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Final Haul of 2016

New Year’s Eve, I made a quick trip to the old comic shop to pick up a few things. I also stopped at a Books-A-Million to snag something for a friend, and wound up getting a couple things for myself while I was there. These are the highlights–minus thirty-three 20-cent issues.

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Lotta Aliens stuff. Well, and Predator. And the mashing together of the properties. In short, awesomeness. I’m loving these new Titan volumes collecting the classic Dark Horse Novels books. Even though I have the originals, I’ve been getting these for the completeness. I’ve been realizing the last year-plus that Aliens (and related) properties are much like TMNT for me in being willing to "double-dip" (or more) on stuff.

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With a 20%-off-everything-but-brand-new-comics sale going on, I snagged the Munchkin mini-expansion Dragons (to go with Dragon’s Trike that I got several weeks ago)…and got the Super Powers Superman figure/"statue" to go with the Robin one I got several months ago (though now I definitely want Batman. And Flash. And perhaps even Green Lantern…)

And Friday I’d revisited the closer comic shop for several volumes:

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At half-off and fitting in with recent Clone Saga and Ben Reilly volumes plus CHapter One and The Original Clone Saga that I’d had from 2015 or early 2016, I decided that I wanted them…especially having seen them. So I decided that if they still had all three volumes, I’d get ’em; all-or-nothing.

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And now the Spidey portion of my collection is starting to look like something not completely pitiful. Of course, I believe I have four more volumes to track down for the Clone Saga Epic, and decide how much I’m willing to pay on the Ben Reilly volumes 5 & 6 (even cover price seems way too expensive!) (especially having gotten 1-4 for $8/ea!)

Hopefully this week will be a relatively small week, though!

Finally, the clear bonus to going back to the shop on Friday was getting to see Winston!

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(He was still sleepy when I took this photo). He put up with my attention, though, which (as always) made the trip worth it for that alone!

The Weekly Haul – Week of December 28th, 2016

…The final weekly haul of the year.

And for me, a mere two "regular" issues.

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The weekly Superman issue (biweekly/two titles). And having checked out and mostly enjoyed A.D. After Death‘s first issue, figured I’d go ahead and stick with it, since I believe it’s a 3-issue mini. I dig the format–it makes it REALLY feel worth its cover price, at "only" double a DC book, and only a little more than a Marvel!

For the physical quality, size, and length of time it took to read…blows anything Marvel is currently putting out (new content) outta the water for me!

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The shop I went to actually had some TMNT back issues I was missing. Since I was buying the Clone Saga Epic volume last week, I’d passed on these at $3/ea…but grabbed ’em this week. Cuz hey, filling in gaps in an actual key part of my personal collection! And even as back issues more than a decade old, they only cost me what any current DC book would!

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And finally, I had a "surprise" package when I got home on Tuesday. I’d both somewhat forgotten about the Kickstarter as well as thought stuff wouldn’t be here til sometime in January. I’d ordered this Zen book with a print.

Have to say I’m rather disappointed that this is labeled as a volume 2, as I did NOT realize that when I ordered. I may have known it was not a vol. 1, but nothing indicated it being LABELED thusly, that I recall seeing. So it goes (unfortunately) from being a random Zen graphic novel to being an orphaned #2 with no #1 in my library.


While I may hit the shop–or my usual–or both, even!–before the 1st…this was the final Wednesday of 2016, and so my last regular purchase for the year.

Be "interesting," I guess, to see what the coming year holds…though I have never been good about the end-of-year lists and summaries or coming-year predictions/expectations and such. Perhaps I’ll manage one this year?

The Weekly Haul – Week of December 21st, 2016

This was a relatively small week, with a number of factors.

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New Superman; new Aliens: Life and Death (hard to believe it’s been 2 years now since the whole Fire and Stone thing!). And from a 50% off bin, the first volume of the Clone Saga to go with my first four Ben Reilly Epic.

50% off a Marvel trade is often stretching price-worthiness for me; "only" 40-42% (such as from InStockTrades) is a stretch in general, though still beats the heck outta full price.

Where with DC having reasonably-priced volumes, I’m much more willing to pay full price for those!

…And I’m leaving this at that. Short ‘n sweet. Back to revisiting the ’90s Friday, most likely… and maybe a "bonus" post or two over the weekend with Christmas and all.

The Weekly Haul – Week of December 07, 2016

Down to the final several weeks of the year (and the first comics week for me post-2016 birthday)! Counting back to somewhere after Halloween 1988 and early spring 1989, I’ve been "into" comics for 28 years now–over 75% of my lifetime! Or to phrase another way… I’ve only NOT been into comics for something less than 1/4 of my entire life!

This week worked out to be a pretty small week overall…really small, actually, such that I snagged a collected volume at full cover price and bought some stuff from $1 bins!

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After the driving I’ve been doing lately, I opted to stick with "just" the closer comic shop for this week–which means I’ll have at least the Aliens: Defiance issue waiting for me next week.

Along with my non-pull-list double-dipping on the Superman titles (not waiting for end-of-the-month bundles to arrive to read), I picked up a 2nd copy of the Direct Currents #1 magazine…and showing how much I did not look at it last week, I was pleasantly shocked to see the Super Sons ad on its back… that’s got to be probably my most anticipated upcoming title! And I love that they’re using the "classic" Superman/Batman logo with it!

And then, having seen the volume in the Comixology Pull list thing, I was interested in this One Week in the Library book. A HUGE thing it had going for it was the cover price–$9.99–so I didn’t feel too badly about buying it at "full price," after last week paying $4.99 each for two annuals and an ongoing TMNT, as well as $7.99 for the New Talent Showcase issue. This is much thicker/substantive.

AND it’s a case of the title, the CONCEPT, a textual DESCRIPTION "selling" me (again, along with the price point). Not some 20-40% "preview" of the issue online ("leaked" or otherwise). Just a title and concept for an acceptable price!

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With a surprising lack of 50-cent/12-for-$5 bins, I looked through a bunch of $1 bins that seem to have replaced the cheaper/older stuff at this shop.

No runs to speak of, at least not that I picked out, but I did find these six issues that were worthwhile to me to pick up.

Kaijumax for the heckuvit–only $1, and I have the $9.99 collected volume, so even now I’m still well below cover price on the individual issues, and this gives me the actual first issue to compare against the collected volume. A DC #50 in The Flash was quite worthwhile for only $1…rather than the original $4.99 price! Same for The Flintstones–for the $1, I’ll check it out where I was unwilling to buy it at full cover price.

The Street Fighter/GI Joe was interesting enough as a concept, and for "only" $1, more than willing to snag the issue, if only for the cover. While I loathe variants, I can’t deny that some of these overdone "action figure cover variants" hit a nostalgic sweet-spot for me! And for the price, opted to go with this, even if I wind up just using the cover itself–literally–as an art piece or such.

Then the Magic: The Gathering and Munchkin issues I bought soley for the card included with each. Well, primarily on the Munchkin issue; and I’m not sure if I already had this MTG issue, but on the offchance I ever decide to track down the single issues, doesn’t hurt to already have this now at the price.


Knowing I was looking at a small week, and coming off a weekend where I pointedly did my best to ignore my own birthday, I went ahead an placed an order with InStockTrades for an X-Men book I’ve wanted for awhile (and there are several more high on my want-list that I cannot justify buying all at once, though I’m increasingly anxious regarding their remaining in-print and thus significantly discounted!).

Unfortunately, though, I was also surprised with a real-life intrusion of discovering a burned-out headlight, necessitating the purchase of a replacement, which will likely now be a rather cold-weather endeavor in the doing of replacing the thing. Coldest day of the week, it looks like, so of course the bulb wouldn’t blow while we were having highly-unseasonable warm weather…

The Weekly Haul – Week of November 30, 2016

This week was a ridiculously HUGE week, in pricing, quantity, and physical size!

Getting into it:

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Newest issue of Surgeon X, which I enjoyed the first couple issues of, after jumping in a bit late. No apparent variant covers with this, or at least none that I saw to distract me or make me wonder which cover is the "real" or "regular" or "basic" cover. IF this is the variant or a variant…yeah, I’ll be highly annoyed, but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that!

I nearly passed on the New Talent Showcase, but I kinda liked the cover, and like the concept of the book, plus I’m just a sucker for these squarebound comics with spine text that can go right on the bookshelf as-is, even though they’re "just" a "single issue" of whatever. I also dig the notion of it being a one-shot/special to showcase the new talent, and not "pushing" some "branding" on a spread of regular/ongoing series as a notion OF the new talent (or "young guns") being somehow, by default, superior or more worthy of promotion than established talent.

While I appreciate the Direct Currents issue being magazine sized to go with the Rebirth preview back in the spring, I’d definitely prefer to see it comic-sized, as I do not presently have a good filing system for magazines. Still, as a "free" thing (comic shops had to BUY this, same as Free Comic Book Day stuff, same as loads of other promotional materials that we as customers tend to receive AS free) I can’t really grouse about it!

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I hate "clustering" of stuff. And it is truly very annoying after getting so used to DC‘s $2.99 price point to have two $4.99 books out the same week; all the more as these are not part of the "regular" series for either title, and thus I’m paying "full price" for to keep with complete runs from the DCBS "bundles" that allow me to get the entirety of Rebirth.

Worse, both of these are out the same week as the one IDW title and general exception to my other rules on pricing of "ongoing" titles and such TMNT Universe. Three issues, each one could be replaced with twenty issues from a quarter bin! $15…for three issues. Ugh!

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I’d "expected" these books last week: the shop passes the various Marvel blowout sales along to customers on their email list…so each of these cost me what two Marvel single issues would have! But each volume has a lot more than only two issues’ content!

And to me, in general, frankly, Marvel is doing a great job lately of making the Clone Saga and Ben Reilly Epic look particularly appealing to me…if only for knowing they’re 1. finite and 2. where they end. I’m just a bit bugged at the fact that books 5 & 6 are out of print/unavailable except at RIDICULOUS markups by third-party sellers. I may want the other two volumes for this set…but especially after getting these at only $8/ea, I sure as heck will not spend $20, $40, $60+ beyond cover price when I’d be hard-pressed even now to "justify" spending cover price on any of these! Great at $8, but Marvel‘s pricing in general is too "premium" for me on print stuff! (All the more their "new" content, as opposed to reprinting stuff from the 1990s)!

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Snagged these Double Take volumes for $1/ea (90% off). I know the company’s done/nothing forthcoming, and would have preferred to get all 10, but these are all that were present. For less than the cost of 2 Marvel issues, these’ll provide plenty of reading, and I’d hope I could (cheaply) find the other three volumes to have the complete, finite set, and though not in singles, this complete "dead universe."

Not impressed with most of the covers or the generic fonts–these look more like flags for a department store for differing lines of clothing or such, or some other generic tagging of something. But the notion of the stories being set in the same "universe" as Night of the Living Dead intrigued me before, and I’m certainly willing to have paid a whopping $1 per volume! (considering I have the shop pulling all $1-and-under promo single-issues, and I got these that each contain five comics’ worth of material!)

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Then just to grit my teeth all the more on a couldn’t-pass-them-up-for-the-price basis, I bought two boxed games. Together, these cost me a few cents more than two DC issues, and for under the price of a single issue apiece ($2.79ish and $3.49ish) I’m willing to have ’em for my games collection/shelf!

All the more at the price-shock of realizing the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game is a whopping $90!!! I’d LOVE to get THAT game, but that will likely have to wait to be some kinda personal reward/celebration of a major life event eventually. Assuming I don’t talk myself out of it in frustration over some key character minis being Kickstarterexclusive. (Thaaaaaat is a matter for another post, perhaps!)

Here’s hoping that next week is particularly light!

The Weekly Haul – Week of November 23, 2016

For a Wednesday that includes issues from last week, and the cover prices on stuff, this ended up being a rather light "week" for me. Especially with some stuff I’d half expected to have come in. Not gonna complain, though!

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Action Comics, A.D. After Death, and Super Powers! are from this week; as is TMNT, I believe. The Spawn issue and Darkwing Duck may be from last week; they were part of my pulls, but I didn’t make it to the usual shop last week. I actually swung by the other shop for the Action issue, as it was sold out at the usual.

I had not been planning on getting the After Death issue, especially being a limited series and "prestige format" at that…but its non-standard size caught my attention, and I figured might as well try it and see what I think of it.

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As part of a week-long sale, the usual shop was having a clearance sale, getting a bunch stuff out, with a "progressive discount" thing–Monday was 60% off, today was 70% off, and I believe Friday and Saturday will be 80% and 90% respectively.

I wound up buying a couple packs of gamedice for Munchkin, and the first three books above.

Batman Eternal vol. 1 cost roughly 3 regular Marvel issues, while War Stories and Superman: Secrets of the Fortress of Solitude were hardly more than the cost of a Marvel #1 each.

At the other shop, seeing the actual/regular/"finished" color cover edition, I went ahead and picked up the DC Universe: Rebirth – The Deluxe Edition…figured better to just pay that now than wind up adding numerous other things to some online order for now

I also flipped through the 25-cent bins, but nothing really caught my eye. There were several bins of series stuff, but others had already cherry-picked stuff, so there weren’t even any true "runs" of anything for me to snag.

Plenty of other stuff with Black Friday this week that’s gonna suck up money I don’t really have anyway.


Really, of everything, the one I was most looking forward to was the Rebirth Deluxe. It’s not a bad volume, though I think I was expecting something else. I’ve gotten SO USED TO hardcovers–especially the "deluxe" and "oversized" hardcovers–having dustjackets that this one feels a bit cheapened somehow, still slightly incomplete. But for its size, it’s not a bad price, and it’s nice to add to my "events" shelf.

Next week is a "Fifth Week" or "skip week," which at least on the DC side means several Annuals, which is also a bit of a bummer as they weren’t part of the bundles I’ve been getting, so if I want ’em, I’ll be paying the full price…

BREAKING: #Amazon Discovers Boxes Still Legal for Shipping!

I heard footsteps and the sound of something being dropped by the front door. Dreading what I might find when I looked, I checked anyway. I was expecting a book I’d pre-ordered months ago but figured this would be another fight with ’em, trying to get something that is minimally damaged at best.

After all, for ages now, Amazon‘s had this flat-out refusal to ship books with any sort of care or pretense of care! I was wondering if my book might be in just a bubble mailer, or one of those crappy "cardboard envelopes" and picturing the various damages the book’s suffered.

Imagine my genuine shock and "holy $#*^!" moment when I saw an actual, genuine BOX! Like, a box-box, 3-dimensional, not an envelope of any sort, but a real live virtually vintage Amazon BOX!

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And of course, I had to document this. It’s like some unicorn randomly ringing the bell and asking to be photographed! Considering I genuinely cannot REMEMBER the last time I received ANY book from Amazon IN A BOX, this is a momentous occasion!

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After my initial surprise, I once more had some trepidation spotting this hole in the box, obvious damage to the box, which could indicate some massive damage to the book inside. No snark to that statement–something like this could mean something was driven into the box, obviously the box is punctured, so who knows what sort of damage might’ve been done to the book? Alternatively, if part of the book made the damage, then who knows what it suffered in doing so?

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To my further surprise, on opening the box, not only did Amazon use a BOX…but they used packaging material in a vain ATTEMPT to "protect" the book!

These flimsy, crappy air-bubble things mostly don’t do a darned thing and are flatter than not, but SOME air remained in the ones on "top" here. And once I removed the book itself, I realized it’d been laying on one (then flat), but it seems likely that this one on top truly DID protect the book.

No obvious damage to the book’s cover, and since the hole left the cardboard punched down INTO the box, it indicates (to me) that something hit from the houtside…but in most likelihood, the gap between the box itself and the book was maintained by the bubble enough to allow the box to take the damage WITHOUT sharing said damage with the book itself!

These bubbles by no means kept the book STILL within the box–it could still slide around and take damage from being rattled during shipping–but this is more packaging material than I’ve seen in the last (at bare under-estimated MINIMUM) dozen books I’ve ordered from them!

This is not ideal, truly acceptable packaging…especially compared to the actual care and quality from InStockTrades/DCBService (which have CHEAPER shipping and I can’t imagine even with their customer base that they do a fraction of Amazon‘s business!) but considering the complaints I’ve had, I didn’t want to not share this today!

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Look–even the cat is wary of this unfamiliar, rare, and foreign object!

Unplanned Books-A-Million Clearance Purchases 11/3

Thursday evening, I found myself at a Books-A-Million for the first time in quite awhile. Where I’d figured maybe I would find a cheap book or a comic frame…I didn’t expect to find a giant stack of books that had my interest for the price.

I eventually pared a stack of about a dozen books down to three:

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I got all three books for the price of 5 standard Marvel issues and a True Believers issue.

I was disappointed that Captain America and the Falcon by Priest that I found in the clearance section was not actually on (discounted) sale. And while they had a bunch of the Secret Wars (2015) skinny volumes for $4.97 apiece, they weren’t the greatest condition nor interest to me. I absolutely would have gotten the Age of Apocalypse one if that’d been there for that price, though!

The Wolverine volume is Wolverine; and collects a few issues from the latter part of The Essential Wolverine vol. 5 and the earlier issues from The Essential Wolverine vol. 6…but in full color. I quite like the Essentials line, but for this period of the title, the black and white/graytone effect gets very muddy and doesn’t work nearly as well, so getting this run in this format is very cool. All the moreso for the price!

The Avengers: Scarlet Witch fits thematically with my Avengers: Quicksilver volume. And I’ve been interested in reading Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl for awhile, especially since getting/watching the first season of the tv show last year (though I’ve yet to be able to see the second/final season).

It’s amazing, though, to consider just how highly-priced most Marvel volumes are, such that I virtually never buy any at "full price," because that price is just not worth it to me; while DC has had a number of volumes that I’m willing to pay full price for (even though I’d prefer cheaper means!)

The Weekly Haul – Week of November 2nd, 2016

This was an interesting week’s worth of issues, as I went in planning on (probably) getting three issues…but then not getting the third, and getting two others I had not had any intention of getting.

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Shade: The Changing Girl is weird and out there and I’m still trying to get my head around it. I’m not sure what I had expected, but this wasn’t it. Though I acquired the first issue at least a couple weeks ago, I only just got around to actually reading it the other day, so I was relatively fresh-ish diving into the second issue. I liked this issue better than the first, as it’s at least a continuation of something I read already, recently, rather than being something trippy that I had no context for.

I absolutely loved this week’s issue of Superman, even sharing that love with several friends. The issue was great, and continues to reinforce my current love of the Super-books in a way I haven’t had in roughly a decade.

I was going to go ahead and get the Catwoman: Election Night special…and the "variant" at that (with the Penguin on the cover…since the bulk of the issue, I believe, is the Catwoman story, with Prez "merely" as a 12-page "backup" thing). But then I decided…no. I don’t think I even got Catwoman #1 at the launch of the New 52, I haven’t read the character’s book since prior to 2011, so what do I care about it now? There’s not even any rumor of the character getting a solo in the near future (that I am aware of), so there’s no "connection" or "hook" for me, ultimately. And I never did check out the Prez series at the start of DC You, so I wouldn’t even have any context there, either.

So, browsing other recent comics, I spotted both issues-so-far of Surgeon X, and figured ok, they’re both there, I’m getting a bigger "sample" than just one single issue, and I’ve had more of a taste for trying new series lately, with Moonshine and Reborn in the past month.

Of course, I’m unable to tell for certain from the issue itself if it’s the first print or the second print…I’m assuming that–with nothing saying "Second Print[ing]" that what I have IS the first print. Unfortunately, while plenty of news sites and blogs run with stories OF something getting an extra printing, they do not spell out whether or not the image they’re using is of the first print THAT sold out…or of the pending/then-upcoming second print. And in the world with a sea of variants and rarely any indication other than research-based knowledge of an image being the indicator OF which printing something is…

The Weekly Haul – Week of October 26, 2016

This week was a rather large week…though, granted, it was also a make-up week, picking up stuff from the usual shop, which I’ve had to drop back to less-frequent visits.

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New Action Comics from this week; TMNT #63 from last week or the week before, with TMNT Universe from this week. The Aliens: Life and Death issue is from some time back, while Aliens: Defiance is from this week. I’m not certain if Letter 44 and the IDW Greatest Hits: Godzilla are from this week or not.

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I also stopped by a Half-Price Books intending to check for Dragonlance and Magic: The Gathering novels, see if they had anything new. I did find a new MTG novel. I probably should have walked out then, but I just had to check out comics stuff, didn’t I?

Teen Titans: Earth One (vol. 2) was there…and given my hunt for the first one, knowing I’d want to get this, figured might as well get it now at the actual half-off, rather than waste time/money/gas hunting it later. I assume that at least part of this Batman: Anarky volume was/will be reprinted in the Norm Breyfogle hardcover(s) from DC…but with some stuff leaping from late-1980s to late-1990s, and this being old, out of print, AND ACTUALLY HALF OFF, figured I’d regret not getting it.

Before actually getting to the register, I browsed the single-issue comics section in a cursory fashion…comics were marked as being "price as marked." Found this Batman preview issue with "Free" marked (by the publisher) over the price section…figured I’d challenge the cashier. No other price marked on the item; comics are "price as marked" and it’s marked as "free," but they’re not gonna just give away something. I was quite satisfied when this was manually entered as "25 cents" and I didn’t complain.

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I made the "mistake" of browsing a cart of new stuff to the store, and spotted an unfamiliar Superman book. I almost ignored it, but on closer inspection realized what it was, and could not talk myself into passing it up. Superman: From the 30s to the 70s. While hardly in pristine condition…the book is from the (early?) 1970s, so is older than me, and not a book I "see all the time" or such. And it’s Superman. So…’nuff said.

At least it was cheaper than 4 Marvel comics!

Here’s hoping that next week is a small week for new comics…