EC Star&Bar

When I did my earliest buying around 1974-1975, a place called "News and Book Center" not only had 2 spinner racks with newsstand releases, but they also had a third rack devoted to 3-packs of Whitman editions from Western Pub., comprised of the issues concurrently published with the Gold Key brand. Sort of odd, as they could've just stuck with the returnable Gold Keys. On toward 1977: Between that place, a drug store, a greeting card shop, and a "Book World" store, I was spinning as many as 7 racks every Saturday morning. Even with that many, sometimes only 1 copy popped up, as was the case with my copy of Superman #300 ('76) at Osco Drug.

Great find for sure. You are killing me with that one. I was unable to find the newsstand edition of that JLA issue anywhere in my area when it was published, as the DC Implosion had an effect on distribution. Never had problems finding the title for years before and after, just that one issue failed to hit local stands.

I wonder if back cover overspray affects the grade the same as an equivalent amount on the book's front...?

Very nice copy. It's too bad DC canceled Captain Comet Archives, it would've been a worthwhile collection.

I would not be surprised if JLA routinely outsold Batman when JLA 179 came out (1980). Batman's popularity didn't begin to spike until Frank Miller etc. later in the decade,

I always liked Lady Blackhawk better than the male Blackhawks, She had better legs.

Unless the cover paper is brittle, I don't think I could be convinced a collector would send the book in without unfolding that. The eye-appeal alone would be a consideration.

At first it seems surprising a collector would be unfamiliar with these. Many of us grew up with printed newspaper comics, and those were an everyday thing with Sunday and daily comics pages. Modern offset-printed comic books are a different animal.

These numbers reinforce and add to the astonishment over the astronomically high recent sale of a copy of Batman 181 (6/1966). That issue came out in April of 1966, a full 3 months after the debut of the '66 Batman TV series.

Great letter - it had the effect of reversing the bias on the Zener diode in my brain...!

I've had many if not most of the thoughts, anxieties, etc, expressed by others in this thread. One thing I wanted to mention: as one reason for switching over primarily to collections of comics in book form in recent years, I believe in the future my books can be dispersed much more easily, including looking into university libraries interested in donations of my holdings. Worldcat.org gives me immediate info on which libraries own what. The future home of one of my 4 copies of Suicide Squad Silver Age Omnibus will be...? Anyway, I'm glad to learn that there are other Disney comics fans here -- I watch quite a few collectors on YouTube, and it seems Disney Barks Ducks etc. are rarely appreciated in comparison to superhero and Star Wars fandom.

"Pair down" -- ? "Paired down" -- ? I wonder what pare down or pared down mean. Oh well, back to eating my pear.

Most of you are aware that when the 'Tec 40 cover was drawn, it was The Joker. However, it was intended as the cover for the 2nd Joker story, which instead appeared in Batman #1. So the 'Tec 40 cover was then used to accompany its Clayface story.

In Mister Miracle #3, Jack Kirby is named as colorist of the cover of #1. Tarzan #209 has been credited to Tatjana Wood at the GCD, and I believe that may be accurate. I have a couple of copies of that and it's striking. She used to use some bold reds and yellows.

That's a little bit of a coincidence because just a couple of days ago, I obtained an Avengers Masterworks Vol. 2 with this issue for the first time. All newer editions have featured this cover on the dustjackets, while the earliest one had #11. (Softcover Avengers Masterworks #2, 2009, has this cover inked & colored by Dean White.)