Back in 2001, a friend of mine had been talking to me about GI Joe–toys, comics, etc. And then more strikingly, and as has stuck with me for the last 15 years or so–I remember his commenting on the release date of a new comic series: Devil’s Due published their then-new GI Joe comic on September 12th, 2001. One day after 9/11.
Several years later, he and I went to a signing at his local shop with Michael Turner. Along with the an Identity Crisis issue, poster, and something else…I bought the Marvel GI Joe vol. 1 paperback, reprinting the first 10 issues of that original series.
I never did get the rest of that 5-volume series, that had reprinted just under 1/3 of the core/main ongoing series.
Skip ahead a few years to IDW…they got the new license, and apparently the rights to any/all prior-published GI Joe comics (Marvel and Devil’s Due), so they followed the Marvel format and reprinted the classic series in 10-issue volumes. Somewhere along the way, I wound up with the IDW edition of the first volume, and then the second. (I keep that original Marvel one for the sentimental value, but have a definite desire to get the entirety of the run of the classic volumes.) The Classic GI Joe run is all the more appealing to me as I recently discovered that IDW is (wisely and awesomely, I might add!) re-collecting their own GI Joe: A Real American Hero run into subsequently-numbered volumes. The ARAH series had a "zero issue" as a Free Comic Book Day #155 1/2 a number of years ago, and then picked up with the original Marvel numbering at #156 and continues (I believe) to this day, somewhere in the #220s.
[A 15+ YEAR publishing gap, and they STARTED the series–that would have had every right and been completely, entirely legitimately in-bounds to begin with #1–at #156. And it’s done well enough at least to go at least 60 issues now!]
The other day, despite being a lot tighter with my finances lately, I found a number of the IDW Classic GI Joe volumes and snagged them–I know I intend to get them, and when else am I going to find a bunch at the same place/same time for 50% off?
While they had 5 volumes (3-7) I noticed a nasty tear in the outer spine of the 7th volume that would be glaringly obvious (to me, at least) on the shelf, not reasonably repairable, and certainly not at all worth my time/hassle for the higher price (seems the first 6 volumes were $19.99 before jumping to $24.99 for 7+).
Still, already having the first two, even "only" getting the four volumes at half-off cover (surprisingly, as I honestly do not know if these–or these specific printings–are still considered "in print" or not) made for a fantastic deal, especially balanced against the notion that each volume has 10 issues, and 10 contemporary Marvel comics would be what I paid for 40 issues’ content across these four volumes.
Unfortunately, I discovered a bit of a surprise Sunday night when I went to peel the price stickers off.
Usually, Half-Price Books has these stickers that–like many bookstores–adhere reliably to the book covers…but unlike cheapo retail/grocery store price tags, the bookstores’ tags are generally of some material/stickiness that can be peeled off easily, simply, and cleanly, leaving no residue, stickiness or other damage/marking behind.
However, under the "new" HPB stickers, I found horrible residue from what seems to be an older HPB sticker. At first glance, I thought maybe (just maybe) I had done a bad peel, ripping it off way faster than necessary. But no, examining what was left behind, it most definitely was not from the sticker that I myself had peeled off.
The sticker I peeled off is still clean and–aside from "curling," undamaged. The bad-sticker underneath is peeled/torn in such a way that I feel rather justified "assuming" any one of several things:
- Someone screwed up with sticker stock that was used, and after attempting to peel it off, realized it couldn’t simply be done and so just covered it up with the new sticker
- Someone screwed up the price, and after ripping off the old sticker simply put a new one over with no regard that as something that could well be in their "collectibles stock," someone might actually care about un-removable bad-sticker residue in buying or not buying the books
- Someone bought these from HPB sometime ago, gave up attempting to remove the original sticker, so what’s there was just left there, and when it was sold back to HPB, they just put new stickers over the old (again, covering up what can significantly forfeit true VALUE to many people in the CONDITION of a book)
My primary peeve, personally, in this case is that the bad-sticker stuff was COVERED UP. I had no clue of it until after I got the books home–it’s NOT like I peel price stickers off a book AT THE STORE or anything. Buying used, or second-hand, or whatever–I have a much higher tolerance for condition of the book…but it tends to greatly bother me on pricing. If "expected price" is 1/2-off cover price and most stuff is in pretty good condition…when something is noticeably damaged, I’d be inclined to think that justifies a modified-downward price…such as on what they seem to deem as so worthy of being "collectible materials." If it’s so "collectible" and they’re such experts to deal in wildly-varied values of stuff, surely they should also attend to issues like huge patches of shredded/leftover stickers/sticker residue.
That said, while I am highly frustrated at the scraping I had to do to "mostly" remove the residue…I’m still very glad I was able to get these 4 books for half-cover-price each, making them extremely reasonably priced…and bringing me up to about the 1/3 mark for having the entire series of Classic GI Joe.
Above: including this purchase, my "GI Joe Library."
Along with my specific complaints about the GI Joe volumes…the Half-Price Books location I found them at was one I haven’t been to in about 6 months, so I was quite shocked when I checked their "regular comics" section out of curiosity, given the two locations closer to where I live have the "all are $1 unless marked" and "all are now 25 (50? I can’t remember) cents unless marked."
This one has them as $2 unless marked–and with marked prices generally being at least $2 if not more (with $10, $15, $25 marked, and some color photocopies/printouts put as proxies in the bins with the actual issues held behind the counter for $25+ issues).
The issues that would be $2? Mainly stuff that I would deem–at best–$1 bin fodder at an actual comic shop.
Meanwhile, checking for some joy in the "clearance" endcap yielded its own shock: clearance comics were all price-stickered as $1.00!
To say that I was appalled would be an understatement…so much so that I tweeted out the above photo with my frustration the other day!
But getting into all this has led me to what is likely the topic for an entire post on its own.
Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts | Tagged: Classic GI Joe, comic books, comics, G.I. Joe, GI Joe: A Real American Hero, Half-Price Books, HPB, HPBHaul, IDW, IDW Publishing, MARVEL, used books | 1 Comment »
Comic Reviews by Walt 