Lost in collecting- Om's Journal by oldmilwaukee6er

1 1

The Thursday One for 7/7/16

WED and THURS we spent volunteering at Summerfest for the baddest listener-supported radio station on the planet (stream it online at radiomilwaukee.org); working the booth and otherwise talking to music goers. It was fun and relatively easy. New comic WED was warm all day and touched 103F heat index about 4pm during our shift. Afterwards, we went about our Summerfest routine, which definitely involves a few beers, a sky glider ride, and some Rueben rolls from Mader’s booth. We also used the ‘lesser’ music schedule of WED to reconnoiter the fairgrounds and do a little light shopping for the lady. THURS we were all about the music.

THURS I slipped down to the comic shop right about an hour after opening; watched a little Euro soccer, then hopped on the bikes down to Summerfest grounds. After the shift was over THURS, I connected quickly with my brother-in-law working the ESPN radio booth, before seeing the local band Tweed Funk >> Steepwater Band (my LCS guy's fave band outta Chicago) >> Lucky Chops (a busker brass band from NYC) >> Violent Femmes (from the captain’s deck w/ many free drinks- ouch) & the finale of Preservation Hall Jazz Band as we walked toward our bikes. Our first time closing down Summerfest!

There was no ONE book this week, rather I caught up with the lady after her books have dominated the past two weeks.

Paper Girls 7

Spawn 264 A/B (I got the A copy, will keep my eyes peeled for the B&W variant)

Tokyo Ghost 8

Star Wars Han Solo 2

SW Poe Dameron 4

Throwaways #1… my spec book for the week

The big hype this week (of which I only read, skimmed the comic & have no real knowledge of) is that in Walking Dead 156, Negan kills Alpha. BrotherJ must have had some advance knowledge of this; hence my picking up this copy of Walking Dead #154 1st Beta for $3 on spec that Beta becomes the new Alpha and takes over the Whisperers. As of this writing, my wee LCS is 2+ deep in both books, still. So this may either sneak up on collectors or it may be nothing more than another speed bump in the path of Negan.

The Lady Speaks. . . Slabbing

I personally have never understood the concept of slabbing books. Let me rephrase that, I understand it from a preservation standpoint. But that’s about it. And even then, the preservation isn’t perfect. Books have to be re-slabbed, micro chamber paper has to be replaced, etc, etc, etc.

All paper products, especially comic books and newspapers, are ephemera. They’re not designed to last forever. The elements and very materials that make them up start working against longevity from the very beginning. They yellow, tear, release acids, fade, staples rust, covers curl, become brittle, and generally degrade before your very eyes. They’re also designed to be used and reused.

It actually goes against every fiber of my being to lock up a book or a comic book so that it can never be re-read. You can never feel the texture of the artifact, smell it, or read it again because it’s been slabbed. One may argue that slabbing turns it into a piece of art—that can’t really be displayed because the cases aren’t going to protect from sunlight. They’re an awkward size and require special bags and special boxes for storage.

The joy of comics for me is the fact that if I want, I can go to my box and pull out issues and read them again and again. (Yes, graphic novels are an easier format for digesting, but graphic novels are also expensive).

Third party certification has created an artificial market based on slabbing. Blasphemy! You say. No, it’s true. The valuation of a comic that’s been slabbed hinges on the grade it receives. That grade comes from a human being and humans are notoriously inconsistent. The certification company also wants to make money so they want to keep collectors happy. What’s to stop them from inflating a comic’s grade? Ethics. Integrity. Sure, those might be enough to do it but when we’re dealing with the almighty dollar, those things usually go right out the window.

Third-party graded books generally demand a premium because they’re graded books. You submit a book, pay for that book to be slabbed, and then in turn charge a higher price because the certification company says your book came it at a certain grade. A good bit of the market hinges on this, a company that is invested in your books getting the most dollar amount. But wait! Your slabbed books have a finite shelf life and needs to be re-slabbed every decade or so because the cases aren’t entirely airtight. So you resubmit your book and pay even more money to have it re-slabbed and hope to God your book doesn’t come back lower than when you originally submitted it. And it might. Because human error, time, and market value are all working against you.

The third party certification system serves those collectors who are into liquidity either because they’re flipping the book right away or because they don’t really care about anything other than the monetary value of the comic. Speculators. Investors. People diversifying their portfolios. It also appeals to the type of collector who just wants to be able to say they have the best of *insert metric here*.

Take the new slabbing fiasco. The real possibility exists that slabs are harming books over time. And it’s not even a long period of time. People are seeing the creep engine and Newton rings within weeks of receiving slabbed comics. I watched some of the YouTube videos of those books and it’s insane to think that if those books had been kept in a traditional manner (bag and board and box) they would have been treated far better. I hope these companies realize that deleting threads, posting a giant blah blah blah people were exaggerating manifesto, and offering to re-slab books for free is NOT the same thing as addressing actual issues with a case.

It will be interesting to see how certification companies ultimately react and how it affects the market as a whole. Third party certification companies have collectors who have bought into the concept by the shorthairs in many respects. There are now collectors out there who won’t even look at a raw book and who only see value in slabbed books. If a certification company folds (unlikely, I realize) what will that do to the slabbed market? Without certification companies fuel the fire, will slabs lose their luster?

It’s possible, of course, that another company will come along and take up the slabbing mantel, as we saw how well that’s worked for with the earliest attempts. Ultimately, I’ve never been a fan of slabbing. It removes the very essence of the comic for me. I’ve watched collectors slavishly follow the bread crumb trail only to experience dismay, disappointment, and now damage to their books.

Maybe this is a good time to throw off the shackles of slabbing and return to bags and boards.

The Lady Speaks. . .

Ultimately, I’ve never been a fan of slabbing. It removes the very essence of the comic for me. I’ve watched collectors slavishly follow the bread crumb trail only to experience dismay

Uhhh just won best Registry set in category- Zap Comix

I wrote before about how I have been struggling with writing since the whole newcase fiasco. It really hurt to watch it unfold and it had me questioning my collecting methods back to their core. It is not easy to say exactly how this is affecting my high grade collecting. To a large degree, I have stopped collecting underground comix via eBay. I often say that one can buy the book 5 times before actually getting the book in the grade described. For a $14-22 eBay underground… that one NM or NM+ book actually costs me more like $70-80.

Because of this, I stopped hunting on eBay. I have about 8-10 various searches working passively, so I can make certain that I at least have a shot at a screaming deal. And there are still screaming deals out there for the patient underground eBay collector. This is because there is still an information advantage (RE print runs) to be had over the average comic book collector or the non-UG dealer.

OK… so is this why I collect high grade? Why is it that I obsess over small details? Probably not… that was probably in me since I began collecting comic books and associating value with condition. I guess the point is… I still have a strong affinity for high grade, first print undergrounds. For me, they are the cream… the thought that some of those stunning examples survived defies logic for me.

So why CGC? Well, for a long time I did not submit to CGC. I bought the occasional slabbed book, but for the most part tried not to pay a premium. Slabbing, by now, was common in other hobbies where I’d held loose affiliations- namely coins and cards. I was not morally opposed to it, as were other collectors at the time (or The Lady). I knew my grading was tough… and then for a while I wanted to prove to myself that I could align to CGC’s standards.

However, I always wanted competition in third party certification. Turnaround times have ALWAYS been an issue for me. I believe we are what we repeatedly say, and a phrase I repeat often is “if a dude says he’s going to be there, he should be there.”

For me, honesty is paramount. It bothered me greatly that the time the comic was away was under-estimated and that in the history of third party certification, companies have rarely held true to their posted turn-around times. And, when one lingers on these boards for a long time, you see all sorts of minor scandals on these boards. Third party certification companies have often acted with impunity and arrogance.

I wrote before that I am not opposed to slabbing, though there are many within the underground comix community that want nothing to do with it (and an even more vocal minority that would abolish it all together and censure even discussing it). This is no different that straight comic book collectors, yet underground collectors are a slightly stranger breed. I like to think of underground comix collectors as old iconoclasts sitting on their pile of comix and the outside world be damned! In their time, they subverted the system and so subverting burgeoning collector trends is easy peasy. In fact, the front cover of Kennedy (1982) pokes fun at some conventions of collecting and capture the general attitudes of the underground comix hoarder.

I guess I am trying to sort of establish what I feel is a little bit of a perfect storm as to why underground comix can be difficult to find in slabs. The average hippy read and destroyed the first printings, the average comic collector / dealer knows nothing of the various print runs, and the average underground collector cares not for slabs.

So here we are:

CGC is still the industry leader.

CGC books generally fetch a premium in the marketplace, and can fetch multiples of guide in certain grades.

CGC has the good message boards, census, and competitive sets (registry)

Yet, CGC’s new case was flawed by design and untenable to a vocal minority of collectors.

And NOW... CGC has serious competition.

For me personally? I am in a holding pattern.

As I shared with a fellow collector offline- Part of what keeps me holding is that ‘putting together the best set of Freak Brothers I can afford’ is still an active goal of mine. If I am honest, in the past 3 years or so this goal was conflated somewhat by the CGC Registry and the thought that perhaps I could put together THE best CGC set. I had to rethink and concede this goal when I sold my Freak Brothers #1 1st in 9.2.

Part of what keeps me in a holding pattern too is that there is still not a clear, established market for third party certified undergrounds. A relatively small sample of sales means that even GPAnalysis data is not always as useful a tool as it should be.

In the short-term, I am going to wait this whole slabbed thing out. I am still skeptical and much still need be proven to me before I vote with my dollar. In the near-term, I will also be trying to ‘buy the false bottom’. If collectors shun wavy-gravy books in the new slab and prices drop dramatically, then there could be good buying opportunities short term. Not perhaps at the upper end- 9.4+ where the waves may impact the grade, but for lower grades where case damage is still consistent with the grade of the book.

In the long-term, this too will pass.

Happy collecting, Om

10 Variants for $25 Shipped via Hastings (10FOR25)

The entire months of JUN-JUL just feels like a whirlwind after our bit of travel for family and (loosely) for work. FRI was rest and recovery from our Summerfest debauchery THURS night. SAT morning I met an old friend (now in Chicago) for about 30min before the Brewers v Cardinals game. I intended to ride to Miller Park to meet him, but punctured my tire at the start and turned back to fix it. By then I had just enough time to hop in the car and pay $15 to park for what amounted to a 30min visit (before sweet talking my wee hatchback through the tailgaters home). Sigh. The lady, sensing my lament, was super sweet to accompany me on a 17 mile ride that ended with a 1L of Spaten lager in the Hubbard Park beer garden in lovely cool weather. SUN the cool weather continued and so we went for a long walk along the Milwaukee River before a slow crawl up Brady Street to a local bar’s Euro 2016 final block party. It was OK, and we stayed until it was busy game time before retreating home for the match.

I have been really late in retrieving my weekly pulls and as such have not dabbled too much in spec books. And of course I have been avoiding variants, sans the occasional B&W Spawn cover. So when I read about the Hastings 10 variant comic books for $25 shipped sale, I was a little curious to see if I could find 10 books that I was interested from the selection of sale books (promo code 10FOR25). I scoured the list twice SUN for the following:

BLACK SCIENCE NO.2 CVR B RODRIGUEZ & WHITE INCV (MR) 2 $14.99 $5.00

BEN 10 No.1 1/10 INCV 1 $6.99 $2.50

Darth Vader #5 Larroca Variant 1 $14.99 $2.50

ADVENTURE TIME ANNUAL No.1 PHOENIX COMICON EXCL 1 $9.99 $2.50

Secret Wars #1 Chris 2078 1 $6.99 $2.50

X-MEN LEGACY #1 ANDREWS VAR NOW 1 $15.99 $2.50

Secret Wars #2 (Of 8) Christop 1 $5.99 $2.50

24 No.1 1/10 COPY PHOTO INCV 1 $6.99 $2.50

Fashion Beast #1 Variant Cvr (Mr) 1 $6.99 $2.50

Merchandise: $25.00

Shipping/Handling: FREE

Total: $25.00

I generally picked #1 issues or books that I would not mind having in my modern spec box if for some reason I cannot flip them at a local show. I did not select based on price or on popularity. The two Secret Wars books are action figure covers, the X-Men Legacy is a reader series that I picked from 50c boxes, the Ben 10 I may gift my nephew & the Black Science #2 is for me to sock away along with my copy of #1 (or perhaps bundle and flip). Who knows what I will do with the rest!? Perhaps read or flip or file away. I figure if I can flip 5 for $5 each at the next show, I have 5 for free. We’ll see.

The Lady Speaks. . . Pokémon Go!

I am not playing this game. I will most likely never play this game. For one, I am a bit paranoid about my phone’s battery life and really don’t want any app that will drain it. Secondly, I have no interest in the game beyond pop culture observation.

OK, that said… I hope the hype dies down by September or I’m going to have a lot of pissed off 18-23 year olds when they lose attendance points due to the game. (So far only Skyrim has had such a negative impact on my students. It came out right at finals of Fall Quarter 2011 and I failed many a student for not showing up. Not even Fallout 4 was as detrimental.)

The game was released on July 6, 2016. Currently it is only available in the US, Australia, and New Zealand. Plans for release in Europe and Asia have been recently postponed, according to Independent.co.uk. This is confirmed by androidcentral.com. The reason for the delay? Server issues.

From the get-go Pokémon Go has been plagued by server issues. Many players haven’t been able to log on and when they finally can get onto the game, they are met with server failure messages. Some can play for only small stretches of time. The game directs people to places where there are supposed to be Pokémon only to find out that exhausted servers can’t actually populate the monsters. This is chronicled in articles on kotaku.com, forbes.com, and polygon.com.

What’s truly funny is that while Nintendo is reaping the benefits of the game in terms of rising stock prices, the company that actually built the game is only getting grief for the bugs. Niantic developed a game called Ingress that was released in December of 2013. If you play Pokémon Go and look at Ingress, you’ll notice they’re exactly the same game except Nintendo has allowed Niantic to use its very popular Pokémon monsters. In other words, Nintendo didn’t do a damn thing to develop this game. They paid Niantic to do it and now Nintendo gets all the accolades and Niantic gets ire of players. You can read more about the partnership at arstechnica.com, businessinsider.com, and nintendolife.com.

Pokémon Go features a combination of a game and real world interaction and is known as "augmented reality" (AR)

I have a hard time feeling a warm glow for Nintendo’s success. In 2014, the company posted its first loss in over 30 years. It’s not a company that is suffering, it’s a company that hasn’t done anything new since the Wii and that was not as wildly successful as they hoped. Since then, they haven’t innovated a great deal. Even this phone game is the result of someone else’s work. Apple (a company I despise) is also profiting mightily from this game. Despite the game being free, Pokémon Go is the most profitable app for both Android and iOS. Long story short, a lot of people are spending small amounts of money on the in-game purchases.

People are extolling the positives of this game as though it will save mankind from itself. Att.com has declared that “Pokémon Go is Helping Players’ Mental Health.” Similar sentiments have been echoed at themarysue.com and Nintendolife.com. Sites like Destructoid and Reddit are posting about how Pokémon Go is leading to increased socializing and curbing social anxiety. Yahoo.com, ign.com, and even usatoday.com are all praising the game for getting people to exercise. Remember, this is a game that was released 5 days ago. Can we really declare it the curer of mental illness, social anxiety, and obesity in a mere 5 days!?

No. Because people have already figured out that driving to get Pokémon is a lot less work, if slightly more dangerous. Jalopnik.com, nypost.com, and others are highlighting the dangers Pokémon Go poses while driving. It makes sense. You can’t text and drive, why the heck would you play a game and drive? And yet people are doing it. It’s become such a real problem that police are releasing PSAs. The Tennessee Highway Safety Office, Sarasota Police Department, and even Australia’s Northern Territory Police, Fire, and Emergency Services are all recent examples of authorities issuing warnings to the general public. Speaking of cops, they’ve had their hands full, too. As many of you probably know now a young woman in Wyoming was led by Pokémon Go to a river where she found a dead body. Granted, the body is merely coincidental, but still, she hopped two fences to get to the river which makes you wonder how responsible a game is that encourages trespassing.

Additionally in the St. Louis area, a group of 4 young men were using Pokémon Go to find victims to rob at gunpoint. TMZ.com just posted about how people are encouraged to use the “buddy system” when playing Pokémon Go because the risk of getting robbed or beat up is that real. Not to mention all the standard dangers of walking with your nose in your phone and not paying attention to your surroundings. Police have been called to check out “suspicious persons” because it unnerves people to seen unfamiliar faces staring at the front of their house with a phone in their hand. Or, slowly trolling parks where children are playing. In general, people don’ t like other people who look like creepers and sorry, but slowly casing a neighborhood with phone in hand puts you in the creeper category.

Additionally, people are zombie-walking into traffic, crowds, buildings, light posts, and in some cases sustaining injuries. Nypost.com, washingtonpost.com, today.com and others are running articles detailing the injuries of players. Most injuries are the garden variety skinned knees and hands, bumps on heads from walking into walls, and twisted ankles. Mommy bloggers are already galvanizing against this new threat to their offspring. It’s not just that players aren’t paying attention, however.

Pokémon Go, like Ingress before it, situates gyms and pokestores in landmarked places like monuments, churches, graveyards. . . uh, and strip clubs. Gizmodo.com ran an article chronicling the many, many, many strip clubs that serve as Pokemon Go gyms and stops. Not just strip clubs but also gun shops, liquor stores, and adult toy shops. This leads me to believe that the game isn’t meant for children. I know that I haven’t seen anyone under the age of 25 playing the game. So if it’s meant for adults then it makes sense that strip clubs would be prominent.

The map can lead people to dodgy parts of town, construction sites, abandoned buildings, and in the case one poor sap, his house. Boon Sheridan in Massachusetts purchased an old church and converted into his home. Unfortunately, the Ingress maps haven’t been updated since before 2015 so the map treats his home as a church and has declared it a Pokémon gym (in Ingress it was a small base) and he’s experienced an increase in foot traffic.

I admit I’m a cynic and a curmudgeon. The hyperbole being heaped on this game by the 24-hour news media is driving me up a wall. It’s. A. Game. Some are going to go outside and experience new things. Others are going to pay their way to leveling up. More are going to hack the game. In all reality, this game will fade into the background the way Ingress did. Until then, it’s going to be an annoying part of life as everything from grocery shopping to simply taking a stroll becomes a gauntlet of zombie-walking Pokémon Go players.

I will continue to laugh at the plethora of whacked-out news stories centered on this game. I will feel no sympathy for the poor schmucks who are spending money on upgrading their Pokémon because they have jobs that keep them from wandering the streets. I will laugh and internally mock every Pokémon Go player I see walk into a walk or put their life in danger to get a digital monster (not to be confused with Digimon, Pokémon’s competitor). I will roll my eyes at every conversation I hear centered on the drama, tension, and super high stakes of catching Pokémon. Gleefully, I will absorb stories of betrayal and back stabbing.

And I will laugh and laugh and laugh.

Nice write-up!

I theoretically want an Assassin's Creed augmented reality game, or something based on the "Assassin" game that is/was played on college campuses. Unfortunately, that's probably not a great idea even if it sounds like the coolest thing ever. With the current social climate, the last thing we need is a bunch of people running around all sneaky-like and pretending to assassinate virtual targets (or even cooler/scarier, other players).

I created an account just to respond to this. I also would love an AC-based AR game, but I can't see it ever actually happening. Jane McGonigal in her book Reality is Broken does discuss a phone game that is close to a non-violent AC game, but the name of the game eludes me at the moment (and of course, my copy of the book is in my office on campus). When I come up with the game's name, I'll post it here. I know it's not Ingress.

The only one of these documentaries I have seen was Team Foxcatcher, which I found interesting. I was looking for more information on Kurt Angle's dealings with Foxcatcher, but there wasn't much, if anything from what I recall. I definitely need to see Sex in Comix, and I would also like to hear why you feel the Crumbs have rewritten underground history.

 

OM, sent a PM since I won't have internet access while in Wisconsin. Just mentioning it as I saw the PM was listed as "unread".

I noticed in Zap #16 Crumb and Kominsky take some pretty pointed shots at Trina Robbins on two fronts. The first was Crumb being called a misogynist and the second was more subtle but seemed to argue that Kominsky was more important to feminist undergrounds than Robbins. I don't agree with this, at all.

They continued this tone of Kominsky being on the same level as Crumb throughout the documentary Sex in Comix. No one is denying Crumb's importance, but it appears they're trying to place Kominsky in a role that she simply doesn't deserve. She seems more rabid about it than he does, but he's definitely using his position within the community to elevate her.

I just can't put Kominsky on the same page as Trina, Lee Mars, Roberta Gregory, Sharon Rudahl, Mary Fleener, and Diane Noomin.

I created an account just to respond to this. I also would love an AC-based AR game, but I can't see it ever actually happening. Jane McGonigal in her book Reality is Broken does discuss a phone game that is close to a non-violent AC game, but the name of the game eludes me at the moment (and of course, my copy of the book is in my office on campus). When I come up with the game's name, I'll post it here. I know it's not Ingress.

Glad I piqued your interest! Please do post the name of the game when you come across it. I'd love to read up on it.

Wednesday One (for each) for 7/13/16- One book each

Audio: http://www.npr.org/2016/07/13/485723740/diversity-drives-the-story-in-the-latest-incarnation-of-superman

For the lady… Jet City’s Mayhem & Magic (Fine / DeCampi; not pictured)

Pour moi… Rebirth New Super-Man #1 (2nd Kenan Kong; cameo Batman & Wonder-Woman of China)

So, now that I am entering my 3rd month with the ability to scour Previews for more obscure titles and the lady picked up this book to try. Since last week was pretty big pull for me, this was the only book waiting at the LCS. However, I had read the following article from CBSI on New Super-Man and so I was mildly curious to see if it was in stock and available at my small LCS. And I didn’t get down there until late right before close, so I grew curiouser and curiouser still.

There were several copies and the wee LCS had ordered well, which indicates to me that this book is (like predicted here on these boards) over 100k copies. Still, I picked up one of each cover on spec and as a makeweight so I could use my debit card (minimum $10). My spec is that this is potential intellectual property for billions of Asias… and even if it sells well and flops, it may come around in a big way within 15 years.

ANYways… there was also a good article over at CBSI about the fatigue that is starting to set in with some collectors and the debate over what constitutes a first appearance vs cameo. I get it. In my first foray into comics… the heady Valiant and Image days. I was not well versed in this and punch-drunk on a 3-longbox investment for $300 I had nickel and dimed my way to (including 100 Spawn #1s).

I did not collect or know about Silver Age books, or seek out first appearances of well-known characters. So the first time I held a Hulk #180 in my hand (Burnham Bowl c. 2010)… I was blown away to see Wolverine named, in darn-near FULL SPLASH at the end of the book! WTF! And so it begins.

It seems to me the definition is…

1. The character/person/entity/creature (herein character) must be seen in full or nearly full. No smiles, hands, etc. The character should be pictured.

2. The character should be named (or named in the past).

3. The character should be part of the story, i.e. no last page cliffhanger. #IH180

Just like in soccer… either you are playing the ball, or you are playing the man. Play the man, and it’s a foul. If all three of the above criteria are not present then it is a cameo. These three criteria would eliminate probably 95% of the debate (and to be fair this likely represents the current status quo).

Now, there was always be the odd <5%… the debate about #3, what constitutes story, or the character that drives plot and is shown but is unnamed. This is o-kay.

That said… this is the 2nd appearance Kenan Kong and cameo Batman & Wonder-Woman of China. Long live the comic boom!

Up Next- Warm weather and an update on the ASM1 fund

Hastings 10 variant comic books for $25 shipped sale, I was a little curious to see if I could find 10 books that I was interested from the selection of sale books (promo code 10FOR25).

Update- this order of 10 books w/ free shipping appears to have been split into 4 different shipments. Interesting.

I created an account

I created an account just to respond to this. I also would love an AC-based AR game, but I can't see it ever actually happening. Jane McGonigal in her book Reality is Broken does discuss a phone game that is close to a non-violent AC game, but the name of the game eludes me at the moment (and of course, my copy of the book is in my office on campus). When I come up with the game's name, I'll post it here. I know it's not Ingress.

 

Glad I piqued your interest! Please do post the name of the game when you come across it. I'd love to read up on it.

Okay, the game is called Comfort of Strangers. http://comeoutandplay.org/2008_comfortofstrangers.php I don't know if it still is ongoing or if it's been replaced by something else. But it seems it could easily be adapted to a Assassins vs Templars type of game.

 

I noticed in Zap #16 Crumb and Kominsky take some pretty pointed shots at Trina Robbins on two fronts. The first was Crumb being called a misogynist and the second was more subtle but seemed to argue that Kominsky was more important to feminist undergrounds than Robbins. I don't agree with this, at all.

 

They continued this tone of Kominsky being on the same level as Crumb throughout the documentary Sex in Comix. No one is denying Crumb's importance, but it appears they're trying to place Kominsky in a role that she simply doesn't deserve. She seems more rabid about it than he does, but he's definitely using his position within the community to elevate her.

 

I just can't put Kominsky on the same page as Trina, Lee Mars, Roberta Gregory, Sharon Rudahl, Mary Fleener, and Diane Noomin.

Agree 100%. Even though I personally dislike her (just based on interviews I have seen), I don't think there should be much dispute that Trina Robbins is the most important female figure in underground comix. I don't find much enjoyable about Kominsky's work and feel that she has mainly ruined many of Crumb's recent works because everything has to be a Kominsky/Crumb team-up.

As far as Crumb being a misogynist, I guess one could see that in his work, Ms. Robbins is basing her opinion on things in Crumb's work (as seen in the interviews she did for the Crumb movie). I personally don't feel Crumb hates women. To me, Crumb is expressing the inner "pervert" present in a great deal of men. When I think of Crumb, I think of a guy who was basically an introverted nerd, who lusted after women and didn't have the opportunity to act on his urges, because the women he most wanted were not interested in him. He released some of his fantasies through his art and found that it appealed to the larger public, bringing him fame, wealth and finally, the opportunity to attain some of the ladies he had fantasized about. Probably any hatred he may have towards women (if there is any), may be based on the fact that most of the women Crumb desired had no interest in him until he became famous.

I have admittedly mixed feelings about Crumb. I don't think he's misogynistic simply because in real life he's never acted on any of his violent fantasies. However, as a woman, I find a lot of what he draws/writes unnerving. Same goes for Spain and any number of other UG artists, however.

Kominsky mostly bothers me because I simply do not like her artistic style and I feel her stories are gratuitous compared to the honesty most other feminist UG artists/writers portrayed. I can't help but feel she's piggy backing on the superior talent of Crumb and now trying to twist it to her advantage. I say this as a woman and a feminist. She's simply not my favorite.

When I bought the Wimmen's Comix box set, I immediately could see that she simply lacked the talent of many of the other women. I understand how that may have left her bitter.

Okay, the game is called Comfort of Strangers. http://comeoutandplay.org/2008_comfortofstrangers.php I don't know if it still is ongoing or if it's been replaced by something else. But it seems it could easily be adapted to a Assassins vs Templars type of game.

Thanks!

FRI - SUN was a disc golf weekend with 3 friends, all fellow discers

7 courses

113 holes

And 2 breweries- Three Floyd’s & Bell’s – through the heart of Michigan

Not a single round started before noon (slackers), so we played until dark (10EST) and then usually had to scrounge for a sports bar for pub grub.

FRI – 3 Floyd’s >> Lake Township Park (18) >> Oshtemo Township (10+) >> AirBnB near Michigan St campus

SAT – Grand Woods Park (21) >> Fitzgerald Park ($5; 18) >> Great Lakes Christian College (9) >> Frank’s Press Box

SUN – Robert Morris Park ($5; 18) >> Vicksburg Recreation Area (18) >> Bell’s Eclectic Café

Gonna sleep for a week

[Written TUES AM] The last two nights have been cool and nice, which has helped my recovery from all that disc golf. Oddly enough my arm and shoulder were not the problems. Getting out of bed the last two mornings have revealed just how much leg work hiking 7 disc gold courses can be. My arm actually feels much stronger as a result of all the disc golf (and becoming jokingly larger than my non-throwing arm, much like a baseball pitcher).

I started playing disc golf in college c. 1997 at two courses near Missoula, MT- Blue Mountain and Rattlesnake Canyon. Back then we used to play with one disc and flip our putts with that same disc. Once I discovered disc golf, I stopped playing straight golf. I traded my clubs away and forever was a disc golf convert. $8 for a disc and one could play for free. I played throughout my college years, and recruited friends to play beginning in Louisiana. Louisiana had a really good scene of local tournaments that were PDGA approved, and so I played as an amateur there (twice placing 2nd).

Milwaukee has strong courses… when I first moved here in 2008, I played Brown Deer (18). It along with Dretzka Park (27) helped host the world championships in the early oughts. There was also Dineen Park (18; more open park course) for the winter. Soon, the county built courses Estabrook Park and Root River Parkway and then monetized it to $5 per day or $40/year the last two years.

So ANYways… today [TUES] is cooler, which is nice… cool down the apt before the next heat wave. I usually wake up at 4am to strategically position the window fans to cool down our space. Then seal up the house and blinds through the worst of it. Rinse and repeat. Exercise is pretty easy during heat waves, early, because a nice cold shower and a window fan helps right away. But once cooled, I do very little around the house during the heat of the day. It helps to have an A/C cooled office, but I lose that buffer at the end of the month. And of course, if it gets unbearable… there is always the lake. Currently, the lake temperature is a brisk 55 degrees.

This morning I look forward to sipping an iced coffee, scanning some comic books [didn't do it], and catching up in my online science course.

Vote with your dollar

Soundtrack:

New comic WED and the start of a new heat wave. Today touched over 90 degrees. I’m not sure if I have written about it before, but we do not have air conditioning. We live in a 2-bedroom on the bluff of Lake Michigan, with windows on three sides of our condo. And since we moved here from Louisiana, the first two summers swept by without issue. Since 2010 or so, however, we have begun to acclimate to the more northern clime; our blood thickening. Normally, we can take advantage of our proximal position to the lake and ability to capture the prevailing breeze. But when temperatures reach into the high 80s, we simply seal the place up and trap the cooler air in. Until night, and then cool the place off as much as possible. Keeping to this pattern, I am fond of saying that “there are really only about 8 nights a year when I wish I had A/C.”

So, for the next three days that may well mean simply sealing the place up, period. It is not worth it to cool the place down if the nighttime temperatures are in the 80s. At ANY rate, we choose not to have air conditioning, just like we choose not to do a great many things. Most of the people in our building have 1-2 window units, and I get it; just understand that we choose to live without. We vote with our dollar, just like anyone else. Once, our toaster died. Rather than buy a new one, we made our toast in the oven for a year. While bragging about this to my 100-year old grandmother, she turned to me and said “Justin. Go and buy a new toaster. They cost $15.”

So... stubborn to a fault.

I cannot precisely explain it (I know the 2005 hurricane season was formative), but I suppose feel compelled to write about it anyway, in part because of an interaction between myself and my sisters over 4th of July. The plaster ceiling in our great room is slowly cracking and will eventually collapse. This is a known issue in the building, as the nails used in construction were slightly too short. It is also a known issue in our space, as the repairs done by previous owners have slowly began to fail. I know what I must do, and I have saved the money to address the issue (separate even from my ASM fund)… but I am paralyzed to act. Sound familiar? Lost in collecting ceiling repairs?

I write this because I know the lack of air conditioning accentuates the problem. And so I think about it a little more in the heat of summer. And the younger sister asks me about it constantly. Mostly, it does not bother me. However, she cornered me in front of my mom and oldest sister and proceeded to drill me about the ceiling. I get it; it would bother her. She would open a new credit card to pay for it and it would be fixed; appearances kept up. However, I am not like her. I just grin and bear it and say simply “you are right; I have no excuse… I have the money and the time.” Which no doubt made her want to pursue me all the more. [You should see how worked up she gets when I tell her how I have not let the property assessor into our condo since we bought it in 2009. She “but your property keeps getting assessed down.” Me “yeah and I pay less in property taxes.” She “but aren’t you worried that when you go to sell, you won’t get as much?” Me “what do I care what it is assessed at while I am living here? ‘Sides the bank will magically assess it at whatever the purchase price.”]

However, we are simply different in this regard. In lieu of a logic of domination, similarities and differences are just that. And we all vote with our dollar.

PS >> I sold the following books the past month to a high grade collector and boardie. He has made no bones about putting together the best set of CGC Freak Brothers he can, and that search led him to this journal and my registry.

CGC 9.2 Freak Brothers #1 (top 10 copy; $1000)

CGC 9.6 Freak Bros #7 (tied highest; $150)

CGC 9.8 Freak Bros #9 (single highest; $250)

It is tough to let my uber high grade Freaks go, but I still have a few undercopy slabs (Sucha News) and a few raw copies. Still it is tough to willingly give up these books, as this was an active goal of mine. However, it is healthy. And I have not regretted it (indeed it has lent a little extra peace of mind RE ceiling).

PPS >> The sales officially bring my Amazing Spiderman #1 savings up to $3300; enough to start day-dreaming about actual copies.