rocket1312

Escalating prices have killed most of my enthusiasm for this hobby, but I was really excited to pick up this prime Zeck/Day Master of Kung Fu page from eBay for $400. Not much in the way of Shang-Chi or kung fu action, but it's still a cool vintage page from a great art team at a relatively affordable price.

As the owner of a different (yet shockingly similar) New Warriors cover who held out hopes of acquiring another, let's just say that last night's price was discouraging.

Love this cover. Volume 2 #'s 1,2,3 and 5 are my personal favorites in the Lee/Williams run. I know for most, Uncanny>v2, and I get it, but I'd rather have any of those over any of the Uncanny ones. Although 271 and 274 are big favorites as well. I understand all the love for 268, but it's never really excited me like it does others. Part of that is I didn't come onboard until a couple of months after 268, so I don't have the same nostalgia for it. Scott, was v2 #5 the last X-Men cover you and Jim did together? Or did you do the Ghost Rider ones? (I suppose I could look it up, but when the man is right here...) I was always curious why you and Art Thibert more or less swapped books in 1992. I just assumed there was a ton of chaos around that time with deadlines and writer turnover and Image beginning to percolate in the distance, but wasn't sure if there was more to it than that.

Let me preface this by saying that I started reading comics in 1991, so Infinity Guantlet is right square in the middle of my peak nostalgia period and I do enjoy it. That said, I think it's pretty overrated by those who love it and is far inferior to Starlin's Captain Marvel/Warlock/Thanos stuff from the 70's. It's got some cool moments, and the Perez art is especially nice (I like Lim, and his work here is solid, but anyone putting his stuff on Perez's level is crazy pants), but there's not much substance. Make it a 4 issue series instead of 6, and cut out the useless tie ins, and it would be much improved.

As a Connecticut resident who sadly pays sales tax on Heritage auctions, I just want to say please don't forget about us.

That cover you reference isn't even a Perez penciled cover though. Perez only inked it.

I started reading comics in 1991, so Liefeld was a big, big deal for me. While I fully recognize his artistic limitations, nostalgia is a heck of a thing. That said, I'd argue that his work from say 1990-1993 (late run New mutants to early Youngblood) is not without merit. His anatomy might be whack, and his work incorporates just about every bad 90's cliche there is, but as other have mentioned, it has an energy that is totally unique to Rob Liefeld. I also think it is noticeably better than the stuff that came later. I'm not sure what happened, but I'm right there with all the Liefeld haters on everything post 94 or so. His work the last 10 years in particular isn't even fun to mock. It's just not very nice to look at.

I know Austin has kept most of his art, but is there any reason he would be opposed to lending scans to IDW? I know he's provided scans to Marvel for bonus content in reprint editions.

I wouldn't read too much into those poll results. I think the consensus seems to be that other than one or two, none of these covers seem to stand out much from the pack. Even then, there seems to be much disagreement over what those one or two standouts might be. For me, 610, 614 and 616 are easily the three least desirable, but the rest are more or less on equal footing. If you're willing to drop 50k+ on a Hush cover, 618 is as good as any other.

I love Jim Lee and Hush is what got me back reading comics after a few years away, but I have to agree that this set of covers leaves me somewhat cold. 608 (first print) is probably the most memorable of the bunch. It's a nice image, but it was also the first, which I think helps its cache. The second print of 608 is cool too, but Batman's got a little too much of "Liefeld Cap" chest thing going on. I really like the figures on 612, but the white nothingness of the background takes something away from it. Almost as if the cover is unfinished. 615 could be a classic (even if it is something we've seen a million times), but Nightwing's right leg really sticks out. I also like 611, even if it doesn't totally make sense to me what's happening. All that said, I would happily own any of the above. Not at market prices mind you, but that's true of just about anything greater than low 4 figures.

I'm under 40 and a Lim Surfer page is very high on my want list. When it comes to early 90's Marvel nostalgia, Lim cosmic is right there below the Image crew. His work can be very hit or miss, but when it's on, it's on. Purely on artistic merits I don't think that #44 page is a great one, but storywise it's THE Lim Thanos page to own, isn't it? I'd say mid to high 4 figures though. No way it hits 10k. All that said, Perez vs. Lim? Perez everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. Let's not be silly.

So for the record, can someone clarify just what is the correct pronunciation of Mazzuchelli?

That's kind of how I feel. I know I'm younger than most here, but I could probably name my first 20 or so comics more or less in the order I acquired them.

Interesting. The Uncanny X-Men Omnibus vol.2 (which came out in 2014 and reprints DoFP) includes an image of the original cover art to 141 in the extras section that is marked "courtesy of Terry Austin." The art to 132 and 137 is also included with the same attribution. edit to add: Looking closer at the image in the article, I think that might be a recreation done by Byrne. From what I can see, there's no lettering on the poster. My recollection (don't have my book handy) is that the original has all the lettering and I know I've seen a Byrne recreation before. Perhaps on his website.

My work firewall will not allow access to CAF, unless I manually edit the web address to from "http" to "https". Even then, it's still not fully functional. For example, I cannot search. This is also the case for some (not all) of the dealer sites associated with CAF (Romitman, Albert, some others). I assume this is all related to how our IT administrator has set up our security and access. I can access everything at home fine and can't really imagine why anyone would have trouble unless they were running a strict firewall or web blocker of some kind. And if that were the case, I would think you'd know about it.