Defiant1

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12/10/2020 Topic: "Hot" Comics Defiant1	I like the "good ol' days" when collector's scorned a second printing like the plague. It was inferior. You missed the boat if you got a higher printing number. A publisher needed to make enough of the first printing to cover demand because the second printing would only sell to complete fools.
12/11/2020 Topic: "Hot" Comics Defiant1	Defiant1 wrote: I like the "good ol' days" when collector's scorned a second printing like the plague. It was inferior. You missed the boat if you got a higher printing number. A publisher needed to make enough of the first printing to cover demand because the second printing would only sell to complete fools. Now, 2nd and 3rd printings are apparently pre-planned to boost sales without calling them variants. I wouldn't be surprised if they were all printed at the same time as the first printing.
12/11/2020 Topic: Defiant1's Random & Odd Comic Art Collection Defiant1	When photobucket turned to $#!+, most of my images disappear from this thread. I may go back and edit all of the posts to replace the images. I'm going to see if Pixelfed allows cross-site posting. They are a Fediverse knock-off of Instagram that I already like better. Flaming Carrot Original Art. I bought this from Bob Burden himself. It's personalized to someone at Marvel. He had intended to give it to him, but something interfered and he decided to sell it instead. So far, so good. Nice! Defiant1
12/12/2020 Topic: Defiant1's Random & Odd Comic Art Collection Defiant1	Defiant1 wrote: DEFIANT Comics was to have a huge 4 issue crossover story with all their heroes involved. They shut down the company before the story was ever published. This is the only unpublished artwork that was ever colored. This is the watercolor art for Schism #4 Page 20. Color art by JayJay Jackson. Defiant1 - http://comics.vforums.co.uk edited by Defiant1 on 1/12/2017 edited by Defiant1 on 2/12/2020 I did a higher quality scan of this for a fanzine. The fanzine is being offered on Kickstarter. It's complete and the funding goal has been met. I don't buy stuff online and I told them I didn't really want any credit. I still encourage people to get a copy if they are fans of DEFIANT Comics or the creators who worked there. All new interviews including a new Jim Shooter interview.
12/14/2020 Topic: Direct vs. Newstand values Defiant1	Ronbatman wrote: Scott, sometimes one does go up and the other doesn't but in this case, you are correct. R Whether evidence supports it or not, newsstand versions will typically command a higher price. There a smaller more dedicated group of collectors who are searching for them. They come up for sale less frequently, and they are often lower grade when they do come up for sale. Unfortunately, sales data is more difficult to track because it is less frequent.
12/19/2020 Topic: "Hot" Comics Defiant1	Taskmaster wrote: It's also funny that a series that is not worth anything doesn't show up and being for sale then when the series hits the roof then these books "Magically" appear..... Yea what are the odds that this is a coincidence... edited by Taskmaster on 12/19/2020 That's pretty much true of anything. Once there's an opportunity to make a higher profit margin, sellers will capitalize on the opportunity. I've got around 10,000 comics. I'm not going to waste time digging out a copy of something that only make me $2 profit. My time is worth more than that. If I can get $20 profit off of something, that's worth my time.
12/21/2020 Topic: "Hot" Comics Defiant1	Taskmaster wrote: Defiant1 wrote: Taskmaster wrote: It's also funny that a series that is not worth anything doesn't show up and being for sale then when the series hits the roof then these books "Magically" appear..... Yea what are the odds that this is a coincidence... edited by Taskmaster on 12/19/2020 That's pretty much true of anything. Once there's an opportunity to make a higher profit margin, sellers will capitalize on the opportunity. I've got around 10,000 comics. I'm not going to waste time digging out a copy of something that only make me $2 profit. My time is worth more than that. If I can get $20 profit off of something, that's worth my time. Right and that's my point there are books here that are WORTHLESS but once they go up to $5-10 then there is alot of listings for the same book...Or people listing it WAY over book because it's what "they" think is the price....Gotta love some people.... What? I'm one of those people. That is why I own an Amazing Fantasy #15. I took comics that got hot and traded up. That is how books go up in value. Someone takes the effort to dig through thousands of comics to find that one comic the market is demanding and they charge what the market will bear. The alternative is that they sit in some collection and gather dust. Some of what you are paying for is the convenience of just having it available. Storage on comics can cost thousands of dollars a month. If you have a collection of worthless comics, you are essentially paying to store it. It's costing you money every month. One thing I'm not going to do is see that a book is hot, dig it out of my collection, and then sell it for what I paid or less. When a book gets hot, it has more value to me too. That's why the buyer has to pay what I think it's worth and no less. I take pride in what I own too. What I think a book is worth outweighs what any guide or second opinion has to say. At no point is the valuation I give something less relevant than the valuation of the guy next to me. You can be frustrated that you wanted a comic after it got hot, but it got hot because other people want it too. Some of those people have deeper pockets than me and you and just want the comic. They aren't sweating over the price at all.
12/24/2020 Topic: "Hot" Comics Defiant1	The site logs me out all the time. It's been a glitch on and off for years.
12/24/2020 Topic: "Hot" Comics Defiant1	I use a lot of security related add-ons which breaks the functionality of some sites. I used to log out of social media sites by deleting cookies. It was faster than finding the logout button. Facebook & Twitter think I'm a robot. I'm not using either now.
12/28/2020 Topic: Been to Metropolis? Defiant1	I don't really like to travel. C-31 is indeed a Superman comic. I'm thinking this might be the one you are remembering.. Amazing World of Superman Metropolis Edition #nn
12/31/2020 Topic: "Hot" Comics Defiant1	I guess I was always ahead of the curve on getting books before they got hot. I was buying 1st appearances and key issues back in the 70's while my best friend was more concerned that he had issues of the Human Fly. I think I had to talk him into getting a Hulk #181 back then and it's now his most valuable comic. Maybe that's why he quit collecting 40 years ago?! I picked up a Tales To Astonish #13 months before I even knew Marvel was using him in Guardians of the Galaxy. Needless to say, that book skyrocketed in price after I bought it. I think it's very easy to get too immersed in just reading comics and you lose an eye for what is significant. Contrary to popular belief, you can be a comic readers AND a speculator. You can buy comics worth reading that will be hot some day. You just have to be a little more picky on how you spend your money. I stepped away from conics entirely for 10 years which really gave me a better perspective on what is going to be a better long term investment. In 1980, you could spend the exact same amount on a minty fresh New Teen Titans #1 from the 80's or a lower grade Iron Man #1 from the late 60's. I don't even like Iron Man #1, but it was a helluva a lot better long term investment than that extremely hot New Teen Titans comic at the time. Jump ahead 10 years and that Iron Man comic increased in value 10-fold or more. The Teen Titans comic was back in dollar boxes. I know it's rebounded more since then, but my point is, you have to develop an instinct if you want to buy comics before they go up. When everyone is flocking towards the current hot comic, don't be so easily tempted to follow the crowd. For comics to go up at all, it is to a large degree a self-fulfilling prophesy. People have to collective believe a comic will go up in value before they are willing to pay extra to get it. It has little or nothing to do with the story or art quality. It has to do with the significance of the events within and how it inspires readers and future creators. I believe in Thor #225 (1st Firelord). I think it still has potential but, no writers are using the character. All my belief in that book means nothing if someone writing for Marvel doesn't carry the torch and use him in their stories. Most of the modern comics people flock after today wil have price spikes, and then be forgotten. You can try to speculate on modern comics, but there are 50 duds for every comic that actually increases in value. It's not worth the risk. Of those that spike, most will be forgotten within 18 months (or be unsalable in that time span). It's not worth getting upset or frustrated, because the people flipping this for escalated prices are really just recovering losses they took on other purchases. It's better to find a comic that has already proven itself over time. Defiant1 edited by ronbatman on 12/31/2020
12/31/2020 Topic: Errors from grading companies (CGC/CBCS/PGX) Defiant1	I saw the other day that a copy of Modern Love #2 was identified as being published by Superior who did Canadian EC reprints. The book did not have the "SDD" distributor's mark that would be on the book Superior published. It was an American EC identified as a Canadian EC. The Canadian version would be more rare and could command a much higher price in the current market. 10 years ago, it'd be worth about half of the American version. Either way, it was a pretty bad error. My understanding is the the label text is pre-saved for everything and all it takes is to pull up the wrong book's label info when they go to print it. It's also my understanding that quality control is supposed to look for such errors. In all honesty, I don't think it is possible for the employees to know everything that exists. This kind of error is easy to make.
12/31/2020 Topic: Fake Batman 1, Detective 27 and Action 1 Defiant1	I hate that. I had 3 million dollars in my pocket and I was wanting to buy all 3. Seriously though, people used to pull off the outer cover to the Famous 1st Edition treasury-sized reprint comics and try to pass them off as the originals. They had a glossy version of the original cover just inside the outer cover. The easiest way to tell they are the reprints is by the overall dimensions. The treasury-sized versions are bigger that the originals. Anyone actually buying these should know what they are looking for. You don't typically buy comics like that unless you have deep pockets and you know what you are doing. edited by Defiant1 on 12/31/2020
12/31/2020 Topic: Been to Metropolis? Defiant1	rgtichy wrote: No, there is a full page inside C-31 of the Superman park in Metropolis, IL because that is the book I had as a small child. I bought that as a kid too. What you describe sounds familiar, but I don't think I've opened mine since the 70's. The other one was bought in the late 90's or early 2000's. I don't think I've ever opened it for more than a few seconds.
1/1/2021 Topic: "Hot" Comics Defiant1	That was me again. Strange software. Defiant1
1/1/2021 Topic: "Hot" Comics Defiant1	Taskmaster wrote: Let's say you run a comics business. Collectors come in the door and they want some new hot book. Let's say you ordered extra and had a few copies on the shelf. The first one, you sell for cover price. The collector smiles. He buys it and walks out of the store. A second collector shows up and wants it. You sell it for cover price. You call the distributor and discover it's not available for reorder. Now there is a dilemma. If you sell out, you are going to send your customers to the competitor down the street or to online retailers. It's a hot book. If you want to restock it and make money on the sale, you have to buy it from someone who charges more than your distributor. If you are lucky and can buy it back from a customer at the same price he paid. If you do, you just negated all profits you made on the previous two comics you sold. In order to make any money, a retailer has to mark it up. They are going to mark it up to what the market will bear. If the retailer likes the cycle of buying comics back at the same price he paid for them, he might only mark it up only 20%. That would be 20% over the escalated price he had to pay to restock it and make it available. Normally it will be higher than 20%. It's not unreasonable for a hot book to double in price after stores start selling out. Restocking that comic usually costs them more. They have two choices at that point. They either buy it back at the "going price" and charge double or just sell out and watch their customers go to their competitor to get what they want. Technically, they are in business to sell comics that their customers want. It's a lot smarter to restock and increase the price than it is to sell out and watch your customers start shopping elsewhere. But the problem I have is that a BRAND NEW book who let's says retails at $3.99 or $4.99 and it sold out and is going for $25 that high for a pre-sale book?? Or one that "Sold Out" before it hit retail??? You NEVER saw this years ago...I can remember buying Amazing Spider-Man #361 at retail and bought 3-4 copies and people KNEW Venom's spawn was coming it didn't go from being $1.25 to $50 or more in a short time it took awhile for that book to go up... It was actually quite common. I saw Superman #75 double in price 4 times within a month. It has one of the highest print runs of all comics and it was selling for $20 within a very short time span. I watched stores sell their subscribers a copy for cover price and buy them back for more than cover price within an hour. The customers were still shopping in the store and they were selling the book back just as they were leaving. The demand was so great, that the store already had customers lined up to buy them at whatever price the store would charge. The store didn't want to mark them up, but their customers were rabid and demanded a copy. I walked into a store That had Turok #12 priced $4 in their back issue bins. I was being nice and said... "This book is about to be very hot. You might want to increase the price because it's going to sell out and you won't be able to restock." The store manager mocked me. He said "If it's going to be hot, why don't you buy them all." I took offense with his attitude and said "Okay, I will." I bought all 4 copies they had. A few months later, when I traded "hot" Valiant comics for a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, the convention dealer gave me $90 trade credit on each of those 4 copies I'd bought. That $12 purchase got me $360 in trade credit. Somewhere around 1996, customer resistance to price spikes came into play and that's when selling comics wasn't worth my time. I was friends with stores all over town. I could predict which books would be hot even better than the stores. They'd pick my brain to understand why my predictions were so accurate. Several stores were offering me 45% off my new comic subscriptions just to get me to shop in their stores. I quit subscribing to new comics at a store that wanted me to have a 45% discount. I told him to only give me a 40% discount so he'd still be making something off of them. He did that, but when I was unable to show up on new comics day, I found out he was selling comics I preordered to other customers. He'd tell me the delivery was shorted. Sometimes he'd reorder the books I want, but sometimes the distributor was sold out and I wouldn't get what I ordered. When I found out what he was doing, I quit buying new comics.
1/2/2021 Topic: "Hot" Comics Defiant1	Taskmaster wrote: Defiant1 wrote: I found out he was selling comics I preordered to other customers. He'd tell me the delivery was shorted. Sometimes he'd reorder the books I want, but sometimes the distributor was sold out and I wouldn't get what I ordered. When I found out what he was doing, I quit buying new comics. See this is what I have a problem with I guess I look at it different as a "hobby" not a business It's amazing how people don't care about anything and think it's "Foolish" until they sell them $$$$ signs. Pathetic I live in world where I do get deals and I come across NORMAL dealers who don't have to make $$$$$ or $2-5 books they have $1 boxes for that... I've sold part of my double collection for a fair price I didn't need to get $3 for a COMMON $2 book. I don't see the real reason why people do that? Just to be greedy?? maybe but I've gotten online and in two stores by me that have been around for over 25 years and they sell those books for a $1 or less. One of the owners said they buy a collection pick thru the good stuff then sell books like that for $1 or less guess what he say's if we was to charge full price for those he'd still have books that he bought 10 years ago in his store... In a world where people want to get good deals and not get taken thru the ringer it makes me laugh that there is alot of people that charge full price or more for their collections which is a joke...But who am I or they sell the books for full price and the grade is not a 9.4 (People REALLY need to understand that system) but I digress I didn't do that when I sold but some people do.. I knew exactly why he was screwing me over. I sifted through Previews and picked out comics I thought were interesting. A lazy customer saw the comic I ordered and the retailer figured he could get a new customer interested in a comic by selling him the one I ordered. He wasn't getting rich off of comics. He was hoping to squeeze out a few extra sales and he hoped I wouldn't find out what he was doing. He also made more money off of selling it to someone else because he offered me a stupid high discount on what I ordered. That exactly why I didn't take the offer. I didn't want him to resent the offer he'd made me. You bring up a different issue. The retailer will still get stuck with those $2-$5 books that he's trying to sell for a dollar. Not all of them, but he'll still get stuck with many. In the grand scheme of things, selling books valued at $5 for $1 negatively affects the perceived value of comics as a hole. I will digress and tell a story from my youth when I worked in retail. I was really good at what i did, so one day I get assigned to manage a dairy department. I'd never ordered perishables. The previous guy was training me. He rattled off numbers about what sells and what doesn't. When he got to Half-and-Half he said... "This is inconsistent. Sometimes it sells out, sometimes people don't buy any of it." He told me that if it didn't start selling the day he stocked it, he would mark it down to half price with orange stickers the day BEFORE it went out of date. When he moved on and i took over, I used his advice. What i discovered was that I might sell one uunit at half price and still end up throwing out the rest of the product in the shelf. I was trying to cut losses and it bothered me that selling one at a discount guaranteed a loss on everything. I realized that I would have been better off not discounting the one. The person who needed would have paid full price since it was still good and at least the loss wouldn't be as bad. I decided to see how many I could sell at full price up until the last date of sale. What I discovered is that the shelf sold out if i didn't mark them down the day before they went out of date. The orange "half price" stickers were scaring the customers away because they thought something was wrong with it. You know a good deal when you see one evidently, but many people (myself included) see dollar boxes and think it's not worth their time. To some degree, my snobbish preconception is completely valid because the retailer has already devalued the product and said it's not worth his time to price them out at a fair market value. He's already telling the customer that the inventory isn't worth what the price guides say it is. In the larger scale of things, customers are deciding that comics don't hold value. Anytime a comic is sold for less than cover price, it sends out a non-verbal message that comics are not worth what the retail price shows on the cover. It doesn't matter that they lost money on what they sold, it still tells the customer that the product is overpriced. Psychologically, that runs off customers and deters them from spending money that would make the overall hobby more successful. If a $5 comic on the new comics shelf was still going to be worth $5 in 6 months, don't you think more customers would be interested in buying the product. We saw that in the 90's. Price increases spur confidence in the product and sales increased geometrically. The behavior of poor business decisions at all levels of the hobby.... from publisher down to retailer.... are one of the main reason sales have dropped so low. DC is on the verge of ceasing all publications. I don't keep up with the state of current comics anymore, but I recently ran into Ethan Van Sciver (sp?) on a social media site and read some of the things he's been saying and watched a video or two he's made. He really paints a bad picture for DC. If those dealers quit selling $5 comics for a dollar, it would instill more confidence in the consumer and those $5 books might legitimately be worth $10. If you had bought a $5 comic and saw it increase in value and saw that you could easily sell it for a profit, wouldn't you be more willing to buy more comics? As I stated previously, when comics go up in value it is due to a self-fulfilling prophecy among collectors that the comics should be worth more and are worthy of owning at a higher price. Dollar boxes inspire people on a budget, but it also keeps their collections having a low market value and it guarantees that they will be harder to sell 5 years from now if you have unplanned financial catastrophe. Defiant1
1/2/2021 Topic: True Sport Picture Stories (#41) Defiant1	Is it published by "Street and Smith Publications"? If so, I don't see it in the guide. Someone may ask what percentage of the publication features comic stories. If there's a higher percentage of text, it may not be considered worthy of being included.
1/2/2021 Topic: "Hot" Comics Defiant1	Taskmaster: You need to get to the bottom of this problem of yours. Then, get the help you need. You are the Comic Collector version of an Incel, but we can't tell if you are bitching because you sold stuff too soon or too late, or if you missed a spike , etc. All we know, is that you lost big or lost consistently, and bitch about it. You take this too far, being in the Home of CPG and ranting about them, while still expecting someone to fetch you a drink. Look - I bought Lady Death 1 and sold it like 2 weeks later for $100 - are you going to threaten to fight me over this? Or are you the guy that thinks having 37 variant covers of any comic book issue is a good thing? "I don't see" "I don't get" "Why" "How come" You may be in the wrong business or hobby, if there is more in it that baffles you or enrages you, than makes you happy. Just read your flarkin comics, sell what you can and if you can't sell your comics maybe you have crap comics. If you don't get how {Insert whatever item/thing} Market works, stay away. Complaining that you don't get it only serves to remind us all that you keep talking about it but don't get it. Stop bitching that you missed a trend and those comics you banked on aren't hot any more. Stop bitching because you missed buying a hot comic, or one that became hot later. Stop being that guy PISSED at "The Industry" because his 137 copies of Superman #75 just aren't considered collateral for a home loan. It's A Market - things that are new have a specific value when sold, after that it's completely up to good old supply/demand. Guess what? It's not going to be what you think or expect. As long as you keep reminding everyone that you are surprised and don't get it, you are going to keep being told NO CRAP oh and let me get this out of the way- eBay is not a price guide - so as long as you keep bitching about what people at eBay will pay for a comic book, you don't understand anything and forfeit any arguments concerning comic books and Economics Let me know if I missed anything... I think you are being a little hard on the guy. The publishers are using every trick in their short play book to make comics seem collectible AND sabotage the back issue market at the same time. The odds are completely against profitable speculation on new comics. I would not even consider it.
1/5/2021 Topic: Question about page count... Defiant1	Gary1926 wrote: Ghost Breakers #2 indicates "52 Thrilling Pages, but the pulp portion has only 48 pages. Is there someone who will state unequivocally that the front cover, its backside, and the back cover and its inside make up the 4 pages? I have had two of these comics in my hands and both center stapled pages are the same. The center doesn't appear to be missing any part of the comic as a flowing story. Please let me hear from possibly someone who has this same comic. I have included what I have seen as the center of this comic. Thank you in advance for your expertise and assistance. The covers are included in the page count. I know of no situation where the covers are not included. In other words, it's a normal practice when page counts are referenced on the cover of a comic.