Marvel Paperbacks I Have Loved

These days it may be hard to believe there was ever a time when comic stores didn't exist, and there wasn't a place to walk into to find hot and cold running reprint editions, repackagings of every kind for the various types of comic book fan.

No, for people wanting to read the early issues of Marvel characters we had limited options. Among them were these paperback editions, which I own a few of. I remember borrowing some from friends as a kid. There was always a sense of awe while reading them as if I was finally getting to explore the early, primordial times of characters I'd come to know well from comics of the late seventies and early eighties. It was a feeling akin to learning the most cosmic secrets of the universe.

However, at the time I did not own any, and I'm not sure where they were sold, whether they were available at book stores or if they were sold in 7 Eleven next to the regular comics, though if they were I don't remember.

The ones that I own now I bought at conventions in the years since, some in the nineties, or more recently.

In the case of this Captain America one,




...I've actually bought it twice. I bought it once in the nineties and then it disappeared, I believe a roommate might have absconded with it. But I came upon it again at a mini-convention in May for a few bucks, and was overjoyed. Well, maybe not overjoyed, but joyed. It starts off a reprint of Avengers #4 and the epic return of Cap after years of being a human popsicle worshipped by Eskimoes. Then it goes into some early sixties solo adventures from various sources, one tale of a rescue in Vietnam before going into some freshly created WWII era stories, I mean freshly created in the sixties. I wonder how many other Vietnam rescue stories of Cap there were? Lee and Kirby maybe had trouble fitting in the ultimate patriot character with the morally ambiguous times, but that was what I imagine made him right for Marvel at that time, the fact that he was a man out of his era trying to fit in. Anyway, it's been great to have this book for boning up in anticipation of the film.

This Hulk one is a nice thing to have,

...because, as it says, it contains Hulk's first six issues from his earliest series. I believe in the first issue he has been recoloured green from gray, I suppose for the sake of consistency. But of course in these earlier appearances Hulk's personality is much more like what would eventually be the "Gray Hulk", he's shrewd, aggressive, and swaggering, not the more well known "Hulk Smash" style. I enjoy both depictions but anyway these first six issues are a great read, even teeny tiny as they are. This is the same material that is contained in the first volume of Hulk's Masterworks series.

And speaking of which, I now own the first Marvel Masterworks volume for Fantastic Four, but still hold onto this -

...because it was the first format in which I read the first six issues of the World's Greatest Comic Magazine.

I also have fond memories of these -

...which were many early adventures of the good doctor from Strange Tales. I recall the bizarre Ditko multi-dimenstional imagery blowing my young mind when a friend lent me his copy in grade six. It was a definitely a case of me feeling like I was actually being shown what goes on behind the thin veneer of what we mortals call reality. I've never read these stories in any other form, to read them any other way would just feel...strange.

Wait, now that I think of it that's actually not true, I have a Marvel Treasury with some of those in it, in fact it uses the same cover. I imagine the two books were published in conjunction. So some of the stories I have read tiny, and supersized. No middle ground.

For stories from other books that I did eventually read in other formats, it actually was a bit odd to suddenly see them so large, or regular sized. It was a bit like taking a movie you're used to watching on TV and then suddenly seeing it on a regular sized movie screen.

I believe there were more in this series, I saw a Spider-man one at that mini-con, but since I own his original stories in both Masterworks and Essentials formats, I let it go. It would be tough to go from having read something regular sized to readng it tiny, and I sometimes have to put my completist urges on the backburner in order to have the money to indulge other completist urges. Priorities!

I have some other Marvel paperbacks, pictured below, but these were more general as far as material goes, and used a cut up technique so that almost normal-sized panels are made to fit, usually about two per page. The Daredevil one reprints, in black and white, a couple early stories with art by the great Wally Wood, although I must confess, while the art is great by most standards, I don't feel that he brought his a-game, for whatever reason.

It contains two stories, the first one with the Fellowship of Fear from Daredevil #6, which was also the last story with DD's original yellow and red costume. The second is the first Stiltman story from #8.



This X-Men one is also black and white and is simply the seminal story from Giant Size X-Men #1, which shocked the world with its introduction of the second team of X-Men, one of the most successful revamps in human history; as well as the story "Psi War" from Uncanny X-Men #117.

And lastly, this Hulk one, which also uses the cut-up technique, though it's actually in colour, and features the Jarella story "The Brute that Shouted Love at the Heart of the Atom", from Incredible Hulk #140, and "They Shoot Hulks, Don't They?" from Incredible Hulk #142.

Super Spectacular Regular Sized 100th Post!!!

Here I am at number 100 and it feels pretty darn good. Thanks to my Rogues Gallery of regular followers and to all the very valued drop-ins and drive-bys for giving me a place to yap about that giddiest and ginchiest of all topics, and for all the insightful, thought-provoking, and informative comments. The best people to learn from are those who know more than yourself, so luckily for me, that's practically everybody!

In comic collecting news, I marked the occasion by putting a bid on Justice League of America #100. My League collection is still a bit spotty down at those numbers, but not for long.

Gold Key Fever!

Is it wrong to shop in the 50 cent bin? Should these bins be eschewed by the "serious" collector? Am I a "serious" collector? Nah, I consider myself more a wacky, slapstick collector.

I dunno, sometimes I find stuff there in better condition than stuff I've paid more for online. Anyway, it serves me well when I know I'm sort of impulse shopping, buying something I'm curious about but that I probably won't want to collect all of. What I'm collecting purposefully right now will probably keep me occupied for the next five to ten years. Also, it's just nice occasionally to actually pay less than a dollar for a comic.

So here's a few things I picked up recently for four bits.

I've heard the name Magnus: Robot Fighter bandied about quite a bit. In fact, unless I'm mistaken there's a revival on right now. It turns out that he's a guy who fights robots - in the future. You can't go wrong. What is it with the name Magnus in comics, anyway?

Well, Star Trek is pretty self-explanatory. It's the comics spinoff of one the greatest TV shows known to science. This issue is rather late in the run, the earlier ones have groovy photo collage covers and are now worth quite a bit as Trek collectibles. I remember when these comics were persona non grata to collectors but times change.

And that is just a cool, crazy cover, what can I say? It's a spaceship that looks like a bat and I want one. One of the things that makes Gold Keys amusing is how everything is presented with deadly seriousness, so even Magnus or Trek reads like a Classics Illustrated. I can remember as a youngster the painted covers deterred me, I think they looked too grown-up. Now they look quite funky to me and I will probably have them out in the comic room for their aesthetic appeal.

For those who don't know, there are more fun covers to look at, and words to read, on Gold Key Comics!

The Best Part of Waking Up is Super-Heroes and Super-Gorillas

Wanting something to read during breakfast this morning - I can read comics while eating with little risk of damage to the comic, it's one of my gifts, I grabbed this out of the DC Specials section, perhaps my favouritest section of all.

With my usual banana, toast, and OJ, I enjoyed Superman taking on a Krypton gorilla, The Flash being fooled by Grodd into thinking Grodd had sped up everyone in the city, and Batman and Robin versus a diabolical criminal that wanted to put Batman's brain into a gorilla and pin a series of crimes on him.

I don't advise eating while reading a comic unless you are a trained professional like myself. One of the things to make sure of is that it is about a foot away from where the food is, so the food is between you and the comic, to avoid spillage. Not too far away, or you won't be able to see it. Also, keep a hand clean for page turning. Place the comic on something protective, at least its empty bag and board.

And it happens that my copy of this is unfortunately in about fair/good. Probably don't want to try it with a near mint Detective Comics #27, even with a great set of skills.

I Impulsively Bought Essential Hulk Vol. 6 Yesterday...

I was at the book store and looking at perhaps buying something, maybe Superman: Earth One, which, despite some trepidation about potentially ephemeral revisionist versions of characters ("fresh and exciting" one week, expensive bird cage liner the next), I thought might be important for me to read as a lifelong Superman fan. But suddenly, I saw the Hulk book and realized that's what my mood was. It could be that I've been enjoying reading Herb Trimpe's Hulk, the blog, which has reawakened my senses to the appeal of seventies Hulk. I believe this particular volume is slightly past the more significant part of Trimpe's contribution, although he is a contributor on two of the issues - inked by Joe Staton in one case, which certainly interested me. And of course there are other notable artists. Sal Buscema's style, for instance, I recognize instantly, and something about it just says "seventies Marvel".

This is the first Hulk Essentials Volume I've bought. I have a tendency to read series and characters from whatever point interests me, and then put together the saga in my head, perhaps rereading it in order later. I have some eighties and nineties Hulk, and I've read the original 6 issue Silver Age series in the form of a digest I own (which recoloured the originally grey Hulk green). I of course have a fondness for the Jade Giant from the Bixby/Ferrigno show. As I've mentioned before, from a certain age I've been stronger for DC, but I have a fondness for Marvel at its best. I do love Marvel in the seventies. The first reason might be nostalgia, sure, I was a little kid at the time. But my more analytical side says that it appeals to me because the ideas were still fresh, but were now being worked on by a second generation of creators able to unearth some of the potential hinted at in the original work by Stan and the gang, expand on it, broaden it. I will read and enjoy Silver Age Marvel, but also find it tends to blend after a while with a sameness to the histrionics, almost unavoidable due to the scripting and direction of a single brilliant, strong creative personality, aided and abetted by a small group of brilliant, strong talents. So in my mind DC owns the Silver Age partly because of greater variety - having had the advantage of more creators and editors. Sixties DC covers I find endlessly entertaining, Marvel covers of the time are usually not my style and some I find downright bland. Okay, I have to be honest, I like covers that have dilemmas, captions, and exclamation points. I like covers that make it seem absolutely vital I read the comic to find the important information located therein. For me, Marvel did their best at that in the age of the Osmonds.

But though the companies tend to get compared a lot, I sometimes feel with the early days of Marvel it's like comparing The Honeymooners to The Simpsons. Or Gilligan's Island to Lost. Surface similarities but a whole host of reasons why it's not really apt. And in the seventies, of course, the two houses were exchanging talent so much it seems a bit odd to be totally loyal to one. Who would only watch their favourite actor's movies with one studio?

Okay, but about this volume. This era of Hulk I find I am enjoying a lot, as I thought I would. I tend to like comics that are the adventures of an itinerant character who keeps travelling and running into weird stuff. I love Kamandi for that reason, and this is entertaining in the same way, with the added feature of Hulk's incredible strength coupled with his often confused grasp of situations being a great combination to create problems but also provide a visceral, gratifying solution. When the young man at the store was ringing up my purchase, he said, "Essential Hulk Smash!" Exactly!

My Fantastic Four #110 "Variant"

...and speaking of FF, a while back I went and traded some of my reject comics in to help fill some gaps in collections I'm sticking with. I decided a while back that I was going to start my collection of Fantastic Four where Essentials #5 leaves off, at #110, and fill my collection of originals up to about #400 or so (I collected from the late 200's up as they were coming out). Trouble is, as I was trading I got mixed up and took #110 thinking I had to start there, and the one I took was the one pictured above. Everyone's face looks weird, but I actually thought that was because the witchy woman Agatha Harkness was working some of her magic. Remember the phrase "eldritch glow" that was always in scary comics? That's what I thought was responsible, but after looking on cover browser, I realized the colours of that issue are actually supposed to be natural. Looking into just what it was I had, it is apparently an "initial" print where the colour plates were mixed up, that somehow got released to the unwashed masses. So I'm kinda glad I got mixed up and took this issue, it's neat-looking.

Another FF by-the-by: Did anyone else ever find Franklin Richards scary when his eyes glowed? That just kind of freaked me out as a kid.

"Welcome to Winnipeg, Miss Alba...Oops!"; or,Taking a Staab at Central Canada Comic Con

There are several reasons I love Winnipeg's annual Central Canada Comic Con. One is that it only takes me about ten minutes to drive to our fabulous downtown Convention Center, where it is held. The other is that there are usually a lot of tables selling a lot of back issues for not a lot of dinero. The costume competition is tons of fun to watch, especially since it always happens around Halloween. But maybe the biggest reason is the often quirky array of guests, and this year is no exception. The recently added Rebecca Staab being an example.



I guess it seems like a bit of a strange choice because her most prominent comic book credential is that she starred in a movie that was never officially released, the 1994 version of Fantastic Four. I sincerely think it's actually kind of cool to be able to meet someone from that film, something sort of peripheral to all the main stuff. So often at cons they get guests who were in shows that lasted a while, or movies that at least were released, usually successful. But I mean I never go to one and meet the guy who played Peter Parker in the very short-lived live action Spider-man show. Or what about the guy who played Dr. Strange in the pilot they filmed? What happened to him? Do these guys make convention appearances?

Rebecca is actually a former beauty queen (Miss Nebraska) and has done a considerable amount of work on television shows, even appearing in an episode of Seinfeld, which to me makes it doubly cool to be able to meet her. Seinfeld's one of my fave shows, and since Fantastic Four is my favourite Marvel comic, I plan to go up and shake her hand and get her to sign...something, hopefully an 8X10 of her as Sue Storm, though there has to be some legal hurdle to clear for her to sign pics of a Marvel-owned character...or does there? I dunno, I'm no lawyer. I've been scouring my collection of comic magazines for covers with her but no dice. Maybe just an extra ish of FF with Sue promently on the cover? That could work I guess.

I'm also hoping to finally get my hands on a copy of the film which I've never seen - though I realize it may be available online I hate watching long things on my computer. Some nefarious character is sure to be selling bootlegs at the con. Or maybe she'll be selling them. Ooh, I'm getting excited!


Just so it's clear, we do get an array of the more usual kind of guests. We have Jack O'Halloran - Non from Superman II, yay! - and Ray Park who was Darth Maul, the Toad, and Snake Eyes. Also, um, the guy that played Harry Kim in Star Trek: Voyager. And of course last year I got to meet Julie Newmar, Adam West and Marv Wolfman, which kinda blew my autograph budget, anyway. I'd go broke at some of the bigger cons.

The Fancy Way To Read Classic Superhero Comic Strips

This is from the current catalog of Easton Press Leather Bound Books. My mom is addicted to these and brought it to my attention that they are finally binding something worthwhile. Haha, I joke - I like a lot of the books they put out, which either look like or are made to look like they belong in the library of Dr. Frasier Crane. When it comes to collecting classic books, I generally prefer pulpy old paperpacks with trippy painted covers, but to each his own. I'm pretty happy with trade paperbacks for my classic comic strip needs, but I suppose if you want to read some original Sunday Superman while wearing a smoking jacket, in your comfy easy chair in the study, whilst sipping a Cognac and smoking a fine cigar, the good people at Easton will set you up.

I also included the Universal Monsters book in the scan because it looks quite cool, and shows the Easton people rightly recognize an overlap between comic fans and classic monster lovers. The catalog also advertises a leather bound copy of the book Stan Lee: Excelsior; as well as many bound volumes of classic sci-fi that apparently include reproductions of the pulpy covers, such as the E.E. Smith "Lensman" books that were likely an inspiration for the Green Lantern concept.

An Update on the Collection Room

Well, some progress made since the last time I posted a pic of my collection room. In the mirror you can see my other Showcases - Oh how I love those, so addictive.

My Favourite Thing I've Gotten Online So Far

I have the Crisis on Infinite Earths Batman in the picture for scale, what I'm really talking about today is the Secret Origins DC Mini Comics. These were originally sold in little plastic bags with Leaf Tart and Tangy candies in the mid eighties. I believe I got every one at the time except for the Superman one, which means I had Hawkman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and the Justice League of America. Despite my love of Superman he may have been low on my list of priorities because I was already abundantly familiar with his origin but in the dark about the others, even Batman, as the Batman I grew up with was mostly the Adam West or Super Friends version who didn't like to dwell on the past much. It actually never even occurred to me that he needed a motivation to be Batman, aside from its own innate lure. What kid wouldn't want to be Batman just for its own sake?

So it was from these tiny comics, two panels a page, 16 pages each, that I got my crash course in DC history. Unfortunately, my own copies vanished at some point, so I was left to wander the earth - or my yard at least- alone, forlorn...until I found them up for auction online. Well, it was six of them - in fact the ones I'd previously owned minus Justice League. I was the top and only bidder, so for a buck I took 'em home, which actually amounts to less than I originally paid; though of course they didn't come with any candy this time. Since the older I get, the more I become susceptible to completist fever, I may have to track down the remaining two at some point. But I'm darn happy to have these, and as a collector I find it's all the bargains I get that help justify the occasional insane splurge.

The Collection Room So Far

As a collector I sometimes to like to see where and how other collectors store their stuff, so here goes with my stuff, but this is a work in progress. I intend for this to be sort of a "before" picture, but it might be a while until the "after" happens. I had to move recently and previously did not have one lone room in which to store my stuff, so this is a bit of a novelty for me. I do have about six more boxes that can't be seen, stored elsewhere for the nonce. It's not the hugest collection, but it gets me by.

You can see I'm not finished yet because obviously I don't intend my Super Friends lunch box to be hiding behind a stack of Marvel Essentials forever. Over on the right, on the floor there is stuff I'm planning to get rid of due to it being doubles, or just stuff I'm not much interested in anymore. And that is indeed a Britney Spears Slurpee cup over on the dresser that I use for putting various things in. And you can also see a couple portable drawers full of my cassettes from the eighties. Rock on! Somewhere in there is a tape player.

The most important thing relating to the room might be this object that I whipped up, MacGyver-like.

The door to the room doesn't click shut, allowing the feline delinquent who wanders my premises, searching for cheap thrills, carte blanche to go in and sharpen her claws on various items with impunity. Just as it appears, I made this thing out of three hair elastics and a hook from a picture frame. I'm pretty darn proud of it, I just loop the elastics around the door knob and hook the hook onto the, um, metal thing that the clicky thing should click into ideally. It works quite well! It's strong enough the door doesn't budge if she tries it, so there's no danger to her. Why do so many of us collectors live with kitties, the natural enemies of delicate stuff? Probably because they're not judgemental about our lifestyles, as long as the vittles keep a-pouring.

A Use for Old Cigar Boxes

Yes, my DC Digests, plus a couple Marvels on the right there, fit perfectly into this old Marsh Wheeling cigar box. I've only smoked a couple cigars in my life, but I do feel I'm getting to the age now where I could smoke a cigar and not look too silly, I mean any sillier than anyone smoking in this day and age. I could also wear a trenchcoat now and not look like a putz, so yes, I could be Columbo if I wanted. But I digress. I love those DC Digests from the late seventies and early eighties. There was a time where it was the easiest way to read classic stories from the Silver and even Golden Age. I've got a bunch of "theme" Superman ones (vs. aliens, Kryptonite, Lex Luthor, etc.) Plus Metal Men, Supergirl, and a few others. They made a bunch. I pick 'em up when I see 'em. Some day I may need a bigger cigar box. The one on the far left is an Archie's Mad House, I love the crazy stories they had in those. On the far right are Fantastic Four, with a reprint of the first six issues of their title, and the Hulk, with six issues of his original series, which I really like and from where Peter David derived the "Grey Hulk" for his run, the smarter, nastier version of the Hulk, though in that digest he's coloured green in all issues. I used to have a Captain America digest, but I think some nefarious villain scooped it. I'm sorry about that because I like early Jack Kirby Cap stories from the Silver Age, they had that tragic quality of his being a man out of his time. They also had some of his two fisted Golden Age tales as well, if I recall.

In my other comic news, today I finally completed my run of DC Challenge!, with issue 12 arriving in the mail. I also received a worn copy of Phantom Stranger #1 and Superboy #87 featuring the first appearance of Thought Beasts, those wonderfully impractical Kryptonian monsters. I'm not buying back issues for a while until I finish a stack I'm still working through. I'll probably be sharing some highlights, coming up.

My Fave Splash Page of the Week, and Some Rambling on Tom DeFalco

Obviously not a from a new comic, but it was new to me, Superman Family #188. I could just live in the pic, a Kurt Schaffenberger masterpiece, it's so full of the things that make me happiest. Well, the really nice thing is this was one of a bunch of back issues I got this week at a local store that is nice enough to allow trading, so I brought in a bunch of stuff I was no longer interested in - some things I hadn't read in 20 years and had not really though about in that time - to get things that just appeal more to me now. I got a bunch of Superman Family, Super Friends, as well as the first issue of DC Comics Presents, which is part one of a two part story. The curious thing is, I read the second part years ago, when I was a kid, and loved it, but it is only now that I will be able to read the first part. The copy was going for $16, so I was very glad to get it without paying up front.

This particular issue of Superman Family was interesting to me as I noticed a lot of the content was written by Tom DeFalco, who would later go on to a run of Amazing Spider-man that I personally found to be some of the more fun Spidey I ever read, as well as becoming the Marvel E-I-C, and writing Fantastic Four during what for me was the last great period of the FF - though I freely acknowledge that's just my personal taste. I don't consider myself the bearer of absolute standards for comic awesomeness, I just know what I like and go with that.

I did a bit of reading on DeFalco, on Wikipedia, and found out he originally worked at Archie Comics prior to doing some stuff at DC. Most significantly, he came up with the idea of Archie Digests. Many of us who grew up in the 70's or 80's probably can't picture our youths without those.

Well, till next time, this is me saying, don't keep your Kandor all bottled up, express yourself!

New Arrivals

It's nice to get home on a Friday and find some new arrivals from Ebay to add to my ever growing, somewhat haphazardly-collected collection of back issues.

The first is this one, Jimmy Olsen #69 from 1963.

I've known about the Nightwing and Flamebird thing for a long time, since way back when I first read the Superman Encyclopedia and discovered the amusing yet epic charms of Silver Age Superman stories, but because I have not yet purchased Superman Showcase Vol. 4 I have yet to read the first story in Superman #158 where Jimmy and Supes first shrink down into Kandor and become the Batman and Robin-esque heroes. This issue I just got officially marks their second foray, so so much for reading things in order, but I'm sorta used to that anyway. I have nothing but respect for people who wait until they've collected an entire series before delving in from issue one, but I just can't do that. Perhaps if I collected more Marvel it might be a necessity because of the storylines where one thing always leads into another - though I do collect Fantastic Four and tend to just read in any old order, then one day when I have them all (well I'm shooting for about the first 400 via a cocktail of reprints and originals) I'll sit down and read them all again. In the case of Silver Age Superman titles I tend to just grab the ones that appeal to me, I so far have not made any commitment to getting all of them! That'd be lots! I have set my sights on collecting all of DC Comics Presents, the Superman title that started in 1978, teaming him other people in the DCU, and I have about half of its 97 issue run. I figured that was one pre-Crisis Supes title I had a chance of getting a complete run of, any other ones will have to wait until I strike it rich.

The other item that I received is Justice League of America #98. This is from 1972 and a glance at the cover tells us we're moving away from the Silver Age.

Lots had happened in the world in the 9 years since the other ish, so now we're drawing pentagrams and having seances! It might be the Rob Zombie fan in me, but one thing I do tend to grab when I see them is covers with Superman and some form of deviltry, covers like Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #103 or Superman #419. In this case, I'm completing my run of the original JLA series so it sort of suits both concerns, and I saw this one pretty cheap so I grabbed it. It's a Neal Adams cover. I'm a fair to middling Adams fan, though he's far from my favourite artist, but it does kind of annoy me that these days if a back issue just has a cover by him you can just add a zero to the end of the price you'd probably pay if it wasn't by him. But I got this one at a great price, no complaints from me!

Condition is not a top concern with me. I tend to go about Good, Very Good, Fine especially when it comes to older issues. I figure an original is still an original, and I wouldn't even trust myself with something I paid a bundle for and have to handle like plutonium. While some people are doing that, someone has to treasure the ones that have gotten a little knocked around over the years, as long as they've got all the pages and so forth. I like that I can read them without having to really stress. Someone has to buy the copies when other people upgrade. Maybe someday I'll get upgrade fever. Well, I did recently replace a Justice League of America #200, but that was an extreme case, my first copy was missing several pages and the previous, presumably young, owner had drawn parts on several of the heroes which didn't exactly charm me upon rereadings! Call me delicate.

Comic Collecting in a Cold Climate

Well, another reason to be glad I live in Canada - the cold climate is good for my comics! This from the story of the guy in Alaska who is selling off the Batman #1 that was found in a dresser.

Quote from Fairbanks Daily News:

"Barry Sandoval, director of comic auctions and operations at Heritage, said the auction house has handled many copies of Batman No. 1, but he said Wheat’s copy is notable because the low humidity and cool temperatures in Fairbanks have kept the paper in excellent condition. Old comics were printed on notoriously cheap newsprint, but the pages in Wheat’s copy remain crisp and white."Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Fairbanks comic book collector s vast collection puts him in the spotlight

When Comic Stores Suck and Are Lame and Really Crappy and Run By Jerks...

A few months ago I made the mistake of revisiting a comic store which shall remain crappy. I was peeping some stuff on ebay and thought I'd check the local scene to see if I could score the items for cheaper or almost as cheap. I went to every store in town and finally to one I already avoid because of knowing that it sucks, but I went in with a fresh mind thinking I might at least find the items, which it happens were three issues I was missing of DC Challenge!, an underrated series from the eighties.

I looked around and I have to say the back issue selection was good, maybe the best in the city, but at least one reason for that became apparent as I looked at the prices. Everything was way above market value. There was not a single comic from the sixties, for instance, priced under $25, no matter what condition it was in, no matter what the title or number it was. They had clearly been priced with the mentality that because a comic is old, it must be worth a ton, no matter how little demand for that particular title there is. As it happens, some if not all of the titles I collect from that era are among the less popular, so that was a bit of a blow, but I know there's always ebay. Then I saw a sign that said, all comics were half off the price they had been marked. That brought them down to something approaching market value, so I took out a few for my collection. I found the DC Challenge! issues I was looking for, which made me quite happy, because those were actually marked very cheap. It was apparent, in fact they had been sitting in the store since roughly the time they came out in the mid eighties.

This whole process was made more uncomfortable by the fact there was a creepy, trollish worker staring at me the entire time I was looking around. Every time I looked up his beady eyes were on me. I'm in my thirties and I don't really fit the profile of a shoplifter. I can understand security concerns in a place like that, but worse was when he noticed I had a checklist, and said something like "let's take a look", as if I wanted his help. I hate being hustled.

Then I looked at action figures. I saw quite a few that I would like, but they were all being sold in sets of four. You could not buy them individually, and in several cases I already had one in the set, or else there was one that did not appeal to me, so there was no way I was going to buy the entire set. So it definitely lost my action figure business.

I got up to the till to buy the comics I'd picked out, and there is the owner, a figure familiar to me since childhood. He looks at my selection, and then he informs me that they have a sign by the till which says that because of shifting market values, they reserve the right to change the price on any comic at the till. Because of course, everybody upon first entering the store will go up to the till and look for tiny handwritten notes taped to the cash register. Sleazy!

Values are indeed shifting, and I don't fault a store that prices at the till. The very excellent store I visited while in New York did not have any marked prices, but instead gave you the price based on Overstreet's. But he let you know when you came in how things were priced. In the case of the other, unnamed, very crappy store in my city, they have a giant sign saying prices are half off what they are marked, located at the back issue bins, and then the other little doomsday note right by the till in tiny penmanship.

As if I had not been treated as enough of an ignoramus by this clown who assumes everyone who walks in the store knows nothing, he then told me the prices on the DC Challenge! were $10 each! I had found the rest of the series for about $1-3 each, and they were listed that cheap in my price guide, and on ebay. So it was nothing doing. I took a few of the other comics where they had not been ridiculously marked up, but most I didn't take. So rather than getting rid of merchandise sitting in the store for 25 years at a few dollars each, he found it more sensible to raise them to a ludicrous price. There obviously must be treasure maps written on the boards that he'd just remembered were there. Years ago he'd replaced the pages with high priced bearer bonds, assuming no one would want to buy an "uncool" series like DC Challenge!. These are the only logical explanations for the policies of this sensible "businessman".