Oxbladder

all messages by user

11/20/2018 Topic: Rags (Antarctic Press 2018) blowing up Oxbladder	Dylman wrote: Ridiculously low print run I think Everything outside of Marvel and DC have a print run that is very low. From a few hundred to a few thousand. There had to be something other than the print run that first drove interest because if it was print run alone then almost every small press book would be "hot".
11/20/2018 Topic: What's this Maher fella like? Oxbladder	Like any on air personality sometimes you are gonna love them sometime you won't. By no means was Stan an angel but everyone loves to make him out as one. I appreciate what he did but I don't think he alone deserves all the praise. I consider Stan, Jack, and Steve definitely equally important in the success of Marvel. They complimented each other which is very evident when you read any of the material that they produced on their own, which never reached the same level as when they were working together. As for Maher... who cares what he has to say? He isn't a comic fan, big deal. I'm not a fan of what he does either. In the end he isn't providing much more than any of the other on air political opinion barkers. People get all bent up about them but really their opinions are a dime a dozen and don't contribute much to our society.
11/20/2018 Topic: What Comics Came Out During Your Birth Month? Oxbladder	I have never looked into this. BTW people should know that technically all of those birth month cover likely came out BEFORE your birth month Even newsstands books often shipped before the cover month.
11/20/2018 Topic: What Comics Came Out During Your Birth Month? Oxbladder	Meh. I was just being silly ... posting according to cover date works for me. I just never understood why it was that they really even bothered with months beyond the copyright info. Do they even print months on the cover any more? I don't pay attention to that. I doubt that anything very interesting came out in May '69.
11/21/2018 Topic: Local Comic Shop Day Oxbladder	Ronbatman wrote: Is Blackbird worth reading? Is that issue on the site, I didn't see a shiny cover? Thanks Quinnspuddinjoker! Now I want another DC Designer Series statue to go with her. ...and so it starts. R I haven't read it yet. I subscribed to the series at my local comic store mainly because Jen Bartel is doing the art. The book should be in the listings but any images of it are not going to show that it is a card stock foil cover. I thought it was just a regular comic until I got to the store last week and saw that it was shiny! Shiny? Jen Bartel cover? Count me in! (I think only 500 were printed, too, So that helps. I think the Cheryl Blossom and Aliens had an even lower run count)
11/21/2018 Topic: What's this Maher fella like? Oxbladder	imatonkatoo wrote: I believe it was mainly his vision of comic books that got it all going again. Well, no it didn't as comics came back into vogue in the mid/late 50's. However, Stan, Jack, and Steve all helped change how comics were done and made them even more popular. However, Stan alone is given too much credit. That's not to say he wasn't important or a nice guy but that people have given too much credit to him and not enough to the others that were there at the time. Kirby, Ditko and other all had key roles to play and if they hadn't been there who knows what would have happened. When Stan, Jack or Steve did work on their own it was never as good as when Stan and Jack or Stan and Steve worked together. I really can't think of Stan being THE MAN when it became clear the the artists had valuable input beyond just putting Stan's script to pictures.
11/21/2018 Topic: What Comics Came Out During Your Birth Month? Oxbladder	quinnspuddinjoker wrote: Oxbladder here you go. May 1969 list here for you. Enjoy. https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?minyrmo=196905&maxyrmo=196905 Thanks! Lots of cool romance books. That was the most interesting stuff to me.
11/22/2018 Topic: What's this Maher fella like? Oxbladder	Pretty much. Don't get me wrong I appreciate everything Stan did. I just don't idolize him as much as others. My understanding is Maher is just a hater. He entitled to his opinion but I respectfully disagree with him. More than likely though he was just trying to get attention more than anything. The are all sort of op-ed folks on all sorts of media that will do pretty much anything to get attention. Even go against known facts. Who knows maybe some comic geeks bullied him when he was little. I just ignore him like so much of the other press regarding Stan's death.
12/13/2018 Topic: Staple tears - Staple Popped Oxbladder	If the defect in this example has caused the cover to actually be loose from the interior I would lean at grading it about an 7.0-8.0. If I were selling it though I would list the grade and mention that without the defect the book appears to be the higher grade but the the staple defect has caused the downgrade. I know that lots of people like to use the old method of saying well the first grade that allows for this is x grade so it is x grade but that is ignoring that the rest of the book may be in superb shape.
12/14/2018 Topic: Staple tears - Staple Popped Oxbladder	You are welcome. This is one of those defects that has always been the bane of the hobby. Even after third party grading came about it remains very difficult to properly grade a very nice book with one major defect. This is one of those defects that, to me, shows some of the hypocrisy of the grading system we have. This would be seen by most to be a handling defect and ding it really hard. To me this looks more like a manufacturing defect. Not that a handling mistake couldn't have cause this error but almost always to cause a defect like this there would be other defects created or some indication that handling or reading of the book caused the damage. This is a REALLY sharp book though and to me it look like there was a mistake in the binding process. I once had a book from the 60's that was in great shape except for the obvious fact that the bottom staple had been punched through the front cover and first two leaves in the binding process. Remarkably, even though it was universally graded by CGC there were people who still considered that it was a handling damage even though there was no signs that the book had been handed much at all. No reading creases, no wear creasing at the staples, etc. Nothing. If you looked at the bottom staple though there was a staple sized hole through the cover and the leaves and just under that the staple was perfectly bound the the rest of the leaves. There wasn't even and cover or leaf paper from the other leaves that were punched through under the staple. Clearly, to me the bottom cover and first two leaves either were not sitting flat when the book was stapled and the staple punched a staple sized hole through the those firs three layer of the book. In the case of your book, it appears as though the staple was driven in unevenly and cut most of the paper between the two holes of the staple. Either the rest snapped the first time it was opened or shortly thereafter because the edge of the separated paper is not very white. Not only that but there is zero indication that the paper is brittle or the book was badly mist handled to cause that tear. I would say that this is mostly a manufacturing defect. It doesn't lessen or increase the deduction for the defect, it is a serious defect, But I recognize that this is one of those defects where manufacturing quirks contributed to a major defect.
12/17/2018 Topic: Grading Process Oxbladder	You either have to send them in or take them to a convention where either of the two grading companies are set up to take submissions. First you need to go through the books you are considering to get graded and come up with a baseline grade. Then you have to go online and get an idea of realized prices for a book in that grade. You don't look at graded book values just the ungraded (raw) realized prices. Once you have an idea of that value you look at the maximum values allowed for the various tiers. If your book falls in that range then you submit under that tier (be careful as there may also be year restrictions for submitting under the different tiers). Then you fill out the forms. Pack your books securely (both sites should give directions on this) an ship them, insured, to the grading company of your choice. Then wait. If you ship to CBCS expect to wait a very, very long time. CGC should be about a month or two. You should be able to track your books through the grading process depending on which company you send it to. I believe that you get charged by both companies once the books are checked in at their respective facilities. For us Canadians grading is an very expensive process so it is actually better bang for your buck to send more than one book at a time for grading even though it will cost you more. Shipping is very expensive, more so coming back than going there depending on how you ship. I don't believe either company gives you a return shipping option. DO NOT ship without insuring the books. You can also save yourself some money if you take your shipment to a Canadian Border Services office before shipping and telling them that you are sending the books to the US for evaluation and they will be returned. there is then a form that they will get you to fill out and you attach it to the box. The rgading companies should then attach this form when they return your books and you will avoid the taxes and service charges upon reentry into Canada. This is a really short breakdown because I know that both companies cover most of the submission process on their site. It is also important to note that not all books are worth getting graded. I would only get books graded that are over $100 even then probably only if I think the grade would come back in the 9.6 or greater grade. That is if they are from 1980 present. There are not many books from the 90's that fall in these parameters.
12/18/2018 Topic: Things that need approval Oxbladder	While I don't want admin duties I would be fine if any of you wanted to pass some verification work once in awhile. I usually have some time on Sundays (as that is when I process my weekly purchases). I am out on vacation for two weeks starting on the 22nd but if you want to kick some work after Jan 5 I can pick away at it.
12/18/2018 Topic: Grading Process Oxbladder	All good points Ron. Thanks.
12/18/2018 Topic: Number of issues collected by members = brilliant! Oxbladder	I would hope that feature is optional.
12/19/2018 Topic: Number of issues collected by members = brilliant! Oxbladder	kds_comics wrote: Oxbladder wrote: I would hope that feature is optional. Optional Smop-tional..... If you don't like it - don't look at it. Don't be a dick. There are some people who may not want others knowing what is in their collection. It's called security. The first means to protect yourself from theft is not to let on to those dishonest types that you have it it. But whatever. Nice knowing you I am outta here.
3/12/2021 Topic: Marvel VS DC! Oxbladder	Defiant1 wrote: fdaz89 wrote: Defiant1, I agree with you 100% (about your assessment of the comics industry, not about you being a negative person). Having corporations like Disney own so much of it doesn't help. One thing I noticed is that all the ads are missing in comics, reading the ads added to the appeal of comics for me in my youth. Ad revenue would (or should) lower the price of comics, but so would going back to newsprint. Making superstars out of people who couldn't tell a story (like Rob Liefeld), I think negatively affected the hobby. I think the speculation market doesn't help, either. All the things that provide a barrier to new people from picking up the collecting bug should be examined and eliminated where possible. In the 90's a lot of the comics switched to higher quality paper because the advertisers wanted their ads to look good and the cheap paper wouldn't reproduce the colors and details they wanted to use. Advertisers quit buying ads in comics. There wasn't enough bang for the buck. I agree they should at least try to sell ads. Speculation helps the publishers immensely because it allows them to print more. If they can print more, the cost to print each comic comes down. Most of what you are paying for when you buy a comic is the production costs and setup costs for printing. If you print a million copies of something, the cost per unit is pocket change. If you print 100 of something, it costs paper money. Think of it like this. If I pay an artist $100 to produce one page of art and make 5 photocopies. I'd have to sell the 5 copies for about $20.02 each to break even on production costs. I haven't even paid myself a dime. That's just to break even on what i paid the artist and what I paid for the paper. If I print 10,000 photocopies of that art I only need to sell them all for 3 cents each to break even. The catch is, i have to sell all 10,000. As volume increases, the publisher makes more profit on each comic sold. That's why they produce all the variant covers. If they can sell a significantly larger number of interior pages just by swapping out a cover, it helps them break even on production costs faster. The problem is, it runs off "collectors" over time because they can't keep up. They don't get a sense of satisfaction by owning 5 versions of the same comic. It dissuades customer loyalty. Defiant1 As someone who has been around the hobby for a while and having seen it from on both sides of the counter I would disagree with many of your points. The switch from newsprint to glossy stock may have begun with some special issues and advertisers but the ultimate permanent switch came, without doubt, from the fact that glossy stock became far cheaper to use than newsprint. Advertising has been pretty much eliminated for the reasons you say, there isn't much bang for the buck. Costs of printing are simply not the only reason modern book are $3.99 and more. You could have as cheap a stock as possible, which they do, and larger runs but that is no guarantee that costs will go down. In the late 80's and first 4 years of the 90's some print numbers were huge compared to now but that didn't stop the increases from coming. Why is that? Well, costs for printing, shipping, distributing, and most important the paying of the creative talent didn't and doesn't get any cheaper. How talent is paid now is completely different and is the single largest cost that companies pay and if you want to have the most regarded talent in your pool you have to have the big dollars to pay for it. So the model of printing more isn't going to mean falling prices. Yes variants help the companies and they keep pushing them out because it works to their advantage and the market's advantage because everyone makes money off of them. But at this point I would say that there is going to have to a be a revolutionary change in the industry in order to get the print numbers up to a point where a price drop is not only possible but sustainable. Those numbers would have to be maintained for a long time and all of the costs that go into producing comics will have to not increase. Since that isn't going to happen, people have to be paid after all and they certainly won't be happy to see shareholders take all the profit. Now with content of modern books. Personally, I like a lot of the offerings from many of the companies. I don't judge a book by how long it takes to get through it or the volume of the text. That was a change that many people of my age were not okay with. Couple that with price increases and it can be hard thing to take because we always want more and if buying new costs more then we can't buy more. That being said collectors have always complained about the most recent 20 years of books for a multitude of reasons that have not changed for decades. What it boils down to is that they simply grow out of things. It doesn't hold the same magic it once did and they get angry. They get angry about the changes because ultimately we don't like change. If it's isn't broke don't fix it right? Well the only thing you can do is make incremental changes or, as is the case with both DC and Marvel, try not to rock the boat and, instead bring back ideas that succeeded in the past or serve up "easy money" by catering to the current trends that are selling, like variants. Now Marvel DC have the unenviable position of being the long time leaders in comics and their histories go back decades and their characters have become staples to many people who love them for a variety of reasons. When they screw with them they have come expect that it can blow back in their faces or spell the next chapter of success. More often than not thought you have people complain because they have this revisionist history that tells them that back when they were young those were the best comics. No crap came out. Well that simply isn't true. since I started collecting a large majority of collectors have always complained about new books. I started in the 1979 and most of the books from mid 60's to 1979 was fodder with the few excepts, the keys. Even a large bulk of the 30's, 40's, 50's books were cheap(er) because they were not in vogue, not key issues, or simply not worth spending a lot on because they were not super-hero books. Now I think it is always sad to see people get out of collecting but it happens. Sometime the things we use to like change so much that we lose interest. It's sad but it happens. I just wish that some of those people wouldn't condemn the whole industry (sometimes constantly) for that change. There are a wealth of book that they can go back to and revisit. Who knows, maybe one day a change will come that you do like and bring you back into the fold. I think a lot of damage comes when people who have stopped collecting or stopped with new books keep crapping on them. IMHO it just keeps retcons and rehashes and rebirths the order of the day. Nostalgia has been both the greatest driver and inhibitor to this hobby.
3/12/2021 Topic: Marvel VS DC! Oxbladder	fdaz89 wrote: Defiant1, I agree with you 100% (about your assessment of the comics industry, not about you being a negative person). Having corporations like Disney own so much of it doesn't help. One thing I noticed is that all the ads are missing in comics, reading the ads added to the appeal of comics for me in my youth. Ad revenue would (or should) lower the price of comics, but so would going back to newsprint. Making superstars out of people who couldn't tell a story (like Rob Liefeld), I think negatively affected the hobby. I think the speculation market doesn't help, either. All the things that provide a barrier to new people from picking up the collecting bug should be examined and eliminated where possible. Newsprint is more expensive. It would only make books lighter not cheaper. Making super-stars out of talent isn't a problem BUT it did increase costs dramatically because now, instead of paying everyone a pittance out of a pool creators have contracts and are paid a hell of a lot more than they were back in the day. That model was never going to be sustainable and it has dramatically changed the industry. \ Now the other thing is that companies don't make someone popular. They publish their stories, sure, but readers/collectors decide who is and who isn't super-stars. There are super-stars for writing there are super-stars for art but there are few that can do both. Very few. Jack Kirby great artist, not so good a writer. Stan Lee, good for ideas and writing but was always better when he had an equally good artist and idea man along side him. Stand alone Stan and and Jack stuff are lackluster team them up and you had something special. John Byrne a good artist from the 70's to the 90's but don't give him the writing duties because his writing sucks and now his art is nothing special. Rob Liefeld, the guy should never write or draw, however, some of his ideas and creations are not bad. Todd McFarlane, decent artist but his writing leaves a lot to be desired, he would be better to co-write than do it alone. So no super-stars don't hurt but it can hurt if we make them believe that they are so great that they can do no wrong. Always second doubt any star that say only he or she knows how to present a character. Chances are far better that they are going to bomb out than bring revolution.
3/12/2021 Topic: Favorite Artists at the Moment Oxbladder	Emanuella Luppacchino, Jenny Frison, Jen Bartel, Renato Guedes, Mamud Asrar, Jeff Dekal, Josua Middleton, Clay Mann, Elisabeth Torque, Paul Pope, Terry Moore, etc.
3/12/2021 Topic: Newsstand vs Direct Editions Oxbladder	rgtichy wrote: And, the rarity versus condition balance changed over time. When "Direct" first began, there were not as many comic book stores, so "Direct" editions would be rare, but also more likely to end up collected and cared for. Then as there came to be many comic stores with "Direct" inventory, it became the newsstand ones that were not just rarer, but still less likely to end up collected and cared for. I wouldn't say that it was more stores that changed the dynamic, though it would be part of it, but the dynamic changed in that with splitting the stream the publisher were better able to see that the balance of where people were buying from was changing AND also, as more and more other media options drew in people the sales on the newsstands was vanishing. Why feed a stream that is only costing money and not making it? As video games, TV, movies because more accessible in the home and then with the interwebs becoming the thing printed matter has been whacked sales wise. The "scarcity" thing is a bit of a red herring too. Newsstand books were printed at the same time so are part of a larger print run. Not all ended out in the hands of people who don't collect. I know for a fact in my region there were lots of stores that also had accounts with news distributors so copies did get into the hands of collectors. For example the direct version of Thor #337 is super scarce because no one was really reading the book and the hype was very slow to filter into our city. All the copies sold out right away, probably mostly to subscribers. However, the store I shopped at got a huge order from the local news distributor and had easily a few hundred copies for sales on the stands three weeks after the direct copies were gone. On newsstands they, at best would have had five copies if at all. To date when I see Thor #337 up for sale it is 99.999 percent of the time going to be the newsstand copy. I still have mine. Since it happened in Winnipeg I assume it was happening all over. up to the early 90's I don't think the scarcity algorithms people use should be taken to heart too much. Unless we pole every collector and store and study sales on each and every newsstand and direct copy you can say for certain that the attrition rate of all newsstand books means existing copies in high grade is the same across the board. IMHO the attrition rates are always going top be highest for pre 1965. Most of the silver and all of the gold are the only truly scarce books. Most of the scarcity now is relative. Even if a print run on a book is only in the hundreds very few are going to be lost to history and very few are going to be lower than an 8.0. So unless you dramatically increase the demand and it stays there are you every going to have true scarcity in the same sense as Silver, gold and platnum. Scarcity also doesn't mean more expensive only demand creates that. There are a number of books out there who have one to 10 existing copies and though demand is there for them the scarcity alone is not enough to bump the price up because sales may be low or people are simply not interested. Things are much more nuance than simple black and white.
3/12/2021 Topic: Value When Submitting to CGC Oxbladder	I know that originally the FMV was supposed to be based on what you could realize for the book now in the condition you believe it to be in ungraded. The theory is is that if something were to happen before it was graded and slabbed how much would it cost to replace it? if it is damaged is shipping or handling why would an insurer pay for what it may have been rather than what is is currently known to be. I always examined the book and came up with a grade I think it would get then would research what similarly conditioned raw books were realizing online. Now if you were sending a graded book in then that's a whole different story, but I believe that people would be disappointed if they filed a claim on a book that isn't yet graded for a graded value. Just my two cents on the matter. I am not claiming that it is how it is handled now but, as I stated, I know for a fact that originally it was based on the ungraded FMV.