The edowens71 Comic Journal 6 6

[EC ed]

Hello, folks! I suppose I've been a bit delinquent on posting the collecting activity. So, what's been going on with the EC collection since I posted my last acquisitions back in early March, you ask? 

• still haven't found any of the "missing 10" -- posted a WTB thread over in the WTB section, to see if that helps  
• lost quite a few auctions on upgrades I was after...nothing I was going after too aggressively, though, so can't really complain
• Notwithstanding the auction losses, I have secured quite a few upgrades and/or pedigree copy replacements
  • a couple of Bethlehem copies (one from Stephen Ritter and one from random eBay seller)
  • six Don & Maggie Thompson issues of Mad...midgrade issues, but I've become one of those weirdos who would rather have a mid-grade copy of a book with some historical provenance to it than a high grade copy without 

[AJD]

They look like very nice midgrades. And it's hard to go past the D&M history. I have a couple of their Mads (including #8) and also their copy of the Weird Fantasy you just bought. If you want to swap the Bethlehem for the D&M...

Nice SSS #3 as well. I'm enjoying your old one.

[EC ed]

Well, here at the end of May, I still have had no luck finding any of the "Missing 10."

I have to keep this journal going with something, so I might as well hit you with another title run...Crime SuspenStories.

Crime SuspenStories was a bi-monthly anthology crime comic published by EC Comics in the early 1950s. The title first arrived on newsstands with its October/November 1950 issue and ceased publication with its February/March 1955 issue, producing a total of 27 issues. - Wikipedia

Although the title produced only 27 issues, there were two different versions of the first issue (as I outline earlier in the journal where I was laying out the completist list. Here's that discussion: LINK). So, I have 28 issues in my completist set.

I started working on the run in January 2013, and I completed the run in April 2015. Of course, the upgrading continues...

Here are the stats for my current 28 issue run:

Acquisition source:
23 from other boardies (82%) (shout-outs to stevemmg, fantasyland15, Warren Oates, TorontoDesignGuy, GermanFan, heresy, Columbia Comics, Gsims718, cheetah, and KirbyJack  )
2 from eBay sellers (7%) 
0 from ComicLink/ComicConnect/Heritage auctions (0%)
3 from other online comic sellers (11%)

Raw vs. Graded:
13 have never been graded by any grading company (46%)
15 have been graded by CGC (5 cracked out) (54%)

Pedigree Copies - 7 total (25%):
4 Gaines File Copy
1 White Mountain
1 Northford
1 Edgar Church

Grade distribution:
Mean grade: 7.2; Median grade: 7.5

That lowly 2.0 copy is the relatively hard to find issue #1 that was originally labeled as #15. Happy to have any copy of that one, but I would be happier if someone would sell me an upgrade. 

The group shot:

Edited May 31, 2017 by edowens71

[Robot Man]

1 hour ago, edowens71 said:

Well, here at the end of May, I still have had no luck finding any of the "Missing 10."

I have to keep this journal going with something, so I might as well hit you with another title run...Crime SuspenStories.

Crime SuspenStories was a bi-monthly anthology crime comic published by EC Comics in the early 1950s. The title first arrived on newsstands with its October/November 1950 issue and ceased publication with its February/March 1955 issue, producing a total of 27 issues. - Wikipedia

Although the title produced only 27 issues, there were two different versions of the first issue (as I outline earlier in the journal where I was laying out the completist list. Here's that discussion: LINK). So, I have 28 issues in my completist set.

I started working on the run in January 2013, and I completed the run in April 2015. Of course, the upgrading continues...

Here are the stats for my current 28 issue run:

Acquisition source:
23 from other boardies (82%) (shout-outs to stevemmg, fantasyland15, Warren Oates, TorontoDesignGuy, GermanFan, heresy, Columbia Comics, Gsims718, cheetah, and KirbyJack  )
2 from eBay sellers (7%) 
0 from ComicLink/ComicConnect/Heritage auctions (0%)
3 from other online comic sellers (11%)

Raw vs. Graded:
13 have never been graded by any grading company (46%)
15 have been graded by CGC (5 cracked out) (54%)

Pedigree Copies - 7 total (25%):
4 Gaines File Copy
1 White Mountain
1 Northford
1 Edgar Church

Grade distribution:
Mean grade: 7.2; Median grade: 7.5

That lowly 2.0 copy is the relatively hard to find issue #1 that was originally labeled as #15. Happy to have any copy of that one, but I would be happier if someone would sell me an upgrade. 

The group shot:

I've had two complete EC collections and hundreds of others and have never seen Crime SS #15 (#1). Consider your self lucky.

[EC ed]

Well, it's been awhile since I posted in the journal...mainly because not much of significance has been going on. Still haven't found any of the "missing ten." In a couple weeks, I'll post up my traditional 2017 year-end EC collection statistics. In the meantime, here's something a little different...

A couple weeks ago, I went out to dinner with my wife and kids at a new hole in the wall restaurant in my town...an eclectic place that serves organic food, and has artwork from local artists hanging on the walls for sale. Early on, the waitress was telling us "yes, all of these paintings that are for sale are from artists that live around here, etc."

I'm sitting there eating, glancing around the walls. Most of the art was modern/abstract...nothing that really resonated with me. Then a small acrylic painting on the wall at the opposite end of the restaurant caught my eye...I said to my wife "that looks like the Old Witch over there!" I walked over to it, and dang if it didn't have a post-it note under it with the artist's name, the price, and the title written in pencil..."Old Witch (EC Comics)" (the framed size is about 10" x 12") 

The waitress eventually came back over, and I'm like "who is the dude who painted the Old Witch?" She said, well, he's my husband! He loves comics, and that's something from a comic book. I'm like...really, you don't say...  She says "I'll tell him you were asking about it - he'll be excited that someone was interested." I said....I'm walking out of here with it!! SOLD! As I was leaving, I looked back over my shoulder and said to her "tell him that now he needs to do one of the Vault-Keeper and the Crypt-Keeper." Too cool....

[Brandon Shepherd]

1 hour ago, edowens71 said:

Well, it's been awhile since I posted in the journal...mainly because not much of significance has been going on. Still haven't found any of the "missing ten." In a couple weeks, I'll post up my traditional 2017 year-end EC collection statistics. In the meantime, here's something a little different...

A couple weeks ago, I went out to dinner with my wife and kids at a new hole in the wall restaurant in my town...an eclectic place that serves organic food, and has artwork from local artists hanging on the walls for sale. Early on, the waitress was telling us "yes, all of these paintings that are for sale are from artists that live around here, etc."

I'm sitting there eating, glancing around the walls. Most of the art was modern/abstract...nothing that really resonated with me. Then a small acrylic painting on the wall at the opposite end of the restaurant caught my eye...I said to my wife "that looks like the Old Witch over there!" I walked over to it, and dang if it didn't have a post-it note under it with the artist's name, the price, and the title written in pencil..."Old Witch (EC Comics)" (the framed size is about 10" x 12") 

The waitress eventually came back over, and I'm like "who is the dude who painted the Old Witch?" She said, well, he's my husband! He loves comics, and that's something from a comic book. I'm like...really, you don't say...  She says "I'll tell him you were asking about it - he'll be excited that someone was interested." I said....I'm walking out of here with it!! SOLD! As I was leaving, I looked back over my shoulder and said to her "tell him that now he needs to do one of the Vault-Keeper and the Crypt-Keeper." Too cool....

That's a great story, your love of EC is helping your community!

[Harry Lime]

It's a great painting, Ed but more importantly perhaps the artist has one (or more) of the 'missing ten'?

[AJD]

50 minutes ago, Harry Lime said:

It's a great painting, Ed but more importantly perhaps the artist has one (or more) of the 'missing ten'?

Spoken like a true collector! Gotta find my precious....

[EC ed]

Probably safe to say that I won't be bringing in any more ECs in 2017, so time to start reflecting on the year...

As was the case in 2016, during 2017 it looks like I once again sold more ECs than I purchased. Specifically, I bought 49 ECs (39 of which went into the collection proper, and 10 went into the "to be sold sometime" boxes) and I sold 104 EC undercopies. 

As for the 39 purchases that went into the collection...if you've been following the journal, you may remember that at the beginning of 2017, I was missing 10 EC issues from my completist list...standing here at the end of 2017, I'm still missing those 10. So, of course then - all 39 purchases during 2017 were bought as upgrades (or, in a few cases, I just wanted to pick up some additional copies of some issues).

[EC ed]

I'm not going to do a full blown virtual group shot of all of the 2017 purchases, but here are a few highlights from the latter half of the year (some of the purchases from the first part of the year are posted up above):

My first Spokane pedigree copy:

GFC copies of early Mad issues always deserve a shout out:

A stunner:

My first Lost Valley pedigree copy:

Although I entered 2017 with a nice 4.5 copy of CSS #22, I couldn't resist adding these to the stash...not sure where I'm going with this 

A no-so-easy-to-find upgrade of ECs "first pure horror story" issue:

A final end-of-year splurge:

 

Edited December 24, 2017 by EC ed

[comicdonna]

Really nice books. 

[Black_Adam]

Amazing additions to an already incredible collection! Love those pedigrees. Congrats on a productive 2017 and hoping 2018 brings even more EC upgrades (so I can snag more undercopies) your way, Ed!

[EC ed]

2 minutes ago, Black_Adam said:

Amazing additions to an already incredible collection! Love those pedigrees. Congrats on a productive 2017 and hoping 2018 brings even more EC upgrades (so I can snag more undercopies) your way, Ed!

Thanks! Whenever I can find an upgrade for my Haunt of Fear #22, you've got dibs on the undercopy.  (you've made great progress on the Ingels run, by the way!)

[EC ed]

So, let's see where things stand with the EC collection overall, as of the end of 2017:

Recall that there are 470 issues on my EC completist list. (LINK)

At the end of 2016, I had 460 of the issues on that list, and 487 books in my EC collection (because of multiple copies of some issues that I wasn't ready to part with).

As of the end of 2017, I still have "only" 460 of the issues on the completist list (i.e., I still need the "missing 10"), and 476 books in my EC collection (I shed some of the multiples). It's these 476 books that I'll now provide some summary statistics for:

(note: aside from the 476 books currently in the keeper boxes, looks like I have about 92 EC undercopies in my "to be sold sometime" boxes, which is down from 142 at the beginning of 2017)

Summary of the 476 books in my EC collection - December 2017:

Acquisition source:
260 were purchased directly from other boardies (54.6%)
85 were purchased from eBay sellers (17.9%)
54 were purchased from ComicLink/ComicConnect/Metropolis/Heritage (11.3%)
77 were purchased from assorted miscellaneous sellers (e.g., Worldwide, Jim Payette, mycomicshop) (16.2%)

Raw vs. Graded:
230 have never been graded by any grading company (48.3%)
239 have been graded by CGC (many of those have been cracked out) (50.2%)
7 have been graded by "other" non-CGC grading companies (1.5%)

Pedigree Copies - 111 total (23.3%):
2 Aurora
6 Bethlehem
4 Crippen
1 Crowley
11 Don/Maggie Thompson
1 Edgar Church
55 Gaines File Copies
1 Lost Valley
13 Northford
1 Ohio
3 Palo Alto
2 River City
1 Spokane
1 Twilight
8 White Mountain
1 Windy City

Grade distribution:
Mean grade 7.2; Median grade 7.5

(I'll spare you the 2017 grade histogram...it pretty much looks the same as the 2016 grade histogram - LINK back to the 2016 year-end stats)

So, to summarize the changes since the end of 2016: I brought in numerous upgrades, which resulted in a slight increase in the average grade of the collection (i.e., from 7.0 to 7.2), a decrease in the proportion of "never slabbed" copies in the collection (i.e., from 52.6% down to 48.3%), and an increase in pedigree copies (i.e., from 94 pedigree copies to 111 pedigree copies).

Last but not least...a reminder of my 10 missing ECs:
Across the Seas in a War Torn World
Church that was Built with Bread
KO Punch
Out of the Past a Clue to the Future
Picture Stories From the Bible Complete Old Testament 6th printing
Picture Stories From the Bible Complete Old Testament 7th printing
Reddy Kilowatt 1B (Reddy Made Magic, 1956)
Reddy Kilowatt 2B (Light's Diamond Jubilee, 1954)
Reddy Kilowatt 3B (Space Kite, S. Calif. edition, 1956)
Wonders of Wire Rope

Will I find any of these in 2018? The hunt continues....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Edited December 24, 2017 by EC ed

[Black_Adam]

92 Undercopies!?! I must have missed those in the virtual store...

[EC ed]

1 minute ago, Black_Adam said:

92 Undercopies!?! I must have missed those in the virtual store...

I haven't gotten around to putting them all out there yet...it's a long-term project.  

Edited December 25, 2017 by EC ed

[AJD]

2 hours ago, EC ed said:

I haven't gotten around to putting them all out there yet...it's a long-term project.  

Hmmmmmmmmm   Anything I should know about (but don't already)?

Nice 2017 summary Ed - your collection must be something to behold!

[Harry Lime]

Have a great holiday, Ed and I hope you have better luck in finding the missing ten in 2018.

[EC ed]

Something finally happened that led to significant progress towards accomplishing my EC completist goal!!!

As you may recall, for a while now, I’ve been stuck looking for 8 EC promos (plus 2 missing printings of Picture Stories From the Bible Complete Old Testament)

How did I make recent progress? Did I finally obtain one of these missing 10 books?

No 

Rather, I have experienced a collecting epiphany. I have rationalized the missing 8 promos OFF of the official "EC ed's EC Completist List" !!!

Let me explain….

Last week, one of those missing 8 promos, K.O. Punch, was auctioned at ComicConnect. I made an extremely aggressive attempt to win it, which turned downright painful as two other bidding adversaries took the price to a place where the price of that book has no business being. [LINK] Downright insanity. In the end, I wasn’t willing to go there. Who were these other bidders? EC collectors? Venereal disease promo collectors? Boxing cover collectors? 

So, the following morning I’m feeling dejected…staring at the scan of the K.O. Punch, still trying to process why this happened….re-evaluating whether I really need these promos to feel like my EC collection is “complete.” And then it dawned on me…

K.O. Punch was indeed prepared/produced by EC, but the copyright is held by Columbia University Press – not EC. Then, I researched the other “EC” promos – guess what – none of the other 7 promos that I’m missing were copyrighted by EC, either!! Here are the promos I’m missing, along with the entity that holds the copyright:

Across the Seas in a War Torn World – Lutheran Church
Church that was Built with Bread – Lutheran Church
KO Punch – Columbia University Press
Out of the Past a Clue to the Future – Public Affairs Committee
Reddy Kilowatt 1B (Reddy Made Magic, 1956) – Reddy Kilowatt
Reddy Kilowatt 2B (Light's Diamond Jubilee, 1954) – Reddy Kilowatt
Reddy Kilowatt 3B (Space Kite, S. Calif. edition, 1956) – Reddy Kilowatt
Wonders of Wire Rope – Preformed Wire Rope Information Bureau

So, I asked myself - if EC merely prepared the book, but some other entity held the copyright, is it really an “EC”?. How could it be a "true" EC if EC didn't even own the legal rights to the book?!? Not sure why I didn’t realize this sooner – these should never have been on my EC completist list to begin with!!  Makes total sense, right??

So, I’m transforming my technical definition of EC completion into "all books printed/published by EC, and where EC actually owned the rights to the book (i.e., a Gaines company held the copyright)."

This immediately transforms my completist list into all of the "normal" ECs, plus one single promo - Desert Dawn, which is indeed the only promo that was both prepared AND copyrighted by EC. The good news is, as you know from above, I own a copy of Desert Dawn. So, I'm done!! See how convenient this new rule is?

(well, “done” except for two particular printings of Picture Stories From the Bible Complete Old Testament…I’ll write back with my thoughts on that a bit later)

Of course, if I happen to stumble across some of those promos, I'll certainly be interested in picking them up because of their connection to EC...I just no longer feel that I "need" them to fulfill my collecting goal. See how the sick mind of a completist works? 

 

Edited September 2, 2018 by EC ed

[EC ed]

This thread is long overdue for an update. In my defense, relatively speaking I haven't been buying many ECs lately...for the most part, just an occasional upgrade, and obsessing over minutiae (as you will see below  )

First and foremost, I have a few technical matters to correct in my "EC ed's EC Completist List" based on some things I have learned over the past year or two (not counting the "promo revelation" I discuss in my most recent post up there - I'll come back to the promo thing later)

Correction #1 of 3: Picture Stories from the Bible Complete Old Testament (PSBCOT)

If you go back and read my earlier posts where I was discussing PSBCOT, you will see that I had included printings #5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 in my EC completist list. In particular, I focused some of my discussion on printing #5, because that is where I thought the transition to "EC" began. I should mention that, in general, the way you distinguish the printings is from the back cover details. For example, here is the back cover of the first printing:

Here is the back cover of the second printing:

etc...

Well, there are plenty of copies of the "Fifth Printing" out there, where the back cover looks like this:

[I've never seen a "Sixth Printing" or "Seventh Printing" (and now I understand why...keep reading...)]

Then, there's the eight printing:

And the ninth and final printing (we know that the ninth printing doesn't list a printing...that's just the way it is):

So, all this time I have been looking for copies that say "Sixth Printing" and "Seventh Printing" - what I have now learned is that such things do not exist! I have also learned that there are (apparently) three different versions of the book that say "Fifth Printing" on the back - these three versions can only be distinguished by the indicia notations on the inside front cover - one of them does not list a publisher, one of them lists Max Gaines as publisher, and one of them lists Educational Comics as the publisher.

So, "we" (I'm not the only one out there obsessing over this - there's at least one other guy  ) have deduced that, collectively, these three versions of the "Fifth Printing" are the fifth, sixth, and seventh printings! Apparently, Max forgot to update the back cover when the sixth and seventh printings went to press. We're pretty sure that the one that lists "Educational Comics" as the publisher is the 7th printing, and the other two are the fifth and sixth printings (not sure which is which - we're still working on that). Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that I no longer consider the fifth and sixth printings of PSBCOT to be EC publications! (which removes two books from EC ed's EC completist list)

Edited January 9, 2021 by EC ed