Flash collectors thread 23 23

[Terry E. Gibbs]

1 hour ago, flashlites said:

Terry, you are truly a Master Flash fan! The Yoda to my Luke! Who even knew that Andru drew Spider-Man?! I did not. (lack of interest in Marvel? LoL) As for Gil, I have a special place in my heart for him. His art in comics inspired me. I wanted to draw like him and Carmine and drew and redrew many a cover trying to imitate/emulate them both! As for Murph, I believe he did well and drew many of my secondary favorite covers. And Neil, well he was just awesome!

Wow we are on 161 Flash Fans and for once I don't have my comic ready or my scanner warmed up so...lets meet up here tomorrow to show off our 161's!

Yeah at the time in Australia GL was the best of all the DC comic we had. I really liked Gil Kane's GL and one of my top five all time comics is his GL 43. Must dig that out. I found a copy that I had missed on the stands minus it's centerfold (how did these books get so beat up in a year or less). Even minus centre fold and the rest of the book being around 4.0 I loved that book just for Gil's art.

 

[Terry E. Gibbs]

and a 161 to lead us off. There are very few characters in comics Unique. I have lost count of how many freeze style characters of fire style, or who have wings and let's not start on Magnetism. But mirrors, I think Sam was on his own. (until McCulloch pulled on the mask)

[Terry E. Gibbs]

1 hour ago, flashlites said:

Terry, you are truly a Master Flash fan!

Thanks, ( no pressure now, ..no pressure..) a lot of time spent reading bios and trying to get to talk to people who knew people, or talked to people who had talked to people .. of which I am happy to pass onto any fan interested. Are you still reading Flash, our local shop is reopening tomorrow and I they have been closed since mid March. Lots to catch up on and lots missed. Josh Williamson's run looks like it is heading to a monumental conclusion, putting Thawne front and centre where he always should be. Next few months appear to be well worth waiting for.

[flashlites]

I am enjoying the new run...still a few issues behind but plan to read those this weekend. They did a sort of reboot in #70 I believe  I read a few of those and skipped ahead to #750. So I have to go back and read 73-88, I believe thats where they ended the old numbering and slapped a 750 on the cover? 

 

[FoggyNelson]

On 4/13/2020 at 4:24 PM, frozentundraguy said:

Alas I have no Flash 143.

However I do have an earlier Flash (Iss. 132) to share, and one of my favorites that was in the group photo that Jaylam posted a few days ago. The book does raise some questions, as the Flash was just uber heavy and weighed 1,000 pounds back in issue #115. The real dilemma is given the calories he's expending running so fast, how could he ever gain that kind of weight?   The other oddity about this cover is his head in the middle photo. It looks like it's bending back to the left just a bit. I always thought that part of the cover looked a little weird. I do like the action sequence on the cover though.

Fatso flag first appearance‼️‼️😷😷👍

[Jaylam]

Referencing back a few post about Ross Andru's work on the Flash. It seems a lot of the Silver Age's hero's and titles were defined by an artist's long tenure on any given particular title. Infantino was the Flash and Batman. Gil Kane was Green Lantern and the Atom, Nick Cardy was Aquaman and the Teen Titans, Ramona Fradon was Metamorpho and so on. But the title I most associate with Ross Andru is the title that got me into comics in the first place: the Metal Men. His style really seemed to fit that team and he's still is my favorite artist for them. When he went to the Flash, it just seemed so out of place for him as his style just didn't seem to capture the Flash's magic like Infantino did. But for me at least, he did make the Metal Men magical like this fantastically done cover from issue #24. 

 

Edited July 4, 2020 by Jaylam

[Terry E. Gibbs]

18 hours ago, Jaylam said:

Ross Andru is the title that got me into comics in the first place: the Metal Men. His style really seemed to fit that team and he's still is my favorite artist for them. When he went to the Flash, it just seemed so out of place for him as his style just didn't seem to capture the Flash's magic like Infantino did. But for me at least, he did make the Metal Men magical like this fantastically done cover from issue #24. 

 

 

We also got Metal me here and I started reading them about the same time as GL and JLA (we then got Hawkman as well, and that was it.)  Yeah Metal men was a fun read, and he worked well with it. I never liked his WW back then maybe the stories with Mer-men and wonder tot were too much against the grain compared with Julie Schwartz's books, I quite enjoy them now. To me he will always be the WW artist.

Edited July 4, 2020 by Terry E. Gibbs

[Jaylam]

2 hours ago, Terry E. Gibbs said:

We also got Metal me here and I started reading them about teh same time as GL and JLA (we then got Hawkman as well, and that was it.)  Yeah Metal men was a fun read, and he worked well with it. I never liked his WW back then maybe the stories with Mer-men and wonder tot were too much against the grain compared with Julie Schwartz's books, I quite enjoy them now. To me he will always be the WW artist.

Ross Andru and Mike Esposito put out some real quality work when they worked together on the Metal Men. 

[Terry E. Gibbs]

Back onto 161. This shows the original cover art by Cinf and I think Anderson. Sometimes these had been altered (just wait until you see 174) but in this case this is the original which was then altered as the promoted the back up story.

[flashlites]

That is so cool! This one is different than Hundred. So Worlds Finest had its own book in Australia? But included other stories?

[Terry E. Gibbs]

8 hours ago, flashlites said:

That is so cool! This one is different than Hundred. So Worlds Finest had its own book in Australia? But included other stories?

When Federal, the publisher started these with the start of the silver age there were 8 titles, Hundred, Century, Five-Score, All Star, All Favourites, Mighty,  Supacomic and Super Adventure. There was no particular rhyme or reason initially for who went where. A good cover, kids liked westerns, so on went Tomahawk on the cover (I never met a kid who liked it but then these guys obviously did not know that. ) I have found Flash in Mighty as well as Hundred and same with Wonder Woman Challengers are everywhere, but after a few years by 1960 they fell into a groove. Note the first three titles are all ways of saying 100 and they were all 10 page anthologies. Then around 1961 some hit 116 pages.

After around early 1965 they dropped to I think 80 pages and went to being double staple like  a normal comic only thicker rather than square bound. At 80 pages, Hundred, Five-Score and Century were replaced with World's Finest, Tip Top and Wonder. Flash moved to World's Finest. He had taken over cover honours on Hundred at around 95# and Hundred actually finished at 101. Irony there. Note it is not now just 2 /- (shillings) but now 20c. We were then moving to decimal currency so have both prices for maybe 2 years.

Basically every DC SA key and minor key can be found in them although due to being anthologies it may have Challengers or Tomahawk on the cover of the first metal men, JLA, Atom, Adam Strange. Actually the only DC top 50 SA books that had the correct hero cover were three Flash  a Green Lantern and a Lois lane. 

People have finally started hunting them, I personally blame myself, I should have kept my mouth shut until I had cornered the market and then taken them to the US on my next Convention trip and offered them to a dealer. Who knows. Maybe I could have driven him up to $2.50 a comic (later to be listed on ebay for $200 - $1,000)

 

Last sale of SC 22 edition here went for A$610.00, (about US$420.00). I can't remember on of these Australian editions cracking A$200 before.

[flashlites]

2 hours ago, Terry E. Gibbs said:

When Federal, the publisher started these with the start of the silver age there were 8 titles, Hundred, Century, Five-Score, All Star, All Favourites, Mighty,  Supacomic and Super Adventure. There was no particular rhyme or reason initially for who went where. A good cover, kids liked westerns, so on went Tomahawk on the cover (I never met a kid who liked it but then these guys obviously did not know that. ) I have found Flash in Mighty as well as Hundred and same with Wonder Woman Challengers are everywhere, but after a few years by 1960 they fell into a groove. Note the first three titles are all ways of saying 100 and they were all 10 page anthologies. Then around 1961 some hit 116 pages.

After around early 1965 they dropped to I think 80 pages and went to being double staple like  a normal comic only thicker rather than square bound. At 80 pages, Hundred, Five-Score and Century were replaced with World's Finest, Tip Top and Wonder. Flash moved to World's Finest. He had taken over cover honours on Hundred at around 95# and Hundred actually finished at 101. Irony there. Note it is not now just 2 /- (shillings) but now 20c. We were then moving to decimal currency so have both prices for maybe 2 years.

Basically every DC SA key and minor key can be found in them although due to being anthologies it may have Challengers or Tomahawk on the cover of the first metal men, JLA, Atom, Adam Strange. Actually the only DC top 50 SA books that had the correct hero cover were three Flash  a Green Lantern and a Lois lane. 

People have finally started hunting them, I personally blame myself, I should have kept my mouth shut until I had cornered the market and then taken them to the US on my next Convention trip and offered them to a dealer. Who knows. Maybe I could have driven him up to $2.50 a comic (later to be listed on ebay for $200 - $1,000)

 

Last sale of SC 22 edition here went for A$610.00, (about US$420.00). I can't remember on of these Australian editions cracking A$200 before.

Great history there! They are probably pretty rare. I'm sure the print runs were relatively small compared to the states. I'm guessing here maybe 10-20,000? They probably were not saved as much. With print runs this small and applying the Gerber 'less than 1% survived' model and taking into account my recent conversation over on the Golden Age thread. I'd be willing to guess there are less than 100 of each issue in existence.More likely 50 or less for some issues. Your thoughts?

Edited July 6, 2020 by flashlites

[flashlites]

They are absolute gems and i'd love to have one any one of them in almost any condition someday in my Flash collection! I wonder what other international editions there are out there? I know there are Mexican editions from that 123 posted a while back. The UK I believe ran many DC titles in the silver age I believe Flash was among them, pence pricing on the cover. I love the shillings price on the Australian covers. What else is out there, Swedish? Brazilian? Italian!?

Edited July 7, 2020 by flashlites
correction

[Terry E. Gibbs]

4 hours ago, flashlites said:

Great history there! They are probably pretty rare. I'm sure the print runs were relatively small compared to the states. I'm guessing here maybe 10-20,000? They probably were not saved as much. With print runs this small and applying the Gerber 'less than 1% survived' model and taking into account my recent conversation over on the Golden Age thread. I'd be willing to guess there are less than 100 of each issue in existence.More likely 50 or less for some issues. Your thoughts?

I have never met anyone who is an expert although there probably is one out there. I will talk to the local dealers when Cons get back up. I think printing may have been in those ranges but I don't think our retention rates matches yours. Collecting became a big thing in the mid 60s in the US. I remember when I started collecting in 1981 I wanted the US color originals. If someone had offered me a complete run of the Australian editions at 20c each in 1982 I would have passed. Only now, my interest has moved to these as my Flash collection is complete and they are a super cheap way to read, Kirby's Challengers and many DC SA keys, Showcase appearances of Aquaman, Lois Lane, Space Ranger, Metal Men, Atom, Adam Strange, Brave and Bold, Suicide Squad, Rip Hunter, JLA.  What started me was that SC8 cover. I realized that these were Cinf covers that were never used in the US. After that, the completest thing kicked in sigh ..This cover looks like the splash page for that story but it is not.

[Terry E. Gibbs]

41 minutes ago, flashlites said:

They are absolute gems and i'd love to have one any one of them in almost any condition someday in my Flash collection! I wonder what other international editions there are out there? I know there are Mexican editions from that 123 posted a while back. The UK I believe ran may DC titles in the silver age I believe Flash was among them, pence pricing on the cover. I love the shillings price on the Australian covers. What else is out there, Swedish? Brazilian? Italian!?

Italian and I think German. The prices on most are quite good, but the killer is postage and language barriers. Oh and these are not mine, I will need to dig them out.

[frozentundraguy]

Here I have been waiting to post my copy of #161, but had forgotten the piece torn out of the bottom edge of the cover.  There is one other minor quirk, in that about a year later in issue #201 Superman also wants to quit, as Flash did in #159. And it was referenced again, though in small print on the cover of 161.

[Jaylam]

This cover of Green Lantern #68 seems to imply that 'ol GL is throwing in the towel, but the story has a totally different plot (and no hint of snow or winter weather either in the entire story). Still, a beautifully done cover by Mr. Kane with great coloring.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Jaylam

[EC Star&Bar]

Oh yeah, I much prefer the original coloring as compared with the new colors when that GL cover appeared on Showcase Presents Green Lantern #4 (2009).

[Terry E. Gibbs]

and one more, thanks to Harley circa 1990s when he was a young kiddie, seriously when did he become a dealer. When he was 10??

[JohnH19]

One more cover of a superhero calling it quits. Sorry that it isn’t Flash or even DC related but it is the greatest comic book cover ever.