Comic Reviews by Walt

While visiting with a friend at the start of a “mini vacation” last week, we wound up in a Half-Price Books. Her idea, but I’d already had some thoughts of going to one. And the fact that we both can enjoy browsing a book store is an added plus of the friendship. Of course, despite my pointing out a bunch of stuff in suggestion to her, I still wound up spending more than she did…though in my defense I went through about 3 “phases” as I put stuff back to hang onto other stuff, before finally settling on what I actually bought and walked out with.

The bulk of my purchase was Aliens Omnibus volume 4 and Aliens Omnibus volume 5…which add to my existing volumes 1-3. I’ll have to look ’em up but I’m thinking there may only be 6 of these, so it’d definitely be cool to have the run.

I also bought 3 $1 comics–a reprint of Star Wars #1 from Marvel; the still-sealed Batman: Shadow of the Bat #1 collector’s set (bought it for the posters). and a slightly beat-up copy of Prime #1/2 because hey…it’s Prime #1/2 and it’s definitely not nearly as common as #1, or even the majority of #s 1-15 or so.

I was quite amazed at the bulk of the $1 stock–it was all stuff I’d generally consider to be 25-cent stock, with very few exceptions (including what I deemed “worth” my $1/ea).

However, they had a bunch of 25-cent “clearance” stock…each individual issue tagged with a break-apart price sticker directly on the covers, meaning one’s either stuck with that sticker, or very likely would have to rip a hole in the cover trying to peel the thing off. Much of the 25-cent stock was NUMEROUS copies of VERY FEW issues. I pulled a stack of about 15 copies of an Image foil cover….Something #2. Saw at least a dozen copies of Rai and the Future Force #11. May have been a bunch of #9 as well. It was both disgusting yet morbidly fascinating at the same time.

I made a point of showing these to my friend, explaining that apparently they’d bought a collection from someone who finally realized these were near-worthless.

Of course, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter #1 was in the $1 stock, when I’ve heard stories of entire longboxes full of the thing being hoarded. Maybe a good thing I don’t work at HPB as I would NOT in good conscience be able to sell most of the issues for $1!

Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: Aliens, Aliens Omnibus, comics, Dark Horse, Dark Horse Comics, MARVEL, Prime, Shadow of the Bat, star wars |