riveraXVX

I haven't been around much lately life consumed spare time - fell behind even reading a lot of comics but the only two I kept up with as they came out....Saga and Manhattan Projects... the highlight of the guests today on day one were easily the duo of Nick Pitarra and Jonathan Hickman. modest size convention not too crazy and generally short lines for the two - ended up walking up once I saw there was no line and Nick was actually busy sketching away on some upcoming pages for an issue of MP. mostly just stopped to say hi and see if he had any original art with him (had my mind set that if he did - wife and I were going to officially purchase our first piece of O.A. from a comic....) sadly he didn't - with a short explanation why - still cool to talk to for a few minutes. he ended up doing a free 8x10 sketch for me - which considering I just wanted to say hi - thought that was pretty awesome. also got to let Hickman know that he is an animal - and is totally inhuman with all the books he is writing - overheard him saying he is taking 2014 off from conventions also and resuming in 2015 since hes been so busy to give himself a break- for what that might be worth to others planning on trying to see him - anyway without further ado; badass Einstein!

so our local comic shop here put together their first in what will hopefully be an annual convention here in Greensboro, NC today and tomorrow (Comic Book City Con) one of the things that caught my eye was a 9x12 art piece by Amanda Rachels of lying cat..... ended up stopping and talking for a minute about Saga with her - looked at a couple of her prints also (pretty awesome one of the stalk) - and then went on my way.. a few hours later ended up heading home.... started having non-buyers remorse that I didn't even ask how much she wanted for the lying cat - hit up a friend and asked him if he had a second to run up from his booth and take a look around to find it and told him where it was and see how much. he ended up grabbing it for me, went and picked it up after he was finished up for the day and paid him back for it. without further ado... 9"x12" lying cat by Amanda Rachels! (http://amandarachels.deviantart.com/) stoked!

just read #10. ouch! now a month till #11

+1 +2 - love the artwork

this. I doubt they would risk soiling things between them and everyone else by doing this. have you contacted challengers since you received them to ask them about it and inquire why the lower numbers and without the other signature? if so what did they say, if not--why not ask them directly? and in the numbers game: we have #181/200

yeah if you get your hands on it, she will probably be upset and ask for the computer/HDD back.

had put away the issues I had to read on a rainy day then forgot about them... just dug them out looks like we stopped at issue #4 #1 variant cover #2-#4 might have to see if I can grab the others now, wish I had picked up both #1s

all I know is my original order of 8 of those from them on ebay when they were $14.99 all but one of them were damaged prior to shipping and they were sold out by the time I had them in hand/noticed the problem (one impacted corner on the top right corner of each one) annoying I ended up with one 9.8 worthy copy out of the bunch but still probably shouldn't complain since had no trouble getting $35/ea out of the damaged ones still shrug-

I buy midtown signed books every now and again from midtown other than that unless I got a book signed personally I won't buy them. I have a copy of saga #1 raw for our personal run and then a midtown signed copy that was cover price online at the time

wow - sat on ebay for less than an hour! jesus, with prices like that it makes it so tempting to get rid of our one complete run. will resist, but only cause I love the books!

this is how i do almost all my sweeping searchings for items to narrow it down/try to hit different keywords

still got 3 more stores to venture to but this week our pickups (cover price for most and $6 for #3) #3, #4 (x3) #5 (x4) #6 (x2) #7 and #8 (needed one of each to replace two damaged copies)

got my challengers bookplate in the mail today. thanks to the folks who posted a heads up about those. they look nice! ended up with #181/200

To be fair, those were both SS 9.8's with sketches. 3 blue labels sold for over $400 but the sales have been cancelled and no longer show as sold. One blue label showing sold for $355 but the last two sales before that were $200 and $140. I own two blue's and would love it to be a $500 book but still would caution other potential buyers to be leery of the pricing right now as there seems to be some shilling afoot. these thin markets are so easy to manipulate. this is worse than penny stocks. So explain the raw that just sold for $350? No manipulation here, just thousands of people wanting a very scarce book. If it helps you to think its all smoke and mirrors, fair enough, but those of us who have followed, and purchased this book from day 1, know exactly the amount of "need" that is in the market right now. I bought my first PP #1 9.8 (blue) with a 9.8 copy of Alpha Girl (blue) for $70 - 6 months ago. I was in right from the start and knew, even at $110 for #1 - #6 that this was a winner. If I see a raw run of #1 - #8 for $300 or less - I will buy without hesitation. There is still an awful lot of room in this book. Simply because it is awesome. Brilliantly awesome. we were in since day one also, just mistakenly didn't go to ordering online to bulk up what we had. we hit up I think 5 shops that wednesday it came out and came away with 3 copies of #1. and those three came from the two shops that had it the others went "peter what?" for the first 3-4 issues only on shop even got them in and rarely did they order over 4-5 copies even now with the popularity surging online most of the shops here don't carry it since it just didn't catch on/hasn't I'm guessing the same thing is going on in a lot of places - so anyone that is actually trying to hunt down copies has to pay

most have it top and bottom, and its why there is none on the registry higher than 9.8. It is a printing defect, "bindery tear" as others refered to it. It's because its an oversized book with heavier stock, and happened during manufacturing. If you are trying to find a 9.8, make sure the bindery tears are not "larger" than what is common, that all the corners are sharp, and that the book has no "spine ticks". There are many many 9.8s out there, not a hard book to find in it. I completely missed out on that when I was selling these earlier on kept the nicest one I could find..sold the others a lil disappointed I couldn't find nicer ones. whoops.