a character. I don’t like at all when no one gives a clear direction to the story of a character, and when writers are more or less granted to do whatever they feel, following their whimsies, with certain characters. On top of all that, I really can’t stand what it seems to be called "breaking the fourth wall": it automatically makes me discard a work of fiction of any genre.

I always saw Deadpool as a mix with a anti-hero and "tragic hero". He does try to do whats right and occasionally seems to accomplish it always willing to go the extra step that other hero's wouldn't, but always seems to still be considered an outcast by other heros though even when proving himself. A number of these examples can be found in in almost any issue. Hmm… Maybe I should read some, as from the little I got by sporadically reading pieces here and there it seemed like a parody to me, and that’s why I did not like it. But were those hallmarks already there, at least in part, when it was introduced on the New Mutants? I was a big fan of the New Mutants at the time and just hated the abrupt change of direction, which in my opinion did not even respect most of the leading characters' personalities. Do you know if by #98 Louise Simonson was already gone? I think so, but I stopped buying the title around issue #96 – go figure, and when I learned it was going to close at #100 I looked to fill the holes but did not find a #98 back then. And now it’s out of the question, for me.

I have never read a single Deadpool story, as I stopped buying the New Mutants when Liefeld came along, and the boys were turned into fashionable warmongers lead by Cable… so I wished to ask: when did Deadpool took on the surreal tone and the apparently humorous slant which I see has become a sort of hallmark for the character? Of course I browsed some issues of the solo character in italian, but I either seem not to get the fun or simply don’t get what the story is about.

I’ve just made a little upgrade of my #52…

Painted Hulk #141…

Lot 3

Actually, as far as printing quality goes, it’s a mess. I hoped the X-Men story was well printed so I would have avoided to buy an X-Men #141 (which I still miss), but the four color part is printed so badly that I could cry. It’s mostly a collectible being a foreign edition and not just a Pence copy (they had both in the UK: the Pence copy of #141 and then the story is also printed here).

I recently sold the full italian series of Crisis to Bio-Rupp (8 squarebound books in total):