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n2wdw's Tales of the Comic Book Room
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1,369 posts in this topic

19 hours ago, n2wdw said:

New CGC Books (Junie!)

I also got this Junie from Harley at WW Philly.  I'm tempted now to collect the entire run in CGC, as earlier this year I got Junie 5 from @Ricksneatstuff.  Others, though, are hard to come by in decent grade.  There's a #1 in 7.5, but at $672.99 it's too rich for me (BTW I have never understood the 0.99).

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"Double Date"? I think she meant threesome...:devil:

Yeah a tough run. I have 3 or 4 of them and am casually looking for the rest. As cool as they are, they aren't Junior or Sunny money books to me. I don't have that #7

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A Better Way To Take Pictures of CGC Books

This week I bought this photo box (I'm not sure what the official name is) from Amazon for about $60, because I'm looking for a better way to get pictures of CGC books.  As we all know, some CGC books don't do well with scanners, because of the way the book sits in the slab.  You get glare that distorts the picture.  Taking pictures (rather than using a scanner) is better sometimes, but often you have to take extreme angles to avoid the glare.

So, I bought this photo box.  It's not perfect.  But I'm happy with it.   You still have to angle the camera a bit sometimes.  But not as extreme without the box.  Also, I'm thinking about getting a better camera (rather than just my iPhone). 

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Here are 2 Bulletmans I got this week.  These pictures are from my HP legal size scanner.   As you can see, there's alot of glare. 

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Now here are pictures taken with my iPhone, with the photobox.  You see I have to angle the phone a bit, but not so much, and the pictures are much clearer.  No glare, and the pictures are a truer representation of the colors of the covers.

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Now here's the big payoff for the photobox.  I've tried for some time to get a good picture of my copy of Spirit 22.  There's some apparent waviness in the well of my copy, and that's always caused glare no matter what I did.  But with the photobox, I now have good pictures of the book.

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Edited by n2wdw
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11 hours ago, Ricksneatstuff said:

I definitely prefer photos of slabs over scans. At least with my $7500 Minolta Bizhub scanner/printer :eyeroll:

Did you put a black cloth or something behind the slabs? These look really good. 

The kit comes with 4 backdrops, so I used the black one.

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A few people have asked me for the model number of the photobox.  Here it is on Amazon. Fotodiox has a number of sizes.  I got the 16x16 to make sure it would fit the biggest CGC slabs (Playboy size), and it will with room to spare.

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Seduction of the Innocent

Recently I finally got an affordable copy of Seduction of the Innocent, complete with the bibliography (thanks @SOTIcollector!).  I have to say, after years of hearing about it, the bibliography didn't quite live up to my expectations ¬¬.  But anyway, you need only look at some of the titillating and gruesome covers from the golden age, next to the tame and sanitized covers of today (by comparison), and you can see the huge impact of this book on the history and direction of comics.  I haven't yet read the book yet, but Wertham certainly picked good examples to make his point that comics were a bad influence on kids:

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Here are pictures of the book displayed in my comic room:

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Storing Comics In Piles

In the map, you can see that Shelf 1A is right next to my desk chair.

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Underneath those shelves I store some short boxes, with action figures stored behind the boxes.  On top of 2 short boxes I have space to store comics.  I store golden age GGA there, in mylar with acid free backing boards.  I store them in piles, in alphabetical order.  The problem is, if the piles get too high, they start sliding around.

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So I built this 2 sided box.  It's wide enough to store 2 piles of comics sitting next to each other.

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Here are the 2 piles.  I know, storing comics in piles is not the best thing to preserve condition.  But these books are VG/FN at best.  Also, they are what I'd call my misc GGA.  I keep the good stuff elsewhere.

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In the picture above, I've nailed a lip to the front of the box.  With the lip, I'm able to display comics in front of the piles.  The books standing up are some of my better comics (and pulps).

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In the above picture, you'll see I position the bottom boxes a little in front of the boxes on top.  This forms a shelf to store comics.  I also collect modern GGA, and at the moment I'm storing some of those comics on this shelf.  Thanks for reading.

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I've had to store comics (although mostly  magazines)  in piles, but I have always "turned" the spines so that the pile doesn't get lop-sided and it minimises the risk of spine roll. Usually five comics then turn another five etc.

I hope I have made the procedure clear. From the pics, I think you are doing it anyway.

With all of your shelves, ledges and piles I'd be afraid to move something for fear the entire edifice would collapse lol

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27 minutes ago, Duffman_Comics said:

I've had to store comics (although mostly  magazines)  in piles, but I have always "turned" the spines so that the pile doesn't get lop-sided and it minimises the risk of spine roll. Usually five comics then turn another five etc.

I hope I have made the procedure clear. From the pics, I think you are doing it anyway.

With all of your shelves, ledges and piles I'd be afraid to move something for fear the entire edifice would collapse lol

Actually I don't rotate the comics that way, as the OCD in me wants all the comics in the same direction.  That's part of the reason I like the box, as I like to push the comics against the back and sides so they are neatly stacked.  Hopefully though the heavy mylar and boards help to keep the spines from rolling. 

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On 9/3/2017 at 9:33 AM, n2wdw said:

Seduction of the Innocent

Recently I finally got an affordable copy of Seduction of the Innocent, complete with the bibliography (thanks @SOTIcollector!).  I have to say, after years of hearing about it, the bibliography didn't quite live up to my expectations ¬¬.  But anyway, you need only look at some of the titillating and gruesome covers from the golden age, next to the tame and sanitized covers of today (by comparison), and you can see the huge impact of this book on the history and direction of comics.  I haven't yet read the book yet, but Wertham certainly picked good examples to make his point that comics were a bad influence on kids:

59ac008205695_SeductionoftheInnocent170g.thumb.jpg.88cba5eda3df4d02841977e1adf6dd29.jpg

59ac0084dc6bf_SeductionoftheInnocent170f.thumb.jpg.ae9f8596d7a66f5e8bf345eba396d3a0.jpg

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Thanks for sharing those pics from SOTI! Never seen the insides before. How/why did the bibliography let you down?

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11 hours ago, Zolnerowich said:

Thanks for sharing those pics from SOTI! Never seen the insides before. How/why did the bibliography let you down?

Usually I think of a bibliography as a formal table of resources, with enough information (citations) to help you find those resources to further explore the subject.  The bibliography in SOTI is really a listing of publishers mentioned in the book.  But I'm still happy to have it.

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One Man's Trash Is Another's Treasure

A boardie recently had a sale of signed, raw comics priced at about $6.  I guess he wasn't getting enough interest, so he lowered everything by $3 each.  I was late to the party and missed out on some good stuff.  But when I finally arrived there was still a lot for sale.  I had a great time going on a shopping spree and bought a lot at about $3 each.

It made me think about how different people value things.  For me it was huge getting these signed comics.  But clearly others didn't put much value on them, as evidenced by the low prices to get them to move.  It made me wonder the impact of CGC on things.  Rather than being high grade SS copies, these were raw and probably in FN/VF.  Do people (besides me) value such anymore?

Here's one example.  Stray Bullets #1 signed by Lapham.   I mean, really?  For 3 bucks?

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Then there's a surprise when I got the comic.  In the bag was this letter from Dave Sim dated March 23, 1995, recommending the comic.  So for $3, not only did I get a signed Lapham SB#1, but also a little piece of comic history!

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Also in my pile I got a Rai 9 Valiant Validated Signature Series, and a Star Slammers numbered ashcan.  Probably most people reading this are thinking, "big deal, what's this guy talking about."  But for me, these are major treasures!

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