Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin
Sparing you the worst since 1969
Mikester …so here’s a picture of the Enterprise crew fighting a googly-eyed dinosaur (identified as a “tyrannosaurus” later in the story) with an inset pic of Badly-Rendered Kirk reciting the TV show’s intro:
The upshot of all this is that X-Files became a “hot” item in a business where “hot” items were a pretty significant factor in almost destroying said business just a year or two earlier. And you can see a good example of just how “hot” it was if you cast your peepers back to the scan above and the price sticker visible therein.
That issue was among the many, many comics that came with this collection, and was one of the books that survived the sorting process as I worked through the boxes, throwing some into the bargain boxes and keeping some aside for potential use in the regular stock, or on the eBay. I haven’t dealt much with the old Topps run of X-Files…people poke through its slot in the back issue boxes once in a while, but it’s not like I’ve had a lot of demand of the series lately, even with a new series being released from IDW. At any rate, I’ve not really thought about the prices on this series in some time, and spotting the #1 in this collection, I pulled it aside thinking it was, if no longer at the $55 price it had been marked, surely it was probably still worth something.
Well, nope, not really.
A quick search of the eBay shows lots of the first three, four or five issues (including the first printing of #1, like the one I have from that collection) usually only sell for about five to ten bucks. The #1 by itself sold for as cheaply as $2, and I found one that sold for nearly eight bucks, which is more the exception than the rule, it seems. (A “slabbed” copy of #1, signed the stars of the TV series, sold for about $400, so I guess there’s that.) There are copies currently listed in the $10 – $15 range, but unless someone’s desperate to get a copy, they’re probably not going anywhere fast.
And I didn’t go back to double-check, because I’ve looked at eBay enough today, but my impression was that there were many attempts to sell the serial-numbered second printings as some kind of special big-deal thing, but no one cares too much about those, either.
The “too long, didn’t read” version: some formerly-hot comics don’t sell for what they used to anymore, which I’m sure comes as a surprise to everyone. And yet, even with this knowledge, I still don’t want to just dump this comic in the bargain bin. The days of getting $55 for this comic are long gone, but I might be able to get $5, maybe, if I’m lucky.
Still think that’s a good idea. The team book version of Legion is not one people seem to want anymore, or at least no one’s hit on a version of the Legion that really does anything for anybody. There’s going to be another Legion book sooner or later, and it can’t hurt to try something different…I mean, what, you might end up with another dead Legion book if the idea doesn’t pan out? Or maybe you might have something that has a little staying power? What’s to lose, really? Other than money, creative efforts, market value of a DC property which has been adversely affected by yet another cancellation, so on?
Having looked more closely at the toys, we’ll probably keep a handful of the usable stuff and dump the rest, either in the trash or in an eBay auction titled “BIG BOX OF CRAP – cheap! L@@K H@T” just to get it all out of my hair. Even the box of little accessories probably isn’t worth the trouble or mess, and may go on the eBay too. Someday. When I have the time.
Here I am, rocking you like a hurry-can once again with yet another look at what treasures await us in the not-too-distant future in the latest issue of Diamond Previews. Grab your copy of the February 2014 edition and follow along…and please enjoy the joke I totally stole from Mr. Show (video link maybe NSFW):
p. 76 – Conan the Avenger #1:
Also, I considered making a “Bat-pole” joke, but let’s not drag these thoughts of love into the gutters.
p. 449 – Hanna Barbera Captain Caveman 3-inch Action Figure:
p. 507 – The Nightmare Before Christmas Jack Skellington Goblet:
Indiana Jones closely studies the array of goblets, large and small, ornate and plain, that are spread out before him, as Elsa and the Old Knight watch.
Suddenly, Indiana reaches out and grabs the Jack Skellington Goblet. He dips it into the water, then takes a deep drink from the skeletal chalice. A great cry goes out, as all the inhabitants from Halloweentown emerge from the shadows and celebrate Indiana’s success. The Mayor’s head spins around to its happy visage and declares today to be Indiana Jones Day!
“You have chosen…wisely,” intones the Old Knight, as Lock, Shock and Barrel chase each other around his legs.
p. 528 – Scooby-Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery Blu-Ray & DVD:
Between having a very long day at work and spending my Tuesday evening doing prepwork for Thursday’s End of Civilization post, I didn’t leave myself a lot of time for an entry for today, other than:
Tom Spurgeon responds by saying he’d rather not see a rebooting of B.P.R.D., which isn’t really what I want, either, but at this point the series isn’t too kind to anyone new to the franchise. Of course, as we’re all learning again right now with the “Marvel Now #1s” publishing initiative, a relaunch is a jumping-off point as much as a jumping-on point, and starting again with a new B.P.R.D. series (without an attendant Hellboy movie to bump up some awareness) would likely, after a brief spike in sales, end up just selling to the same people who were already buying it before.
As I said, I can see this B.P.R.D. ending and wrapping up its years-long storylines, and the current Abe Sapien title incorporating the B.P.R.D. elements in a perhaps more reader-friendly manner. (Much in the same way I once argued that the Legion of Super-Heroes could be revitalized by making one of the Legionnaires the star of his/her own book, and the rest of the Legion the occasionally-appearing supporting cast.) I wouldn’t think of that as a full-on “reboot” so much as some retooling, but I’m likely just splitting hairs.
So let’s gaze long into this abyss:
Well, okay, not all of the boxes. The acquisition of any large collection usually results in a small percentage of the received items being desirable, usable items, and the greater portion mostly being stuff like this. The jury is still out on how much of this collection will be of use to us, since we’re still going through it. My first pass through resulted in about half of the comics going straight to the bargain bins — so long, Brigade! — while we’re still going through the other half which is just on the threshold of possibly being sellable items. It’s mostly late ’80s – mid ’90s material, but there are plenty of Valiant titles, Amazing Spider-Man issues, some Deadpool, and other goodies that are in enough demand to warrant some double-checking prior to consigning them to bargain-box purgatory.
That’s just the comics. The toys, on the other hand, were packed haphazardly into a handful of beaten-up cardboard boxes, and if they were intended for sale before, the condition they’re in now make most of them pretty much useless. I half-suspect some rough playing with the toys occurred after the removal from the store, because there sure are a lot of limbless and otherwise busted figures in there.
But then again, that particular box pictured above was marked “ACTION FIGURE ACCESSORIES – $0.25 EACH” so maybe they just had a bunch of used toys they were trying to unload for anything, and now I guess it’s my turn. I briefly though about trying to match up some of the bits ‘n’ pieces in that cardboard box with the action figures in the other boxes, but I’m too close to death to use up my precious remaining minutes doing that.
The box did contain a few of these fellas:
Also in the box was a canister of this stuff:
As long as I’ve got your attention, it occurs to me that it’s been a long time since I’ve trolled any of you. So…
Like I said, we’re still digging through these boxes, so I may yet find more goodies of interest to show you. Like this Image Comics editorial preview package from 1995:
So I was clued in by one of Johanna’s recent posts that there was a new Justice League animated feature that was going to be available exclusively at Target stores, which seemed to come as a surprise to pretty much everybody. According to this interview with the director, there was a desire for a DC superhero cartoon that maybe skewed a little younger than the usual DC Direct films that could be marketed alongside the toylines, and this was the result.
They really want you to know that this is an “original movie,” since it not only tells you so in a blurb directly printed under the title, but this sticker is affixed to the front of the package as well:
The character designs are New 52-inspired, with too many seams and not enough red trunks:
One of the major highlights in the story is when everybody time travels back to Smallville, with the villains attempting to prevent the Kents from rescuing baby Kal-El, and the heroes trying to keep history on track. It’s a very funny, slightly surreal sequence as the good guys and bad guys play keep-away with Baby Kal, who is repeatedly referred to as “Superbaby.” This Silver Age fan approves.
While mostly enjoyable, if slight, there are some minor quibbles with the film, such as Robin’s characterization as a bit of a petulant child (meant to be comic relief, and probably funny to the target (heh) audience, but may grate on old people like you and me). Plus, the Time Trapper’s ultimate gambit, to apparently…wreck stuff around Earth with time vortices, I guess? — doesn’t seem like much of a final battle beyond giving heroes one last action scene to show off their stuff.
One surprising positive: this dude shows up, and though my initial reaction was “oh, no,” he’s actually one of the more entertaining parts of the film:
Bonus features on this disc include two of the original Super Friends episodes, both involving some kind of time travel, and I haven’t watched them yet because I’m sure I’ve seen them before and therefore they have already stolen away enough of my life.
Overall it’s a fun cartoon, despite some minor issues, and hopefully will lead to more all-ages original animated features based on DC properties. …By which of course I mean “Swamp Thing.”
So a few years back I wrote this little piece about the Flash series publishing shenanigans, in which what appeared to be a relaunched Flash ongoing series ended up secretly being a mini-series, which was supplanted by a continuation of the previous Flash series that this new “ongoing” series supposedly replaced. The upshot of all that was, had I known it was going to be a mini-series, I would have ordered it as such, rather than ordering it as a supposed ongoing series with the potential for a longer back issue sales life.
Boy, times have changed. The announcement that Superman Unchained is ending — another huge launch that maybe I would have ordered lower numbers on had I realized it was going to be a nine-issue mini-series — reminded me that for most of my new comics orders, I’m ordering with the assumption that (in DC’s case) the title will probably be cancelled soon, or (in Marvel’s case) the series will be relaunched with a new #1. I’m not ordering with the assumption that there will be a long-standing interest in back issue sales on most titles.
That’s the really super-cynical way of looking at it, I realize, and I’m exaggerating to some extent. But a lot of these relaunches and re-relaunches and ridiculous numbering schemes aren’t helping any. That recent Avengers comic that was actually #24 but tried to kick off a soft-relaunch by emphasizing the beginning of a brand new storyline with big ol’ “#1” on the cover? I actually sold less of those than I did of previous issues. But I did bump my orders up slightly because I thought maybe sales would go up a bit, so Marvel got more money out of me, therefore this was a success for them, I guess.
But for a lot of these new Marvel relaunches I’m not ordering much more than what I’m already selling. Judging by Marvel’s…enthusiastic sales plateaus for the multiple variants they’re offering, it looks like they want me to order a lot more than what I have been, but I don’t see how a new Secret Avengers #1 is going to sell any more than the current Secret Avengers series which just debuted a few months ago. I did sell more of the recent Thunderbolts issue that brought in Ghost Rider, because people like Ghost Rider, but I don’t know if this new Ghost Rider series is going to sell. I can already hear the complaints: “This doesn’t look like Ghost Rider!” “Who’s this new guy? Where’s Johnny Blaze/Danny Ketch?”
I’ve said before we do good business in back issue sales. Even early issues of most of DC’s New 52 titles still move, so long as those titles are still producing new installments. So long as any of the titles on the stands are producing new installments, I can usually move the back issues for that series. But the likelihood of any title maintaining a continuity of issue-numbering, thus also maintaining that stretch of increased back issue demand, is rapidly decreasing, and I am ordering accordingly. A few comics I still order with the expectation that they’ll sell in the back issue bins, but those are increasingly the exception.
Anyway, I don’t have any terribly deep insights here…just letting my mind wander about on how the industry has changed so much. Not that pursuing short-term profits over long-term growth is anything new for comics, but I don’t recall it ever being so obvious. Well, maybe during the ’90s boom, but there was actual money to be made then, and not the pennies everyone’s chasing after now.
I may or may not be in Low Content Mode this week, but I’m certainly in Low Content Mode today, hence:
It’s only been a day or so since it’s come out, so I suppose it’s really too soon to judge for sure, but sales out of the gate have been…okay, not great, with some purchases of the book only coming after extended discussions attempting to explain the history and significance of the comics. And emphasizing the discounted price!
…And, of course, mentioning the writers. “The Original Writer” sobriquet that replaces Alan Moore’s credit in the advertising and the solicitation information does appear in the book, on the inside front cover, despite my initial impression it wasn’t there at all, that Marvel just eschewed creator credits altogether. But nope, there it is, white on black, right there next to “ARTIST: GARRY LEACH.” Yeah, it looks dumb, but what can you do. I suppose “WRITER: A.M.” or “MR. M.” or “JILL DE RAY” were out of the question.
Anyway, I had to handsell the books using Alan Moore’s name on my own, since Marvel wasn’t permitted to identify him properly, though most folks at the shop already seemed to realize that Moore was involved with this particular project. Not so well known, apparently, was the fact that Neil Gaiman stories would eventually appear in the series, culminating in never-before-published new installments by Gaiman and artist Mark Buckingham. That particular tidbit appeared to tip over a number of people to the side of forking over a few dollars to try out this oddball comic.
I’ve also been hearing here and there that some digital editions of this comic feature some mild editing: a fairly innocuous bare bottom is covered up, Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking-style. All I can tell you is that when the “birth” story comes around, those digital funnybook sellers are going to have to blank out whole panels on several pages. Good luck with that! (The print comic, at least this first issue, is not similarly censored. The butts run free!)
As to the comic itself: the remastering of the original pages was done quite nicely, I have to admit. The coloring is very bright and clear, certainly better than the somewhat murky reproduction in the Eclipse Comics editions. (The glossy white pages help!) The new lettering is well done, too, and I haven’t noticed any egregious typos just yet, which frequently has been a problem in other reprint projects requiring relettering. I hope the quality in that particular area stays high, because nothing really takes me out of the reading experience like a misused “it’s.”
There’s an enormous amount of padding, filling out the book from what should have been a more reasonable $3.99 32-page experience to a $5.99 64-pager containing material that you may or may not have any interest in, and could have easily been spaced out as back-ups in subsequent issues. All the first issue really needed was that history of Marvelman textpiece, and, okay, maybe the pullquotes from that interview with MM creator Mick Anglo, only squeezed down to a couple of pages.
The black and white reprints of three “classic” MM stories from the 1950s are excessive, given that we already have the redialogued “Invaders from the Future” story from about the same time period serving as the contrasting prologue for Moore ‘n’ Leach’s Miracleman story. The original MM stories presented here are…well, rough going for modern readers, to put it kindly, and eating up pages with these adventures isn’t exactly adding to the book’s perceived value. There are some good — well, at least good-ish — classic MM stories, but boy, these three aren’t it.
Future issues appear to contain more Miracleman content and less other stuff, and at the slightly cheaper but still not-great price of $4.99, so hopefully the price/content ratio will be more favorable to sales. Assuming, of course, enough people give the first issue a try.
Again, to repeat a point I’ve made on this site, I want this project to be a success. Not just out of the selfish desire to finally read the conclusion to this story I’ve been anticipating for decades — well, okay, mostly that — but because it is a great comic and one of the recent seemingly-lost treasures of the industry. It’s a comic series that deserves to be available and in print, even if the eventual collected editions are in the hands of the ever-mercurial Marvel graphic novel department. At the very least we’ll get a new run of trades reprinting Miracleman that, once they fall out of print, may go for slightly less on eBay versus the sometimes-crazypants prices the Eclipse volumes command. But perhaps I’m being cynical.
Slightly related: Employee Aaron brought in a V for Vendetta action figure, still in the package, that he said he purchased at our shop years ago. I absolutely cannot, for the life of me, remember selling these figures. I may learn a lesson from that, should I mistakenly think about it too closely.
…but one of you did, taking to heart the subject line of this post and sending me my very own copy of the Superman Annual 1983 from the UK. Big thanks to longtime reader, the spectacularly-if-possibly-filthily-handled “Suckmaster Burstingfoam.” Here is a scan of the back cover of the very item he sent me, since you already know what the front looks like from the previous post on the topic:
Here are the endpapers:
And as expected, there was some slight editing required with the dropping of the flashback pages in this collected edition. In the original DC Comics Presents #29, the full-page flashback sequence in which Superman recounts the events of the previous two issues is followed by this panel at the top of the following page:
With the flashback page gone, the panel undergoes some minor editing:
It’s a nice item, and I’m very grateful to Mr. S.B. for sending it my way. Thank you!