n2wdw's comic book room

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Latest SS Books -- Bubbles, Wrightson and Amanda Segfried

Here are the latest additions to my CGC SS collection. All these came from boardies. First, a Bernie Wrightson. Such a great cover. It's my first Wrightson SS book and picked it up for a good price (fifty bucks).

When my girls were kids we watched a lot of Power Puff girls. (BTW, PPG was a big improvement from Barney IMHO.) Their favorite was Bubbles. So really happy to pick this one up, Tara Strong the voice of Bubbles (another great deal at $75). Tara's also Raven on the Teen Titans. Here she is at the 2012 SDCC:

Finally I was surprised to see this one come up for sale, an autograph of the actress Amanda Segfried on a Justice League book. Apparently she's in the running to play a character in a future JLA movie. Wish it had more than just her sig. Maybe someday I'll crack it open (in front of CGC of course) and add a sketch. I paid $150 after some negotiation. Kind of steep, but I figured I'd pay around that much at a Wizard World con, assuming she ever appears there.

Also, here's another autograph of Amanda in my collection:

Very nice Wrightson sig, sir! That's such a great cover, congratulations!

Dave Stevens Covers Set

Got these 2 back from CGC this week. They go in my Dave Stevens covers set. I've managed to climb into the 2nd position. Getting the top spot is actually possible although maybe not this year, as it's tough finding high grade copies.

Thanks Brandon. Yeah, I really like that Wrightson cover. It was one of those things I was surfing the web when it was offered for sale and was lucky to drop a flag before someone else claimed it.

Game of Thrones

Right now, my favorite TV shows are Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, The 100 and Last Ship. It's nice the way their seasons are staggered so usually there's at least 1 show going on at any time.

I like collecting autographs of actors from these shows, and even better if they are CGC SS autographs. I can do that for GOT and TWD since comic books exist. But, no comics for The 100 and Last Ship at the moment.

Here are 2 Game of Throne comics I recently got back from CGC. Frankly I'm tempted to sell them. GOT CGC 9.8 comics are like guaranteed cash in your pocket with supply low and demand high. They easily go for $75-$100.

The reason these comics fit with my intro is because of the 3rd comic below. This one is signed by Emilia Clark and Jason Momoa. I'm really happy I got this when I did because Emilia's sig is in real high demand now since her character (khaleesi) is probably the most popular one right now on the show.

So I Went To a Local Con Yesterday ...

 

At the con, I spend most of my time at Basement Comics. They had the best (only really) selection of gold.

 

Here's the problem with cons -- there's limited selection and that's leads to bad decisions. In contrast, at home on your computer, there's so much selection it's easier to be disciplined.

 

Basement Comics had this Baker on their wall:

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I made an offer of 35% off. I picked that because I heard the dealer tell someone else he sometimes gave 35% sales on his website. He didn't go for that (no surprise there). He said he had a customer who bought alot of Bakers and would probably sell to him in a couple weeks (certainly some salesmanship there, but it didn't matter what he said, I have a fairly good idea of the current demand for Bakers).

 

His final offer was 15% off. I took it. Like I said, bad decisions.

Update -- This just closed on eBay last night, for just under what I bought my CGC 5.5 for. Gives me some comfort that I got a competitive price on my copy. Thanks for reading.

Game of Thrones

 

Right now, my favorite TV shows are Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, The 100 and Last Ship. It's nice the way their seasons are staggered so usually there's at least 1 show going on at any time.

The wife and I have started watching The 100 too, actually it's quite a good TV show (we're halfway through Season 2). I mean, I've been married for 7 years, I deserve to enjoy some Clarke and Octavia!

And congrats, your GOT #3 SS CGC 9.8 is simply awesome

Game of Thrones

 

Right now, my favorite TV shows are Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, The 100 and Last Ship. It's nice the way their seasons are staggered so usually there's at least 1 show going on at any time.

 

The wife and I have started watching The 100 too, actually it's quite a good TV show (we're halfway through Season 2). I mean, I've been married for 7 years, I deserve to enjoy some Clarke and Octavia!

 

And congrats, your GOT #3 SS CGC 9.8 is simply awesome

Just wait to Season 3, it gets better!

Modern GGA, a Sim Miss, and the WW Philadelphia Comicon

To start, here's a GFT I recently got back from CGC. This is one of my favorite David Nakayama covers.

Next, this Jaka original art was recently offered on Heritage. I lost out but have this high quality scan.

I'm going to the Wizard World Philadelphia con this week. Alas, I can only go Thursday and Friday so I'll miss most of the celebrities for sigs. But, a threshold decision for me is whether to submit comics for on-site grading. Here's CGC's On-site Comic Tier Pricing:

Modern (comics 1975–present, valued $200 or less) — US $30

Economy (comics valued $400 or less) — $55

Standard (comics valued $1,000 or less) — $90

Express (comics valued $3,000 or less) — $140

WalkThru (comics any value) — 3% FMV; min. $250, max. $3,000

So no, I probably won't be submitting anything for on-site grading, not with normal modern being $18 versus $30 for on-site. The decision is easy for me since I've got my invoices lined up so I get one back every month or so. Along those lines, I probably will submit an invoice or 2 to save on shipping costs.

I don't have any major goals for the con. Fill a few holes in the want list, a statue or two, some hard back trades, some golden age GGA. Mostly just relax and go through long boxes, and then in the evening a Manhattan followed by a medium rare ribeye. (As for the Manhattan, I usually go with sweet vermouth but I might go crazy and might go with sweet & dry vermouth.) I'll try to post lots of pictures.

Wizard World Philadelphia 2016 - Con Report

Here's my report for this year's WW Philly con. There are no pictures of wall books because, frankly, there wasn't much there. Greg Reece and Michael Carbonaro were there and I went into the con intending to take some wall books. But I quickly lost enthusiasm for it. You have to remember this is a pop culture con more than a comic convention. I had fun (sort of) but at this con comics seemed ancillary to everything else. Here a good example of the feel of the con -- the biggest vendor at the con was a tattoo parlor. It was busy too, with people lining up to get tats.

I was there Thursday (3-8) and Friday (12-7). I drove up Thursday morning and went to Reading Terminal for lunch. I got dumpling soup and peking duck from a place called Sang Kee. It was so delicious I got the same thing for lunch on Friday.

I got my 4-day wrist band and got into line around 2pm. Below's a picture. The line on the right is the VIPs. I'm in the non-VIP line. I couldn't justify getting a VIP pass this year -- they're like 2 or 3 times the cost of a non-VIP ticket. Unless you want to see a high demand actor, VIP isn't worth it.

Here's a picture of the con entrance. This is actually on Saturday about 15 minutes from opening.

Something that bugs me about Wizard World -- they always open the doors late. Not a lot late, but noticeably late, usually 10-15 minutes. During this time their employees act like cheerleaders trying to get the crowd to yell and clap. This all seems very contrived to me, like WW is trying to create artificial excitement for the show.

A highlight of the show was meeting Howard Chaykin. I got this American Flagg sketch from him (for only $35).

His original art was just as affordable as his sketches. I got this for $75:

Another highlight was seeing Gerhard again. He did this sweet drawing of Cerebus and Jaka for me:

I had my eye on this box of Bettie Page cards from the moment I saw them on Thursday. I got the whole box for a reasonable price. Now we'll see if any of the packs have the premiums.

I picked up these action figures for a good price. Nice to check these off the want list.

And I got this cool framed ASM 122 reproduction for my Gwen Stacy collection:

The only major purchase I considered was this Richie Rich #1. But for $2000? Whew. I didn't even try making an offer at that list price.

So that was the con for me. Honestly it got boring around 3pm Saturday. I only waited around until the end to get the Gerhard commission.

Later that night at the hotel I got a Basil Hayden Manhattan with wings and a salmon cobb salad.

So, it was a fun way to spend a couple days, but certainly not a true comic convention. But then, how many are there of those nowadays? Thanks for reading.

Wizard World Philadelphia 2016 - Con Report

 

 

 

The only major purchase I considered was this Richie Rich #1. But for $2000? Whew. I didn't even try making an offer at that list price.

 

 

 

 

That's quite a steep increase off the last GPA sale of $535.

Love that book but not at that price.

 

That's quite a steep increase off the last GPA sale of $535.

 

Love that book but not at that price.

Yeah, I agree. I thought about making an offer but I didn't want to come across as insulting him so I decided to pass. There's actually a nice looking copy on Lone Star for $600 right now. Lower grade (I think it's 2.5 or 3.0) but I think a fair price. I've decided to pass as I've got some Baker covers I'm bidding on.

Gwen Stacy and CGC Update

Won this cool Tim Sale Gwen Stacy sketch on eBay a couple weeks ago. Went for a low price ($33), I assume because it's kind of abstract (or maybe because no other Gwen / Tim Sale collectors were shopping at the time).

I guess this is a good time to show off my other Tim Sale OA: another Gwen, and a Mary Jane.

At WW Philly there was a dealer with high grade modern books, including stacks of Spider-Gwens. I found 8 Gwens that were 9.8 possibles, along with a Game of Thrones. I immediately dropped them off at the CGC booth for grading, electing standard turnaround time (i.e., not on-site). This was around 3pm on Friday. They told me they were still accepting on-site submissions. Does anyone know if they ever closed that? (Just curious)

I've been submitting an invoice every month for about a year now. Now my invoices are lined up so I get something back every month. That's satisfied my craving so I have no temptation to submit things fast track or on-site. Nice to save some money on CGC fees.

My invoice at WW Philly was unusual for me as it included 9 books -- nowadays I go for 3 or 4. In fact, I purposefully hold books back so I have something I want to grade for the next month (instead of scrambling around to find something I really don't want to grade). Next month's submission will probably be an Economy submission of 3-4 Matt Baker covers. Thanks for reading.

Matt Baker Wins and Losses

A lot of Baker covers being auctioned on eBay recently. Yesterday I lost 2 and won 1.

Here's one I really wanted, Teenage Temptations 2. But it went over my max bid with 4 hours left and eventually closed at $405. I've never paid that much for any Baker (with one exception) so, alas, I had to let it go.

I'll probably regret losing this next one. This cover doesn't come up for sale often and it closed at only $155 (my high bid was $150). But, you can't buy everything, and I'm watching a few major auctions that close in a couple days.

Here's the Baker I won, Wartime Romances 17. At the end of the day I had to choose between Teenage Temptations 2 and this one as both are high on my want list. I eventually decided on WR 17 because of the condition. TT 2 has something going on around the staples that bothered me. WR 17 isn't perfect either, with spine stress lines and a scuff under the right word balloon, but the flaws don't bother me as much for some reason. Often choices like this are based on emotion and your gut feel.

So in bidnapper I entered a high bid of $325 for WR 17. I wasn't optimistic about winning, and in fact that bid wouldn't have won TT 2 that closed at $405. But I won WR 17 with a high bid of $285. I think I may have been helped by all 3 comics closing within 15 minutes of each other. Thanks for reading.

Another Matt Baker Win

Lots of Baker covers being auctioned on eBay lately (also on this month's C-Link -- Matt Baker is super hot right now). I bid on 7, lost on 6 but won the comic I wanted the most. First, here are the 6 I lost. Something I noticed. Most of them closed for less than I expected. I think prices were lower because they closed within about an hour of each other. From the same seller too. I think he would have gotten more if he spaced out his auctions over a few days.

Here's the one I won and wanted the most, Seven Seas 5. My high bid was $225 and I won it for $178. It has some water damage and I usually hate that flaw, but from the photos it didn't seem that bad, and I really covet the Seven Seas books. There are 4 with Baker covers: 3, 4, 5 and 6. Of the 4, I like the cover of #5 the least. But, you have to start somewhere and now I can cross this one off my want list for a somewhat reasonable price. Thanks for reading.

Tales of the Comic Book Room

The title of this post is a homage to one of my favorite features of the old Comic Buyers Guide (may it rest in peace), Chuck Rozanski's Tales from the Database. These articles are highly recommended and are located here: http://www.milehighcomics.com/tales/main.html

This post is about my new comic book room. As I've mentioned, my new cave is about half the size of my old CBR and it's been a challenge to get all my stuff into it. The only thing I've had to purge is about 20,000 comics. That's a lot but I'm keeping the ones I really want (about 25,000, including around 800 CGC comics). (BTW Chuck, if you're reading this I'll give you a great deal on those 20,000 comics.) Whittling my collection down has actually been liberating as now I'm focusing on the comics I really want, rather than keeping up with titles just out of habit.

There's good news and bad news. Bad news is, my new CBR is in my future retirement house (I'm about 8 years from retirement), which is a small cottage at the beach and I'm only there during the summer. Good news is, it's summer!

Last weekend I worked on my display shelves. Before they were about 4-6 inches deep. Now they're about 11 inches. So I've doubled my display space!

Here's how the shelves looked before. You can see I was about out of room.

Step 1 was pulling off all my art and CGC books. Here's one of the stacks (there were a few more):

Step 2 was putting up shelf brackets big enough to hold 12" boards. Here's a tip if you plan on doing something like this. Buy the brackets from Amazon.com instead of Home Depot or Lowes. They're a lot cheaper at Amazon.

Step 3 was putting up the new 11" shelves. Funny thing, at Home Depot they call them 12" common boards but they are really only 11" deep.

I also put up 2x4s for additional support.

Here's the finished product, with my stuff back on the shelves. In case you can't tell, now I have a ton of space (twice as much space) to store and display future new acquisitions. Thanks for reading.

Thanks for a great post - you do have quite a challenge getting everything to fit and you're doing an amazing job Saying goodbye to 20k books must be a tough decision...

Regarding the photo - I've always been worried when stacking more than about 20 CGC books, because the CGC holders seem fragile - I was afraid that the weight of more than 20 CGC books could damage the bottom book. So thank you for totally destroying that myth

That room is a thing of beauty! great read! And I guess the fine line between collecting and hoarding is collectors can let things go once in a while. Even minus 20, 000 books, still a staggering collection you have there.

Rune - I agree with your concern. The books were only stacked that way for about a week. I definitely wouldn't recommend long term storage stacked that way.

Sagii - Surprisingly it hasn't been that hard to part with those comics. For example, I used to have many many long boxes of Batmans. I've gotten rid of most and now I'm keeping just Detective, Batman and some other favorite other Batman titles. Now, instead of wasting time (and money) on those other Batman titles, I can concentrate completing Batman (to issue 250) and Detective (to 350), plus select keys. Same thing for Superman, Legion, Avengers, Spider-man, etc.

As I'm getting older, I'm more interested in keys and select GGA, rather than collecting titles. A big part of that is I've already completed (or close to completing) most of the titles I want. Also, at this stage in my life I'm not going to start on a new big "completist-type" collecting project, like trying to collect ECs. Instead, I'm going to invest the money in an Incredible Hulk 181 (I've put that off forever) so I can finally say my Incredible Hulk run is complete.

My biggest problem now is what to do with those 20,000 comics I no longer want as they're taking up most of my basement. I've sold a few long boxes on eBay and made decent money (around $1000) but, while kind of fun, it's a pain too. The idea of a comic store cutting me a check and then rolling in with a truck to cart them away is very tempting.

My New Favorite Book -- Cast Signed Gotham Central

Recently I binged watched the 1st season of Gotham. Now I'm hooked but I'm struggling to get access to season 2. Hulu doesn't have episodes 1-12 (why the heck do I subscribe to it?) and I don't want to spend $35 to buy the season on iTunes. Oh well, I guess I'll have to wait for it to come out on Netflix.

I collect actor autographs of shows I like so I've been looking around on eBay for Gotham SS books. This one came up for sale recently. It has these 8 actor sigs:

Ben McKenzie (Detective Gordon)

Sean Pertwee (Alfred)

Donal Logue (Bullock)

Camren Bicondova (Selina)

Corey Smith (Riddler, also added a ? sign)

Jerome Valeska (also drew a Joker face)

Robin Taylor (Penguin)

Drew Powell (Butch)

Can you imagine what it would cost to get a VIP pass at a Wizard World con for a cast signing like this? At least $1000. Or at SDCC you might get it for free but you'd have to wait in line forever or get lucky for a ticket. Anyway, I lucked out with this eBay auction and won it for $260. I'm sure part of the reason it doesn't have David Mazouz (Bruce). But it has Gordon, Alfred, Selena, Penguin etc. so I'm happy to have it. Someday I'll get a Bruce sig. Ideally it'll be with Selena and Alfred, which is the dynamic I find most interesting on the show.

I think this book is another example that it's almost always better to buy SS books on the resale market, rather than getting sigs yourself if the sigs cost more than $50 or so. Similarly -- and I know this might sound like heresy here -- it's better to buy SS sketches via the resale market than directly from artists or through sketch ops here. I've done sketch ops, and the one advantage is you can specify the sketch you want. But that doesn't mean you're going to like the finished product. And there's the risk of the sketch taking forever (this happens to me about half the time).

In contrast, if you buy through the resale market, you get to see it before you buy it, there's immediate gratification as you only have to wait for shipping, and almost always it's cheaper than buying directly from the artist or via a sketch op.