I have a ton of deadlines to deal with, really no time for anything but drawing, IF I'm wise...SO...I decided to take an afternoon and look through my comic books and see what I have to send off for grading.
If you don't collect comics you might not have heard of "grading". This is where you take some comic you own that has some $ value for one reason or another and send it to a grading company, they inspect it decide what the "official" condition of it is, then seal it up with that grade listed/what it is/and why it has that grade.
" grade 0.5- some dumb kid spilled kool-aid all over it" ...that's not exactly how they'd say it.
Those two books up there are not mine and were graded by https://www.cbcscomics.com/ I happen to know one of the guys over there and they seem like good people.
The "official" grade is of course is always arguable, and subjective to a degree. But for the average buyer or seller it tells you at least a professional assessment and that it is not counterfeit, all the pages are there, and if some kid colored all over page 13, you know it without having to flip through the entire thing in the middle of a comicon or worry that it wasn't mentioned in the ebay listing.
I have a few key issues, that I ended up with somehow.
This here I recently acquired, or actually got as partial payment on a commission ( I never do this so don't ask, this was a rare instance of me mentioning I was looking for it and what I was looking to spend while talking to the guy who wanted the commission)
THAT is the first appearance of Spider-Woman. Who for reasons I don't understand, has not yet appeared in the MCU...YET. She will, they have found a director for a Spider-Woman movie and after hearing that, I knew it was now or never for getting this issue for anything under 500.00. SW, though not in the MCU is very pivotal and important in the comics. VERY important. The MCU movie "Civil War"...that was a story line where she was a main character and element. There is a storyline called "Secret Invasion" which MCU has announced they will be adapting and she was THE center focus of that whole story. So...getting this was a no brainier as far as an investment. I don't know if it's any good, don't gaf about Spider-Woman.
I do care very much about THIS character though...the REAL Captain Marvel
The Captain Marvel that MCU made a movie out of is actually called Ms. Marvel in the comics and she was boring AF. This is Monica Rambue who first appeared in that issue above, got her powers and became Captain Marvel. She joined the Avengers, eventually led the Avengers...at some point she changed her name to Proton ( I don't know why, I had stopped paying attention by then). AND recently in the MCU show "WandaVision" Monica Rambue appeared and got some powers, and we have every reason to believe she's going to show up again, maybe get her own show or movie.
So that's a nice book to have ready to sell off, hehe. I got this though as a kid because I liked her character, she had a cool costume and it was a really good story. Hell, it had Spider-Man, the Thing and the Avengers all in one book and that didn't happen often back then. She was/is one of my favorite Avengers. But five year old me is just going to have to hang onto the memories because I ain't gonna walk away from a chance to take a book I paid 1.00 for and flip it for several hundred dollars. I have grown up hobbies now...like filling up my gas tank.
I don't remember how or when I even got this one from 1963...
Great story, great villains... first appearance of a really lame character. Just the name tells you he sucks. And what is he wearing exactly? Is that a girdle? I doubt we'll every see this guy in the MCU but this book is old and rare and worth a little bit, and since I don't care about it, I might as well get it graded and safely out of my hands before I spill coffee on it. As you can see it's already in rough shape.
But not as rough as THIS ONE...
Believe it or not I have seen people grade single pages or just cover or even parts of covers, of books that are extremely old and rare and important. The first appearance of Superman for example. Why...I don't know, but people do and other people buy them. I guess it depends on what degree of a lunatic you are.
That issue isn't worth grading, it's rare but not that rare. It is a piece of history though. That cover is arguably the greatest sci-fi cover of all time and inspired stories and movies and writers and themes, just from that single image been seen by young childhood imaginations of people who would grow up to work in the industry. And it was illustrated by Wally Wood, on of the greatest illustrators who every lived. I was also part of the EC comics publishing line that eventually got hauled into Congress to fight against censorship...mostly because their line of horror comics were causing parents to lose their minds and demand laws.
A-holes who want to censor what they don't like live in every generation. All that changes is what they don't like.
Here's one that I got and kept JUST because I liked it.
The series Marvel Team-Up was basically...worthless and lazy overall. It never tied into the rest of the MCU comics cannon. They'd just take Spider-man and cook up some half assed story where he teams up with some other character and the story was done in one issue and never mentioned in any other book, it never affected any other book, it was as though it didn't happen. The thinking, I am sure, was "Just throw Spidey on the cover with some other hero...it'll sell". Once in awhile they'd use it to try to push some B list character, or introduce some new super hero and see if the kids wanted to see more of him or her.
A very cynical way of publishing, but in the end you are just trying to move units and turn a profit.
For a bit of the run of the series they had pretty good art done by Ron Garney. His style appealed to me and he was a very good visual story teller. His page layouts were interesting, he was great at convening movement and action, and this story was actually pretty fun. Some goofball finds his Dad's old costume/tech from when he was a supervillain, and decides to rework it and become a crime fighter "Frog Man". Obviously the kid's an idiot and Spidey spends the story trying to talk him out of this and keep him from getting killed. Here's a few random pages...
It's fun and it's funny. That's why I liked it... as it turns out...this is a Key Issue, the first appearance of THE WHITE RABBIT!
....I'll be completely honest with you, I had no idea she ever appeared again after this issue in 1983. I assumed she was just another one off, throw away villain like they lazily barfed out nigh every issue of the series because the hero needs someone to fight, and all the good villains are usually involved in some long story-line in some better book. She, dressed like a Rabbit, had an umbrella gun that shot metal carrots, and was rich enough to hire a criminal gang. Just...just pure schlock. She was probably was thought up by the writer while walking to the editors office after he asked to get in there and show him this months villian.
I had never seen her again...I looking through Ebay for something else I noticed this book was being solf for 40-50 USD. My first thought was..wut? LOL why? XD
As it turns out, for some reason NINE years after her first appearance they remembered she existed and started using her all over the place. She keep getting used and put into stories, and used and put into stories. She's appeared with Deadpool, Wolverine...I did a quick search and she's been in like 100 comic books...and ended up involved in a whole bunch of storylines. WTF?! This character appeared ONCE in 1983, and then was completely forgotten until 1992, and somehow rose to the level that she even got an action figure
Weird. Maybe Marvel wanted something that could mirror DC's Harely Quinn? Who knows. But...this is actually worth a few bucks. Not as much as those others...40.00 or so, still a nice return on the .60 I paid for it (...actually, I may have shop lifted this one just out of childhood spite, because even back then I knew this series was just phoning it in). and hell, the charmed existence this character seems to have I wouldn't be surprised if she shows up in a Spider-Man movie
I'm gonna keep that issue though. I like it.
One last on that I picked up because it was dirt cheap and it's the first appearance of a villain I suspect we just might see in an MCU movie "Psycho Man" (he's the guy in the green). Weird looking and with a goofy name is the kind of character they've been drudging up, especially in Guardian of the Galaxy. AND this fellow rules the Micro-verse, which is where Ant-Man keeps going in his movies...could be he shows up.
That's all for now...I've avoided drawing for about as long as I can today. Time for me to actually contribute to the comic book industry again. ...sigh.
OH WAIT! I almost forgot my most important recent acquisition. Which I had to buy on ebay because I never saved any for myself.
The first appearance of Voodoo Joe and of a cartoon fetus. I was a bit torn on the price, on one hand I don't want to spend money on my own f-ing book, on the other hand it's nice to know the market value is respectable. In any case, the jokes on the seller, he doesn't know what I know.
As always, homebase is here
https://www.arseniclullabies.com
NFT work here-
https://nftshowroom.com/arseniclullaby/gallery
https://makersplace.com/arseniclullaby/
Here are the other places to find me...my use of them is fluid, inconstant, susceptible to the whims and shifts of the paradigm
Torum-https://www.torum.com/u/arseniclullaby
Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/arsenic_lullaby_official/
twitter- https://twitter.com/arsenic_lullaby
bitchute- https://www.bitchute.com/channel/arsenic_lullaby/
youtube- https://www.youtube.com/user/arseniclullabycomics
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It always amazes me that something someone originally bought for a few cents can be worth so much now, but most copies were thrown away as comics were considered disposable. All mine were for sure. I do have the annuals for various British comics though. Some of those may be worth a small amount. I've seen @blewitt post about basically ironing comics to raise their value a little, but your torn up one may be beyond that. It's a little sad that the old comics won't be read as that could reduce their value. Are digital versions available of them?
Cheers for the insight into this bit of history.
yeah, I've seen some stuff along those lines, ironing, pressing, removing stains or tape residue. apparently there are businesses that do "restorations", whatever that means. That cover I have is far too gone for any of that, and not worth all that much even in real good shape. not at the moment, but prices/collectors do seem to have cycles. Obviously MCU stuff is in high demand now, could be things circle back around to golden age books being a hot item...who knows.