Memorializing a Deceased Comic Book Collection

 

Doug: Today I'm excited to share the fruits of an idea I got when I was only several weeks into selling my comics collection. As I was scanning and scanning (and scanning some more), it struck me that it was sort of cool that even though the books would be leaving my possession, I'd always have high quality images of my books. If any of you have ever used the various online photograph merchants, you also know there are some neat products out there that you can adorn with the photos of your choice. I've used Shutterfly several times to make gifts such as calendars, travel mugs, etc. So it seemed a natural fit to do something with my comics. The end product is a 49-page 8"x11" hardcover book (featuring almost 100 of my cover scans) that is simply wonderful. Enjoy the images... I have!

 

  

Man, That's a Lot of Snow! And a Selling Update from Doug

Doug: Happy Sunday, friends! And what a snowy one it is in the Chicago area. I went out at 7:00 this morning to do some clearing in case we were going to try to go to church -- that notion was quickly dispelled once I ascertained what had happened overnight. On the ground was around 5" of wet, heavy snow and our street had yet to be plowed. I was outside for around 90 minutes and myself and three neighbors used our snowblowers and shovels to return our part of the subdivision to a semblance of normalcy. But the snow has continued, and closer to the city there is a blizzard warning as I write this. Not sure about school tomorrow, as the white stuff continues to pile up and is not supposed to end until the overnight hours, with temperatures dropping and winds increasing. But I love winter -- Karen can have the desert. I like to have seasons (of course, where I live sometimes we'll get three seasons in one day!).

Last night I decided to add original art to my auctions in my now-neverending effort to purge my collection in exchange for monies that will be used for a new car and various loans that we have (home equity and parent loans for our sons' educations). A time or three before I've mentioned that I hold the original art by John Buscema and Tom Palmer for Avengers #76, page 3. It's a great page featuring four key Avengers from 1970 -- Cap, the Vision, T'Challa, and Pietro. I have two other pages (a Buscema FF and a Heck Avengers) that have been custom framed and hang on the wall in my comic room, and this page was one I always wanted to give that same treatment. But I put it off and put it off, and so when I looked at it about a week ago I just decided that it would be silly to spend $100+ on the framing at a time when I'm trying to raise money. Yesterday I took my portfolio of original art, roughs, and sketches to school and used the big copier to scan images of it all. And last night I took the plunge, posting three pieces to auction on eBay.

No lie... that page was not live for 10 minutes when I got a question. I had decided to list it at a starting bid of $135, which is what I'd paid for it around 20 years ago. No reserve, no Buy It Now -- just let 'er rip. So this guy wants to know if I'll end the auction and do a "buy it now" for him of $350. I politely explained that I'd just listed it and really felt like I was going to ride it out -- but thanks. About 30 minutes later I received another question, same idea. This fellow seemed to respect me a bit more while also sounding like he knew what he was doing. I asked him to check the completed auctions for Big John pages and to find two Fantastic Four pages that had sold in December. Both were from FF #175 and were the pages where the High Evolutionary defeats Galactus and the Big G begins to shrink until he blinks out. One page had sold for around $1100 and the other for a bit over $2900. While I slept last night he'd come back with an offer... of $1600. Uhhhh... Now I'm not much of a gambler, but something was just telling me that with the new Avengers movie coming out in a few months and featuring the debut of the Vision, Quicksilver (in this franchise) and possibly the Black Panther (fingers crossed there!) that this page should go for close to $2000. I again thanked him for his generous offer but told him I'd like to wait.

So mid-morning my wife and I were having some quality time sitting at the kitchen table watching it snow and working a crossword puzzle (which we never do -- but it was really fun to just take the time to do that) when my iPhone made the alert sound which is associated with eBay action. Overnight the page had gone up to around $350; even though I had my glasses on I looked and did not a double-take but a triple-take at the screen. Surely I was seeing the decimal was in the wrong place. I don't recall what I exclaimed, but my wife was like "What's wrong?!?" I just picked up the phone and showed her the lock screen that featured the alert: a bidder had come along and made a commitment of $3,650.00!! She said "no way", thinking that the poor guy had keyed it in wrong. So we went to check the bid history. Sure enough -- the previous high bidder had left a max bid of $3600 overnight and had just been surpassed. Wowza.

This page doesn't go off until Thursday around 9:30 pm my time. I have no idea what's going to happen, but to say that I had to pick my jaw up off the floor would be an understatement! And rest assured that I will be shipping this overnight via UPS or FedEx, as I want this page to be in as few hands as possible to ensure its safe transit.

 

 

The other two pages I listed are also here for you to peruse. Above is a rough to a four-page Silver Surfer/Thor story that I do not believe has ever been published. The story is reprinted completely in the Marvel Visionaries: John Buscema hardcover. Lastly, I bought the page below many years ago just because it's so cool -- what is not to like about Fred and Barney dressed as Batman and Robin, and drawn by the same artist who illustrated the Cocoa- and Fruity Pebbles cereal boxes? Awesome illustration!

So I am still selling comics -- still working on finishing up my Avengers collection and have a pretty good start on Amazing Spider-Man and Fantastic Four. I'll keep plugging away, but thought you might find the stories of the past 18 hours interesting.

Be sure to stop in tomorrow for a conversation on the Bucky revival that took place at the hands of Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting in the umpteenth volume of Captain America. You might be surprised at my (and Karen's) take on the whole thing!

BAB Firsts: Doug Says: "Check out some of my Stuff!" Part 1

This post was originally published on July 31 2009

Periodically I'm going to discuss bits and pieces of my collection. Chances are, some of you readers have similar artifacts, if not the very same mementos of your childhood. A few years ago my wife and I decided to finish our basement for our teenagers and their friends. As part of the renovation, I lobbied for and was awarded my very own Sanctum Sanctorum! The pictures below are snapshots of my collection, and I'll show more in the coming weeks and months.

MEGOS -- They weren't called The World's Greatest Super-Heroes for nothing!!


I loved Megos!! I was fortunate enough to receive as a Christmas present the very first Mego Batman, complete with removable cowl! And beneath said mask was a pretty generic-looking Bruce Wayne, but who cared?! What a cool action figure. I never did acquire the Superman, but as you can see, I did have quite a few other characters, both Marvel and DC. My sister owned Wonder Woman, but I have no idea what ever became of her (WW, not my sister -- I know where she is!). Also not pictured, primarily because I don't know what ever became of them, are the Penguin, Mr. Mxyzptlk, and Tarzan figures. I never cared for Tarzan's skin-toned body suit underneath the leopard skin. Also, that skin was over-the shoulder -- Johnny Weismuller wouldn't have been caught dead in it! I guess the quality control or people or censors thought that by the time Conan was produced they didn't need the cover-up. By the way, I clearly recall finding the Tarzan figure in my Easter basket when I was 9. (Note - every Mego in the picture was sold in my auctions, around three months ago. And as-is, I got a tidy sum for the collection!).


Funny story -- those of you who remember Megos will recall that they were initially held together by thin pieces of elastic. Elastic isn't too strong, and of course repeated use (in a rough, super-villain crunching manner, of course) will weaken it quickly. Of my initial collection of 8-10 Megos, almost all of them "exploded" -- and again, if you had any in this style, you know what I'm talking about. When that elastic broke, blamm-o -- arms and legs all over the place! About the time the last one broke, my mom had had enough. She got an empty shoebox, threw all of the pieces, costumes, and accessories in it and wrote a "can't you do a better job with the durability?" letter to the powers-that-be at Mego. That was that. UNTIL, about a month later I got a huge box in the mail. I had no idea what it could be. But opening it was like Christmas in July, baby!! There, inside, were brand-spanking new carded (the originals had come in a window box) figures of all the ones my mom had sent in!! Wow!! I was eternally grateful, and really thought Mego was a great company for having not only improved their technology with thick rubber bands, but standing behind their initial product.

A couple of random comments: My Captain America shield is long gone. No idea where it went to. I had a friend who had the Mr. Fantastic figure. We used to put his costume on the Aquaman figure and use him as our Johnny Storm -- I mean, seriously -- why is every action figure of Johnny in "flame on!" mode? I had a friend who showed me a neat trick with the Hulk's pants -- of course they came all clean and almost pressed. The tattering at the bottoms was pretty stiff and straight. But, by dunking the Hulk's legs into water and then letting the pants dry, they would shrink, wrinkle, and the bottoms would really look a mess. Much more authentic, we thought (as 8-year olds!).

Buttons -- Now where the heck did I get these??


I have no idea how I acquired the buttons you see. The "Ron Riley's Batman Club" button was a tie-in to the hit television show that aired in the late 1960's. Ron Riley was a DJ on Chicago's "Big 89", WLS radio. You can read more about the history of that radio station, as well as see a membership card that accompanied the button, at this link:

http://www.wlshistory.com/WLS60/

The "Send Batman to Vietnam" button is in pretty good shape, and would again date to the late '60's. I have seen buttons with the same saying but without the Bat Signal on online auctions for prices ranging anywhere from $35-85. Not sure how much mine is worth...

The Superman button also dates from 1966. You can see a better image of it and get a little background here:

http://superman.avantecmedia.com/pins_club1966.html

Next time we'll discuss Marvel's calendars of the late 1970's, as well as take a foray into the world of Secret Wars action figures and maybe even Slurpee Cups!

UPDATE...

Doug: Well, since we've had the past two days out of school due to the extreme wind chills (and today, too), I had some time to tend to business down in the comic book room that has long needed tending to! It took a couple of hours, but I was able to do some dusting, rearranging, unshelving, and reshelving. And I came to a conclusion: I have a ton of books! To be honest, over the past several years I've been able to buy myself a book after each high school sports season. I am the timer/PA for boys soccer, I keep the score book for boys basketball, and am the PA announcer for baseball. So I get a nice check of extra money three times a year. I've also used a little of the proceeds from my comics sales. Anyway, there are brand new photos below, and I took Edo's advice from long ago and took the action figures away from the shelves' edges. You should have a pretty clear shot of what's there -- and if you don't, just ask! Oh, and if you don't feel like counting, there are right around 350 reprint books (hardcovers and trade paperbacks).