The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 24, 2022 16:05:34 GMT -5
3 Rivers Comicon, which is June 4 & 5, just announced that Howard Chaykin will be a guest. Was already planning on going with my two girls, so this is a pretty nice little bonus. Have to dig out some of the old Star Wars books to see if he'll sign.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 21, 2022 8:40:30 GMT -5
My understanding is that her first appearance was in the Jae Lee Inhumans mini series. It is, in issue #5, but it’s brief and not considered a “full” appearance. It falls into the Wolverine and Darkseid category of discussions about first appearances, which are ridiculously tedious. The market has decided what their “true” first appearances are by the prices paid for the various issues, not a bunch of aging pedantic fanboy gatekeepers (not saying you’re one, my friend, so please take no offense).
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 18, 2022 7:39:33 GMT -5
Glad it's spring where you are, but back in your old stomping grounds, it was a classic March day: spitting rain, gray skies and a fire going all day long in the woodstove. In other words, a typical day in May as well. But it was nice to see them win, even if it was mostly our Single A guys versus their Single A guys. Of course, as usual, Chris Sale, who disappears when he turns sideways, will be out for a couple of months with a stress fracture of a rib. Who could've seen that coming? And he's not vaxxed, but that's cool, b/c he's already had Covid twice, so he must be invulnerable. On the plis side, Bogaerts and Arroyo finally are vaxxed. And hey, Aaron Judge apparently isn't, so if NY's rules still apply durng the season, he'll be unable to play in Yankee home games in additon to the 8 or 9 they play in Toronto. That's 90 games right there. add his usual time on the DL and he may only play 40 games or so in his free agent year. We'll be back to gray, cool and rainy tomorrow, such is spring. But I am having a hard time working up enthusiasm for MLB this season. We will see what happens when games start to count, but it's going to be harder for me to see games this season, ESPN has severely cut their slate and we don't get MLB Network in our package, and there really isn't anyone with an interesting voice reporting on MLB that I have access to anymore. Their either corporate shills for MLB on MLB.com or fantasy baseball players posing as journalists whose knowledge doesn't extend beyond stats and how they count for fantasy games and not about how the game is actually played. But then I am just cynical about a lot of things these days, especially anything related to any pro sport. -M I’ve just about given up on MLB completely. This lockout was pointless and did nothing to address the elephant in the room, which is the VAST economic disparities between clubs like the Yankees and Dodgers compared to teams like the Pirates and A’s. There was no change in revenue sharing, but they made sure they added a draft lottery to keep teams from “tanking”, because when you’re bad already and don’t have money to spend on big-name free agents, the right move is to punish you by maybe not getting the #1 overall pick. Meanwhile, the Dodgers pony up for Freddie Freeman because their lineup wasn’t loaded enough already. MLB needs to adopt the Premier League model. Two leagues, divided initially by payroll, with spending caps/floors in place. Bottom three teams get relegated to the lower league, top three teams in the lower league get promoted up. It would give teams like the Pirates and Reds something to compete for, which would increase fan interest, rather than the same old “well, they’re destined for the basement AGAIN” feeling that permeates every spring here in Pittsburgh. If a team gets relegated, they have to reduce payroll to a certain limit in the lower league the first year, and if they spend another year there, they have to get under the cap entirely. If a team gets promoted, they have to increase a certain amount toward the floor, then have to reach it if they stay up a second year. Better revenue sharing would help this happen.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 16, 2022 6:21:32 GMT -5
Today I voted in the municipality council elections, I had the choice between candidates of 6 political parties, which for Dutch standards is very few. Must be nice. Where I live, I have the option of voting for “the party that is predetermined to win because of gerrymandering” or “the party that is predetermined to lose because of gerrymandering”. There is the occasional candidate from some fringe party that falls into the “how the hell did this man/woman get enough signatures to even appear on the ballot” category. American politics are the worst, outside of a dictatorship obviously. It’s why public engagement is so low in many places. Why bother voting when the candidates from the party you support have virtually zero chance of winning?
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 15, 2022 15:35:46 GMT -5
The most recent boom is definitely over for this cycle...some speculators are now crying after having bought books specifically to flip, and losing money on each sale. Inflation is taking a bite.
On the plus side....now that prices are dropping, some savy collectors are waiting to pounce on deals knowing that there'll be an uptick at some future time.
I played hardball with someone and refused to pay his asking price (for a book I *do* want), even though I do have the cash for it. Maybe I'm getting old, but I'm playing the patience game...
Good to hear! I just sold over $2K in Magic: The Gathering cards, so if the market is cooling off, it might be time to pick up some books that people want to unload before they get too far under water on them.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 11, 2022 22:26:26 GMT -5
I didn’t realize She-Hulk came out this week. I really enjoyed the first issue, but I didn’t see it on the racks at any of the shops I went to (and I was at three LCS this weekend). Hope this isn’t going to turn into a hunt for a hard-to-find second issue that kills my interest in the series. I hope not either as it's shaping up to be a fun book, not as zainy as Slott's run so far but definitely very upbeat and fun. My LCS got a few more copies of it since last week, so I grabbed one today. Really enjoyed it and added it to my pull list online tonight.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 11, 2022 14:05:41 GMT -5
I just read that Emilio Delgado, the actor who played the fix-it shop owner Luis on Sesame Street for 45 years, has passed away at the age of 81. He had been suffering from the blood cancer multiple myeloma for several years. That's another piece of my childhood gone. (And I'm actually tearing up as a I write this.) F*ck you cancer! R.I.P. Luis. Give my regards to Mr. Hooper when you see him. Sunny Day Sweepin' the clouds away On my way to where the air is sweet Can you tell me how to get? How to get to Sesame StreetThis one hit my wife particularly hard. She’s turning 50 this year, so she grew up with Luis on Sesame Street, but to make matters worse, her mom died of multiple myeloma back in 2008, just two months before our younger daughter was born.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 10, 2022 7:07:49 GMT -5
Apologies, my friend, for my US-centric view on this. You were right to call me out on it. I feel very lucky to have picked up many of these “non-key keys”, like Hulk #234, years ago from a large comic chain in my area that has a huge warehouse. They open it up twice a year and everything in it is a dollar; I used to be able to fill a long box for $200 (the price has since jumped to $250). This was before the MCU existed and people were speculating on anything and everything that might someday have the slightest bump in value due to a connection to a show or movie. Are they still doing that warehouse sale this year? I don’t know. They usually do it twice, once at the end of January and the other at the end of September, but they didn’t do the January one. I’m on their e-mail list, so I’ll keep an eye out and let the forum know if they announce anything later in the year.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 9, 2022 7:20:50 GMT -5
That issue is cold right now. Recent unslabbed copies on eBay are going for $20 or less. Copies graded 9.2 will get you $150, a 9.4 sold recently for roughly $250. I doubt you may find a copy as good as this one (or better) for less than $57 (which was the auction's final bid). Even today, this is what I see:
- Nothing on Spain (todocolección)
- Nothing on the UK (eBid)
- Nothing on eBay (Spain or continental Europe)
- Two copies on eBay.co.uk (CGC 7.0 for £75 and raw for £49.95)
- Nothing on UK's biggest shop, Silver Acre
- $99 on Mile High, so less than $40 with the discount for a Fine copy
Remember, not all of us live in the US, and eBay imposes quite a premium on imports when buying from this side.
PS: I forgot about issue 234, had to go with the true believers reprint on this one, as it was expensive and the reason was downright idiotic (first use of the name "Quasar" for the character). Apologies, my friend, for my US-centric view on this. You were right to call me out on it. I feel very lucky to have picked up many of these “non-key keys”, like Hulk #234, years ago from a large comic chain in my area that has a huge warehouse. They open it up twice a year and everything in it is a dollar; I used to be able to fill a long box for $200 (the price has since jumped to $250). This was before the MCU existed and people were speculating on anything and everything that might someday have the slightest bump in value due to a connection to a show or movie.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 8, 2022 14:39:24 GMT -5
#228 is also quite sought out, I paid almost a hundred bucks in an eBay auction for a VF+ copy (bought another at 15€, in FN/VFN condition for re-selling), it's still going strong: www.mycomicshop.com/search?ItemID=51167727There’s a great many first appearances in the Hulk comic in the Bronze Age. I never thought any one of them got hot ( except the Wolverine issues. ) That issue is cold right now. Recent unslabbed copies on eBay are going for $20 or less. Copies graded 9.2 will get you $150, a 9.4 sold recently for roughly $250. The other valuable non-Wolverine “first” appearance in Bronze Age Hulk is Rocket Raccoon, although it’s only his first appearance in a comic series. It was the only issue between 182 and 400 I needed for the longest time, until I was given a copy by an incredibly generous member of this forum.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 7, 2022 8:43:43 GMT -5
I didn’t realize She-Hulk came out this week. I really enjoyed the first issue, but I didn’t see it on the racks at any of the shops I went to (and I was at three LCS this weekend). Hope this isn’t going to turn into a hunt for a hard-to-find second issue that kills my interest in the series.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 3, 2022 20:19:22 GMT -5
Prince Hal - Just listened to "Men of Harlech" on Spotify. Thanks for pointing it out to me. My wife just watched Penny Serenade and absolutely HATED it. She's a big Cary Grant fan, but she had nothing good to say about it.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 2, 2022 21:27:24 GMT -5
I got this Complete Collection at my regular LCS for less than half of cover price a couple of Wednesdays ago. It'll let me both sell the 2/3 of the series that I already collected as well as stop trying to hunt the remaining issues down. Then, I got out the past couple of weekends to visit a couple of new stores in the area. They're sister stores on opposite sides of town, so I hit one two Saturdays ago and the other this past Saturday. Everything below was $1 except for one book. Some issues of Batman and Detective from the time period where I'll pick them up cheap. A couple of late-series Conan issues I needed to fill holes. Thought the Morbius issue might have some value due to the Spidey appearance and grabbed the MTU because of Speed Demon The first Morbius/Spidey issue, bought for the same reason as the other one (which I'd picked up the previous week). The "What If" wound up being a duplicate, so I gave it to my daughters to read, and the Hellblazer TPB, collecting the end of the series, was the "big" purchase of the two trips, costing a whole $5. Three more Jonah Hex issues taken off the list toward completing the series (only need nine more). Bought the Poison Ivy book because it looked interesting, and couple more Conans to fill holes. Last purchase to report from these trips was to help pay for my daughters' college and to ensure my financial future:
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Feb 28, 2022 10:53:38 GMT -5
I sampled Brian Michael Bendis' Daredevil, and I have a question: does he always write that much dialogue on a page? It isn’t just Daredevil. Read Jessica Jones, Avengers, Moon Knight; it’s all the same. Heads talking endlessly, as though BMB thought that people wanted to read every line of a conversation, no matter how insignificant, instead of just the important parts containing necessary information. The guy has had some interesting ideas, but it’s torturous trying to get to them amidst the overwhelming barrage of noise that he surrounds them with.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Feb 21, 2022 18:03:47 GMT -5
I think I bought the first 10 or so issues of Spawn (I know the Cerebus issue is stuffed in a box around here somewhere), but that was the only Image title I ever bought. I was working in comic book shops at the time and had a chance to leaf through most of the series when they arrived, but the art was never all that attractive to me and the writing, for the most part, made Twilight fanfic seem like the second coming of Shakespeare.
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