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Poll: First Appearance Criteria
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First Appearance Criteria  

50 members have voted

  1. 1. In your opinion, what criteria is needed to define a characters First Appearance in a comic?

    • Appearance on Cover Only
      0
    • Appearance on Cover and Single story page with dialogue
      1
    • Appearance on Cover and Single story page without dialogue
      1
    • Appearance on Cover and Multiple story pages with dialogue
      2
    • Appearance on Cover and Multiple story pages without dialogue
      0
    • Appearance in Single story page with dialogue, No Cover appearance
      10
    • Appearance in Single story page without dialogue, No Cover appearance
      34
    • Appearance in Multiple story pages with dialogue, No Cover appearance
      1
    • Appearance in Multiple story pages without dialogue, No Cover appearance
      1
    • Pinup in other comic
      0
    • Advertisement or Solicitation in other comic
      0


75 posts in this topic

Perhaps it means something different to everyone, but I'm sure that CGC has a logical way of determining first appearance....

Is that what the quibble is all about?  

Because if we all define it, we'll get too many different answers :foryou:

Perhaps if we understood cgc's ramifications, we could dispute those claims. 

Honestly, I think the powers that be are just the same as us. Example the dreaded "domino" character debate, where even the artist said the first appearance was something other than what cgc said. If it wasn't "domino" it was another character....

 

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Well I voted and put thought in it and I'm all alone. But didn't want to become a thread killer. 

I chose any appearance no matter how small that is in the story no matter the dialogue, so not an ad.

CGC labels that a cameo and I'm ok with that.... :shy:

 

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On 9/5/2018 at 6:05 PM, musicmeta said:

Same here.. I don't know why this is such a chore to find out the "VERY FIRST TIME YOU SAW THIS CHARACTER IN A COMIC BOOK" not counting Advertisements (maybe we should count those??).  i.e. The VERY FIRST TIME I SAW the Wolverine was Hulk 180. 
Now, the market dictated that Hulk 181 is more desirable and more valuable.  Fine..But the VERY FIRST TIME YOU SAW THE WOLVERINE was Hulk 180...Case closed to me.

Exactly!

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46 minutes ago, AGGIEZ said:

Jimmy Olsen #134...1st appearance on its face is pretty straight forward...the first time the character appears anywhere is, by definition, their first appearance. That doesn't alway equate to market desirability though. The "1st appearance" of Gambit is a prime example. Uncanny X-Men Annual #14 (July 1990) is Gambit's first appearance...he appears in over a dozen panels...but the market loves Uncanny X-Men #266 (August 1990). There are countless other examples. 

scan0020.jpg

 

X-Men annual 14 happens after Storm and Gambit escape the Shadow King in 266-267.  It warms my black heart to know that what happens in the story still matters to people.

Jimmy Olsen 134 has to be the most disappointing key ever, Darkseid wasn't even grey until it was reprinted.  That helps the people saying a one-page cameo isn't necessarily significant enough to be a first.

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36 minutes ago, FineCollector said:

X-Men annual 14 happens after Storm and Gambit escape the Shadow King in 266-267.  It warms my black heart to know that what happens in the story still matters to people.

Which book came out "first" though? 

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On 9/5/2018 at 8:05 PM, musicmeta said:

Same here.. I don't know why this is such a chore to find out the "VERY FIRST TIME YOU SAW THIS CHARACTER IN A COMIC BOOK" not counting Advertisements (maybe we should count those??).  i.e. The VERY FIRST TIME I SAW the Wolverine was Hulk 180. 
Now, the market dictated that Hulk 181 is more desirable and more valuable.  Fine..But the VERY FIRST TIME YOU SAW THE WOLVERINE was Hulk 180...Case closed to me.

So Foom #2 it is...

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1 hour ago, FineCollector said:

X-Men annual 14 happens after Storm and Gambit escape the Shadow King in 266-267.  It warms my black heart to know that what happens in the story still matters to people.

Jimmy Olsen 134 has to be the most disappointing key ever, Darkseid wasn't even grey until it was reprinted.  That helps the people saying a one-page cameo isn't necessarily significant enough to be a first.

Yes, I thought my eyes were playing tricks with these pics of a grey darkseid. I own a raw copy reader of #134, and after seeing the disappointment, I didn't read the whole story. I'll get around to it eventually. Lots and lots of word bubbles.

Edited by ADAMANTIUM
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2 hours ago, AGGIEZ said:
3 hours ago, FineCollector said:

X-Men annual 14 happens after Storm and Gambit escape the Shadow King in 266-267.  It warms my black heart to know that what happens in the story still matters to people.

Which book came out "first" though? 

To answer the rhetorical question, X-Men Annual #14, of course.

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26 minutes ago, AGGIEZ said:

No. I think it was more of a prototype alla Dime Press #4

Different character. Nothing like Logan.

Looks more like a cyborg or android to me.  No claws.

Edited by Ken Aldred
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I know I'm late to the party, but it sure seems like this discussion could benefit from one nuance to supplement the comments made by RMA:

There is a difference in comic book parlance between a "first appearance" and the "first time a character appears in print."  The prior term refers to the first appearance of a character in a story as RMA explained.  The later term refers to the a pre-"first appearance" of the character in a non-story image such as an ad.  Thus, More Fun Comics 31 (5/38) is the first appearance in print of Superman by virtue of the house ad for Action Comics 1, but Action 1 (6/38) is Superman's true "first appearance."  

Which is why Hulk 180 is Wolverine's "first appearance," as it is the first time Wolverine appears in a story.  What causes people confusion is that they think that what people are willing to pay for a comic defines what constitutes a first appearance.  That's B.S.  Hulk 180 used to be more valuable than Hulk 181 (some of you are probably shocked right now, but it is true and verifiable).  The market ultimately decided that Hulk 181 was the cooler and therefore more valuable book because Wolverine appeared on the cover and was the focus of the story.  This caused some folks confusion, so they started calling Hulk 181 the "first appearance" to justify the higher price.  All they really needed to do was call 181 the "cooler book."  There was some push back by the folks who know what "first appearance" really means, and ultimately Hulk 180 was again denoted as the "first appearance" and Hulk 181 was denoted as the "first full appearance" (an oxymoronic marketing term).  

The market dictates price, it does not dictate the meaning of basic terms like "first appearance" (or "first time character appears in print").

P.S.  A "cameo" is just a small appearance.  So a "first appearance" can be a "cameo."  The opposite of a "cameo" is a "featured" role.  Thus, Walt Disney's Vacation Parade 2 (7/51) is Uncle Scrooge's "first appearance" on the cover of a comic book, albeit in a "cameo" (minor character in a crowd shot).  Uncle Scrooge's second cover appearance is a literal "cameo," original meaning is small portrait, on the cover of Four Color 353 (10/51) where he is pictured in partially obscured head shot painting.  Uncle Scrooge's third cover appearance, and first time featured on a cover, is FC 379 (March/April 1952).  Interestingly, however, a lot of folks get Uncle Scrooge's first cover appearance wrong, claiming it is in FC 386 (March 1952).  Heritage, for example, states: "Only a Poor Old Man is the first Uncle Scrooge story, Scrooge's first cover appearance, and the book that counts as Uncle Scrooge #1."  The first two statements in Heritage's description are wrong as FC 386 is also not US's first solo story.

 

Edited by sfcityduck
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I think everyone is closer than it sounds, but we're mixing language here.  If you mention "cameo," you also have to use the other wording that went with it in the old price guides,  "introduction."  "First appearance" can relate to either one of those, but isnt necessarily defined by one or the other.

Hulk 180 is Wolverine's first appearance. It was a cameo appearance, in that you had no idea who he was, it was just a teaser.  The money book is 181, because that's when you get "introduced" to what Wolverine is all about.  I've made the analogy to steak dinner before: 180 is the appetizer, 181 is the steak and side, 182 is dessert.  No one minds if you skip dessert, but you're not sitting down for just an artichoke dip.

The question then is, what's more important to collectors now, first appearance on a story page, or the first meaningful interaction now that fewer people are reading the stories in their plastic tombs?

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3 minutes ago, FineCollector said:

The question then is, what's more important to collectors now, first appearance on a story page, or the first meaningful interaction now that fewer people are reading the stories in their plastic tombs?

Answer:  Neither.  It's the cover.

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35 minutes ago, FineCollector said:

If you mention "cameo," you also have to use the other wording that went with it in the old price guides,  "introduction."  "First appearance" can relate to either one of those, but isnt necessarily defined by one or the other.

"Cameo" was also used in the old Guides to refer to non-first appearances. 

"Introduction," if I recall, is what we now call a "full first appearance."

Edited by sfcityduck
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