Every so often I do something that in hindsight I’ll usually describe as an excellent learning experience, but in the here and now is most accurately described as “really dumb”. Case in point, several months back I bid on an eBay auction entitled “Huge Collection 1000 COMICS Silver/Bronze/Age comic lot”. There was about an hour left on the auction and it was sitting at about $150, shipping was $40. I figured if I could sneak in and win the thing for about $200 net, I’d snag a nice lot of books for around twenty cents each. So I wait until there’s about five minutes left and place my bid. Then some punk tries to snipe me and all of a sudden I'm getting beat by one dollar! One dollar??!! Have I ever mentioned how competitive I am? Five minutes later I won the auction for a total of $270, including shipping. Not exactly what I planned, but only another 70 bucks. It’s just a medium of exchange right?
1000 comics! 27 cents each! And it says right here that each lot may contain up to 1000 golden age, silver age…wait a minute, "may contain up to"...
After about two months and ten emails I finally got the guy to send enough boxes that the total number of books added up to about 850 – his guaranteed minimum had been 800, the first shipment contained 500 books, mostly junk. But I doggedly pursued my minimum money’s worth out of principle, which in my case is also a euphemism for “stubborn”. Besides, I never miss an opportunity to doggedly pursue something, they come so rarely.
But the lot was not without a few nuggets as well as head-scratchers. The head-scratchers are more fun. Like, Wildstorm Ultimate Sports: Official Program #1.
Whose clever idea was this? And was there a second issue? This comic features one page vignettes of various WildStorm characters competing in the “inaugural WildStorm Ultimate Sports Games.” My biggest complaint is that it purports to be a program and yet there’s no schedule of events, venue maps or competitor lists. Not even a listing of televised events. I’m guessing it aired on ESPN9, which would explain why I didn’t see it - that’s the only sports channel my dish doesn’t get. Another problem with this book is in many pictures the competitors are sans safety helmet. That’s just dangerous and a bad example for the kids at home.
Another oddity was the first issue of a book by Renegade Press called the WordSmith. It’s a black & white book that tells the story of a depression era pulp fiction writer. Reading the author’s note (David Darrigo) we discover that WordSmith is a bit of a love-letter to the pulps and “pulpeteers” with many of the details based on historical facts. For that reason alone I’d be interested in reading the balance of the books, even though this first issue isn’t dramatically compelling. There appears to have been 12 issues in all – if this page at Mile High Comics is any indication. And it showed up at number 95 in The Staros Reports guide to the top 192 Comic Books in the industry back in 1996/97. I’m honestly not sure what the value in that is, but being on anybody’s list is at least something to hang your hat on.
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I also found this issue of Wild Cards:
This is issue number one from Epic Comics. The comic is based on a series of books by George R.R. Martin. The books are actually the collaborative efforts of a number of writers, and the comic is the same – with at least some of the writers pulling double duty. The funny thing to me is that I remember running across one of the books in a bookstore about ten years ago and at the time I thought it must have been based on a comic book. Turns out it’s the other way around. Digging a little deepr I found that the books may have developed out of a role playing game involving some of the authors.
The comic itself is engaging, although the art is a bit rough in patches, and there’s a definite sense of depth to the characters, but it comes with a nagging feeling that there’s a whole lot the reader hasn’t -- and may never be -- told. It presupposes a lot of knowledge leading me to think the comics were largely aimed at readers who had previously read the books.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all these comics. I’ll certainly read some of them, blog about them occasionally, maybe turn around and try to sell some of them on eBay -- there are pretty significant runs of Valiant titles in the mix -- but mostly they’ll sit in my attic, in boxes, waiting to be joined by my next impulse purchase.
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