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Post by Rags on Apr 3, 2024 19:26:52 GMT -5
Looks like Heritage Auctions has another Action Comics #1 CGC 8.5 on offer
And yeah, if I had that kind of green to spare I'd make a play for it....but for now I have to stick to what I post in the Purchases thread
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Post by Rags on Apr 5, 2024 2:34:20 GMT -5
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Post by rberman on Apr 6, 2024 4:03:49 GMT -5
I've been reading X-Men since 1983. With that being said, you know how you have comfort food? Well to me, Claremont is comfort reading. His style, narration, prose, characterization, action, themes, etc, love all of it. He's had a plethora of amazing artists over the decades to illustrate that prose. By focusing on the characters, their motives, their emotions, he's endeared them all to readers. Yes, X-Men is a soap opera and I love(d) every page of it. However upon his later return though, I think a major problem was that his style of writing had gotten passe with then-current readers. Captions, thought balloons and such, readers weren't accustomed to that very much at that time. Combined with his typical emotional in vocative writing style and perhaps readers thought he was mired down in plot(s). The (reading) times had changed and seemingly Claremont may have been passed by as a result. If so, it still doesn't diminish my overall enjoyment of the man's work and the legacy he built within the X-mythos. Now that I have read more Euro-comics, Claremont’s dialogue-heavy style seems more in that style compared to Marvel’s action-oriented titles of the 60s and 70s. Lots of exposition and philosophizing, as on this page where Mother Nature debates the Circle of Life with an ecologist (the guy with the Mohawk). Their chat runs for a dozen pages. I quite liked Morrison’s and Whedon’s runs; the front page of our forum has links to review threads for those series. Morrison was unfamiliar with X-Men but skimmed Claremont’s first hundred issues for ideas. Whedon is more the encyclopedic fanboy who ignored everything after Byrne/Claremont except a few plot points following up on Morrison.
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Post by commond on Apr 16, 2024 5:14:31 GMT -5
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?
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Post by impulse on Apr 20, 2024 10:04:03 GMT -5
The more time that passes in real life, the harder it is to view Magneto as a villain. At the very least, it's grown clear that he has a point. There, I said it.
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Post by rberman on Apr 20, 2024 11:30:13 GMT -5
The more time that passes in real life, the harder it is to view Magneto as a villain. At the very least, it's grown clear that he has a point. There, I said it. But then again, the villainous thing about well-written villains is not they have chosen a villainous general goal (having all the money) but rather than they have a reasonable goal (“keeping my family/people safe” is a popular one in both fiction and reality) which they pursue without regard to collateral damage.
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Post by impulse on Apr 20, 2024 11:52:57 GMT -5
Agreed, which is why I said getting harder and not impossible. The ends do not justify any means.
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Post by berkley on Apr 20, 2024 14:33:52 GMT -5
I've been reading X-Men since 1983. With that being said, you know how you have comfort food? Well to me, Claremont is comfort reading. His style, narration, prose, characterization, action, themes, etc, love all of it. He's had a plethora of amazing artists over the decades to illustrate that prose. By focusing on the characters, their motives, their emotions, he's endeared them all to readers. Yes, X-Men is a soap opera and I love(d) every page of it. However upon his later return though, I think a major problem was that his style of writing had gotten passe with then-current readers. Captions, thought balloons and such, readers weren't accustomed to that very much at that time. Combined with his typical emotional in vocative writing style and perhaps readers thought he was mired down in plot(s). The (reading) times had changed and seemingly Claremont may have been passed by as a result. If so, it still doesn't diminish my overall enjoyment of the man's work and the legacy he built within the X-mythos. Now that I have read more Euro-comics, Claremont’s dialogue-heavy style seems more in that style compared to Marvel’s action-oriented titles of the 60s and 70s. Lots of exposition and philosophizing, as on this page where Mother Nature debates the Circle of Life with an ecologist (the guy with the Mohawk). Their chat runs for a dozen pages.
What's that sample from, BTW?
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Post by Batflunkie on Apr 20, 2024 18:09:56 GMT -5
The more time that passes in real life, the harder it is to view Magneto as a villain. At the very least, it's grown clear that he has a point. There, I said it. This is why I found Valiant's Harbinger a bit of a tough pill to swallow at some points even though I still love it. The Harbinger Foundation is a non-profit set up to help people with special abilities that later ends up brain-washing them into joining a cult just to belong. (Peter's not that great of a main character either with all the stuff he does to the opposite sex). That being said, it's an interesting take on the formula of the X-Men purely out of just being a character study of these two very dangerous ends of the super-hero spectrum
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Post by Rags on Apr 21, 2024 11:55:37 GMT -5
I'm amazed that a book with this amount of obtrusive ink overspray (from newsstand returns of unsold copies) could still get a CGC 6.5 (or FINE PLUS). I'd put it more in the VG band (4.0)....
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Post by Icctrombone on Apr 21, 2024 12:04:03 GMT -5
It feels like the CGC people hold the entire collecting community hostage. there I said it.
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Post by impulse on Apr 21, 2024 14:21:53 GMT -5
A 6.5 must go for what, $100,000? Seeing what 2.5s go for I can only imagine.
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Post by Rags on Apr 21, 2024 17:21:38 GMT -5
It feels like the CGC people hold the entire collecting community hostage. there I said it.
Just their own niche....others who couldn't give a toss about slabbed books - and the premiums demanded for them - do just fine.
About 4% of my collection is slabbed, so I do play the game sometimes, but I've also told slabbing geeks where they can push their slabs
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,069
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Post by Confessor on Apr 22, 2024 5:35:24 GMT -5
It feels like the CGC people hold the entire collecting community hostage. there I said it. Just their own niche....others who couldn't give a toss about slabbed books - and the premiums demanded for them - do just fine.
About 4% of my collection is slabbed, so I do play the game sometimes, but I've also told slabbing geeks where they can push their slabs Rags, just wondering, but do you have a copy of Hulk #181?
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Post by Rags on Apr 22, 2024 8:21:49 GMT -5
Rags, just wondering, but do you have a copy of Hulk #181?
Nope....not yet. And if I'm not getting it in person I'd want it slabbed because there are many floating around without the Marvel Value Stamp. It's missing from the stash in England too because I don't think there was a UK variant so my Uncle never got one from the newsagent.
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