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The Weekly Haul – Week of August 27th, 2014

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Walt

A fairly small week. I think I’ve dropped Batman Eternal, passing on it this week. (or at least, maybe I’ll be done with the weekly buying and catch up every few weeks or so).

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Given Valiant has about 9 titles, two in one week is a nice balance: Rai by itself, and X-O Manowar as the week’s Armor Hunters tie-in.

New issue of TMNT: Turtles in Time, and newest Letter 44 address the rest, with Superman as the lone DC/Marvel representative.

All in all a good week’s worth of comics. Best of all, kept things in the $20 range…

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The Weekly Haul – Week of August 20th, 2014

Posted on August 23, 2014 by Walt

This week’s haul was a bit late, with me not making it to the shop until Friday this week. Back to a Valiant-heavy week, which is not a bad thing…

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I’m still a bit on the fence with Batman Eternal…I went ahead and picked up this week’s #20, figuring if nothing else, I’ll leave off on a round number that way, if I do decide to drop it. I suppose I should look into whatever the next “big” thing is in the main Batman title, because of Batman Eternal keeps to itself, maybe I’ll stick with it, even though I’ve all but decided to keep outta the Futures End stuff.

And I believe there’s only one more chapter of Superman: Doomed to go. And hey…three Valiants this week. Normally I might gripe about the clustering, but this week seems like a good mix.

The TMNT Annual is a prestige-format thing like the 2012 one was, and should be an interesting read.

I also hit the quarter bins and snagged a run of Rex Mundi and Out of the Vortex…might detail those later.

Not bad for the week…

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The Weekly Haul – Week of August 6th, 2014

Posted on August 6, 2014 by Walt

Not a horrible week, but not a tiny one, either…

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Funny…for as much as I consider myself officially “Valiant-and-TMNT-only” I only had one issue fitting that this week.

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A couple weeks with no new chapter of Doomed and now THREE chapters out today…

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I skipped Infinite Crisis when it came out a couple weeks back, but my curiosity got the better of me…figure I can at least check it out, though I’ve little intention of following it.

Honestly rather frustrated with stuff this week–I had to go to two shops in order to get the NON-variant editions of all 3 of the Doomed chapters. And there were 3 chapters–two of them $5 annuals and a $3.99–all in the SAME week.

And yet, here I am buying a bunch of DC and wondering why I’m spending so much after getting back down pretty close to pull-list-stuff-only…

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The Weekly Haul – Week of July 30th, 2014

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Walt

This week’s haul was rather moderate–not tiny, but not particularly huge or overwhelming in either cost or quantity.

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Since I’d requested them sight unseen, I’ve continued with the Chromium covers, and with these being a VERY RARE EXCEPTION to my usual no-variants rule, I’ve got both editions of Armor Hunters: Harbinger. And I’ve continued with Futures End and Batman Eternal…

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I half-heartedly flipped through the quarter-bins for anything new or interesting. I probably already have the X-Factor issue, but not certain–it’s from near the end of the original run, where my collection remains sparser than earlier in the series. I don’t consciously remember the War Story issue, but had the first couple “waves” of War Story issues, so why not. And several Werewolf issues that I believe will make a fine addition to the Vampire issues I bought last week.

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And because–at 90% off cover, Scalped vols. 2 & 3 (I got vol. 1 back in 2007) cost less than $4–I figured why not? I don’t recall how long the series ran, but I haven’t (yet) read the first volume, even, so these’ll add to a hopefully good, interesting reading when I get around to it. And with the discount I’d had on that one seven years ago, I don’t think I’ve topped $12 for the 3 so far.

I am going to have to decide soon if I *really* want to keep up with the DC Weeklies. They’ve not been bad, but I’ve had no problem going several weeks without READING, between actually reading the issues. And with Zero Year ending, I don’t know if the Batman Eternal will start having more direct tie-ins to the main title or not, and I don’t want to be forced (or enticed) into buying yet MORE series on a regular bases, especially when they’d likely be $3.99 to the weeklies’ $2.99.

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Half-Price Books "Mini-Vacation" Haul

Posted on July 29, 2014 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.

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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.

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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!

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Bargain Bin Haul – Week of July 23rd, 2014

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Walt

Along with this week’s huge new issues haul, I also bought quite a few quarter-bin issues.

I picked up a number of Vampire comics for a friend, as well as most of the Call of Duty minis from Marvel from 2002 or so (The Precinct, The Wagon, The Brotherhood) for another friend.

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I was pleasantly surprised to find copies of the Ultraverse Premiere issues of Hardcase and Night Man, as I want duplicates so I can file Ultraverse Premiere as its own thing in my Ultraverse collection rather than having the series only dispersed as the flipbooks to all the others. I also snagged Night Man 22, and since the Hardcase issue was part 1 of the 3-part NM-E rematch, I picked those issues up as well.

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I love the cover of Man of Tomorrow #1, and much prefer this “newsstand edition” cover to the Wedding Album. And for a mere 25 cents I wasn’t about to leave Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow there.

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I was rather surprised to find this first-print newsstand edition copy of Superman #75 still there, so snagged it, as I’ve made it a point to snag all first print copies of the issue I come across in 25-cent bins. Wasn’t til I got it out at home that I noticed the huge crease down the center like the issue was folded in half–perhaps this had been a subscription copy where the postal delivery person folded it around envelopes when sticking it into a box. I’m also a sucker for chromium covers, so snagged yet another copy of Superman 82; and since they were there, snagged #100 and Adventures of Superman #505 for the shiny cover.

All in all a very satisfying bargain bin haul!

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The Weekly Haul – Week of July 23rd, 2014

Posted on July 23, 2014 by Walt

As new comics go, this week is definitely one of the biggest in quite awhile, with a pretty significant haul just FOR the new-this-week comics!

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This was ‘Batman Day’, so there’s a free special edition of Detective Comics #27, reprinting the original first appearance of Batman, as well as a couple other features/reimaginings/retellings of the story, it looks like. The Vertigo Preview is the way I prefer my “previews”–a separate comic-sized thing, rather than several pages of “padding” in regular issues. The Portfolio of upcoming action figures and statues is interesting…and if I had the space/finances I’d definitely be interested in several of the statues!

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While I was content to go simply with the Adam West mask, the store owner told me to go ahead and take one of each, so…got all four of the masks offered. Dark Knight, Original, New 52, and Adam West.

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Two new Doctor Who series have begun, one focused on the Tenth Doctor, one on the Eleventh. I haven’t been particularly enamored with other Doctor Who comics, but was certainly interested enough to give these both at least a try for the first issue. And continuing my collection of the new Valiant chromium covers…

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Two new Valiant issues including the regular edition of Armor Hunters: Bloodshot. And though the Gold Key line from Dynamite is not Valiant, they’re in the same vein and I’m filing them in my Current Valiant box.

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Latest Letter 44 and two new TMNT issues this week…

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And the latest of both of DC‘s current weeklies and the new issue of Superman. While I still loathe the Superman title moving to $3.99, I’m tentatively (case-by-case/issue-by-issue) onboard for the current arc with Johns on the writing.

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Bargain Bin Haul: GI Joe and Quantum & Woody

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Walt

This week proved to be another fantastic week for bargain finds, as the local shop had just recently bought a huge collection.

Having bought a large run of GI Joe comics recently, I was offered another SIGNIFICANTLY larger run…

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The “gem” of the run is easily the final few issues of the original Marvel-published series. If I were to attempt to purchase these off eBay, these six issues alone–#s 150-155–would cost more than I paid for what (in today’s single purchase) is an instant major “subcollection” in my overall collection.

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The store owner also–though putting most of the collected volumes out for general sale–pulled these four Quantum and Woody Acclaim Comics volumes for me. These worked out to about $2.50 per volume, and seem to have at least 4 issues’ content each.

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All told, the GI Joe collection more than filled a longbox, and what didn’t fit–when combined with what I bought last month and allowing room to fill in a handful of minor “gaps” in the collection–will surely almost fill another. This collection is: Original Marvel #s 21-155, Devil’s Due 1-43 and America’s Elite 1-36, IDW‘s first volume 1-24, Origins 1-18ish, Cobra 1-13 and Cobra II 1-4, plus a bunch of other mini-series, specials, one-shots, etc.

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More Than Doubling my GI Joe Collection

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Walt

full_stackThough I had limited exposure as a younger kid, I consider my true “introduction” to GI Joe to be the Image/Devil’s Due relaunch back in 2001 (as a friend pointed out, it was interesting timing, debuting September 12th, 2001).

Even letting the series go after a few issues, I got pulled back in for the Serpentor story around issues 22-25, and stuck around as Devil’s Due struck out on its own, its logo replacing the Image “I” on the covers. I was going to let it go again, but my friend suckered me with a copy of GI Joe: Master & Apprentice #1, and I was hooked through into the early few issues of America’s Elite before I did trail off.

I dabbled with jumping back in when the license moved to IDW (though I was rather irked at “losing” the Devil’s Due continuity and the property “starting over”). Of course, my aversion to $3.99-priced books led to my refusing to follow MULTIPLE ongoing series, and I lapsed.

Interesting as things seemed to be from “watching from the outside,” I just couldn’t talk myself into the investment, thinking “someday” I might get the paperbacks…but IDW‘s pricing on their paperback volumes rivals Marvel‘s these days in the “excessive pricing” area, so I’ve stuck to bargain bin finds.

I hit the figurative “jackpot” this week.

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I decided to flip through some issues in the bargain bin, despite a heavy week of “regular” new comics, and noticed a number of GI Joe comics, and figured hey, why not? Maybe I’d find a small run, a full story.

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After a handful of scattered issues, I noticed a bunch of issues of the GI Joe: A Real American Hero (ARAH) series (that continues the numbering from the classic Marvel series).

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As I was pulling these, the owner–still sorting through a collection–said something about maybe finding someone interested in all the GI Joe comics, which caught my attention…as if my mind had been read.

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So I wound up with most of the issues of ARAH from #162-190 or so…

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Most of the first year of the GI Joe relaunch from Cobra Civil War…

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Most of the first year of the Snake-Eyes series…

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And most of the first year of the Cobra series from Cobra Civil War including the 2012 Annual.

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Given my interest in them, the rest of the GI Joe comics from the collection were held for me, and I picked them up Thursday. A scattering of ARAH issues, that filled in what I was missing, giving me a run of #162-191 (30 issues).

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What turned out to be the latter half of the GI Joe run from the Cobra Civil War era, giving me a full run of #s 0-21.

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The latter half of Snake-Eyes, which co-starred Storm Shadow for most of the latter issues, giving me a complete run of #s 1-21.

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And the latter half of Cobra, for a complete run of #s 1-21.

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I also wound up with both of the Infestation 2: GI Joe issues, a couple of the “classic” Image/Devil’s Due series, and the GI Joe: Retaliation Prequel, as well as early issues of the next relaunch of the franchise post-Cobra Civil War era…

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GI Joe #s 1-3 or so; GI Joe Special Missions #s 1-4 or so, and the first couple issues of GI Joe: Cobra Files.

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All told, just over 100 GI Joe comics–over $399.00 cover price–for just over $26. That’s less than the price of two PAPERBACK collections from IDW (or for that matter, Marvel).

Not a bad haul, and now I’m truly interested in the earlier issues of the pre-Cobra Civil War books, and might consider picking up the more current stuff. Of course, time will tell in the end…

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The Weekly Haul – Week of May 7th, 2014

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Walt

This week had a moderate haul. Since I picked up Batman Eternal #s 1-4 last weekend, and it’s “only” $2.99, went ahead and picked up #5. And having just read Futures End #0, I went ahead and picked up #1 (again, key being that it’s “only” $2.99!). I feel like I’ve been getting All-New X-Factor out of “habit,” unfortunately…really need to catch up on that reading to decide how far I’m actually sticking with it!

Only one Valiant this week–Archer & Armstrong. And the newest Turok…hard to believe that’s already on issue #4! And the latest TMNT Color Classics, re-presenting the final chapter of Return to New York, this time in color.

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In the simple amusement of ’90s stuff for only 25 cents, I snagged this colorful Cyber Force issue, as well as Zorro #0 from Topps.

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Found a bunch of issues of Jim Starlin‘s ‘Breed, including some sort of gold-foil edition of #1. Pretty sure I have these from last year sometime, but as most of a “run,” figured I’d snag ’em again to be sure.

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Ditto on ‘Breed II…

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A relatively rare find (for me, at least), snagged the entire six-issue (#s 0-5) mini-series Codename: Firearm. I know I have this series at least once-over, but again…complete series, all right there, for less than half the price of a current Marvel…yeah, pretty much a no-brainer for me.

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Finally, A Touch of SIlver #s 1-4. Not sure what to make of these, but they looked interesting. The covers with the photos caught my attention, and for $1, figured I’d get ’em to flip through more at my leisure whenever.

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All in all, not a bad haul, with a good mix of new stuff and some nice quarter-bin issues.

Next week I think the Superman arc Doomed starts, and since I’ve been keeping up lately with Superman/Wonder Woman, I’ll probably follow it just for the heckuvit. Plus, I want to get Superman #31 “in honor” of the 1980s’ Superman #31 being one of my first-ever comics.

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