Welcome, Guest

• Forgot your password?
• Apply for membership

1. • CommentAuthorLee
   • CommentTimeSep 6th 2010 edited

    
   I've just spent a relatively pleasant (I'm a nerd) 80 minutes or so listing comics on Comic Collector Live. That's six longboxes done, now (only 21 to go...)
   
   This has reminded me of several things, which I shall now share with you, if you'll indulge and cast your mind back (if you're old enough or possess the mental faculties) to the 90s.
   
   1) From 1996 to 2001, almost every character in the X-Men universe seemed to be able to sell a three or four issue mini. And I bought them all.
   2) Three issue minis - these were great. Now every story has to be dragged out to twice that to sell the trades.
   3) 1993's X-Men: Survival Guide To The Mansion - this was a spiral-bound work of awesome.
   4) Wasn't it nice when the artist who drew the cover also drew what was inside? These days you get a 'superstar' on the outside and then someone of 'lesser' talent inside. Imagine if the cover implied Alan Moore but the contents were Fred Van Lente - would that be fair?
   5) It's sad that Nightcrawler is dead. I hope he gets better soon.
2. • CommentAuthorCaptain Si
   • CommentTimeSep 6th 2010

    
   I agree muchly with number 4. I quite often find myself in the horrible habit of checking out the contents before purchasing. I am not keen on this rather cynical practice. Especially as more often than not, the interior artist is equally capable, just different.
3. •  
     CommentAuthorOK Comics
   • CommentTimeSep 7th 2010

    
   I've come close to selling my spiral bound X-Men Survival Guide to the Mansion once or twice over the years, but I'm glad I never have...
4. • CommentAuthorLee
   • CommentTimeSep 7th 2010

    
   It is awesome! Why would you sell it? That's crazy-talk...
5. •  
     CommentAuthorOK Comics
   • CommentTimeSep 7th 2010

    
   http://www.comicvine.com/x-men-survival-guide-to-the-mansion-/37-220106/
6. • CommentAuthorLamont Cranston
   • CommentTimeSep 7th 2010

    
   I too have been staggering down Nostalgia Boulevard, thanks largely to a comics rationalisation exercise conducted in The Garage of Solitude. Many thoughts leapt unbidden and through eyes made misty with tears of remembrance I remembered some stuff too. Actually it might have been the asbestos rather than remembrance.
   
   I remember the New Format DC books. Do YOU? This was a quantum leap forward in printing and colouring technology. And when I say “quantum leap forward” I mean “a not terribly successful implementation of techniques that needed a bit more work before asking people to pay for the result”.
   
   Anyway, instead of the old way of colouring funny books (which involved warehouses of geriatrics chained by the ankle to massive tables slopping carcinogenic slop in the rough direction of where their cataract occluded eyes told them Jimmy Olsen’s head might be) we had the new way of colouring funny books. I think it involved machines. As a result all DC’s books in The New Format resembled something that had been coloured in using a cutting edge combination of weak dyes and cat p*ss. This stuff managed to look both anaemic and acidic at the same time. It was horrible. It also appears that machines were even less precise than old people when it came to staying within the lines. The paper was okay though. DC’s New Format books . I didn’t like them. Also the massive redundancies the new technology incurred amongst senior citizens led to the horrific New York Zimmer Riots. So horrific in fact that no one ever mentions them.
   
   Comic book covers? I remember when they had speech bubbles (balloons – u decide!) on them. Like the cover of Sgt Rock #331 (which has just flicked up as my wallpaper. Technology!) upon which in the background a General is rushing away from the reader into battle yelling “Take care of him, Rock…He’s my SON!” And Rock cradles a mangled GI body in the foreground and <thinks> “H-How’m I goin’ to tell him…HIS SON’S DEAD?” You don’t want to read that? You don’t want to know what happens? Check your pulse, pal! Seeing that is like having someone empty a bucket of excitement over you.
   
   I just don’t think a picture of people not even in the comic standing in a line really has the same oomph. Ooomph is a technical term. Mind you, Sgt Rock #356 (new wallpaper! Technology!) has no speech but it does have Frank Rock shellacking a bunch of Nazis with his bandoliers swinging and the logo is surmounted by the classic “Sgt. Rock IS “The Point”. Next time someone asks you what the point is. Tell ‘em “Sgt. Rock IS “The Point”!”
   
   I also remember when all this was fields and you could leave your back door open all night without waking up with knives in your eyes.