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Showing Off the Shelves: TMNT (November 2016)

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Walt

I’m showing off the latest configurations of "sub collections" on my shelves.

Here, today, are my TMNT and Usagi stuff. While not officially tied together, I’ve long associated Usagi Yojimbo with the TMNT stuff; and so they fit together well on a shelf. Though I’m basically maxed-out on this shelf now, so the Usagi stuff might end up getting moved to fit elsewhere before too long.

tmnt_shelves_late_november_2016

I’d jumped on the TMNT Ultimate Edition line as soon as it started, and "kept up" with it, including the surprise/addition of the 6th volume. Then I have the 1First graphic novel series, collecting the early Mirage stuff in color the first time. These were my initial introduction to the original/Mirage version of the characters, having had my start with the classic cartoon and the Archie-published TMNT Adventures.

After those we have stuff from Mirage itself over the years–first some of the generic collected volumes; then a bunch of the mid-2000s collected volumes up to the cgi-TMNT film just before Laird sold the property.

From there, the Archie edition of the original TMNT Adventures mini, collected; along with 4 of the 6 TMNT Classics Digest that reprinted the earlier TMNT Adventures issues; and then the current run of IDW‘s volumes collecting the TMNT Adventures run. From there, some other versions of the TMNT Adventures collections, the IDW TMNT hardcover, the 30th Anniversary Special and the 2012 & 2014 Annuals.

Finally, the first 4 Usagi Yojimbo mega-collections from Dark Horse.

I’d had a number of the earlier IDW TPBs of their TMNT series; but stopped with those as soon as I found out about the oversized hardcovers–and though I’m a couple volumes behind, my aim is to use THOSE for my "double-dipping" on the series. They’re the far better value, with about 3 paperbacks’ contents for about/slightly over the cost of 2.

I had at one point figured I’d be getting some of the various other large hardcovers IDW has been putting out for the various TMNT stuff…but they’re all different dimensions, and just don’t look like they go together that well, and thus are quite unattractive to me as a group of books.

tmnt_80s_toys_novemer_2016

Then, of course, there are the TMNT toys. While this is not the entirety of my TMNT toys collection…it is a full shelf’s worth, laid out for display at present.

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

BREAKING: #Amazon Discovers Boxes Still Legal for Shipping!

Posted on November 22, 2016 by Walt

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!

amazon_actually_used_box_11222016a

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!

amazon_actually_used_box_11222016b

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?

amazon_actually_used_box_11222016e

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!

amazon_actually_used_box_11222016c

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

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

#HPBHaul for October 21, 2016

Posted on October 21, 2016 by Walt

Today I went to a local (regional?) clearance sale by Half-Price Books. I had hopes of scoring an elusive Predator novel, or maybe snagging some Magic: The Gathering or Dragonlance novels, but no such luck (long story short).

What I did find was a set of four Penny Arcade collections that–for half the cost of a single Marvel issue–was well worth buying.

hpbhaul_october21a_2016

Along with these, I also found a huge (but rather skinny) volume, Storeyville. Not owning any myself, I assume it’s about the size of the IDW Artist’s Edition volumes…certainly larger than a DC Absolute edition.

hpbhaul_october21b_2016

I also snagged a handful of comics…though not nearly as many as I’d initially loaded up on…they were 50 cents each, so those dollars piled up fast compared to a quarter-bin.

Overall, not a bad haul, but certainly not what I’d hoped for.

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

New Books And How They Could Have Been Better

Posted on September 27, 2016 by Walt

Taking advantage of an online discount, I snagged several volumes recently that I was really quite interested in…if not entirely "justified" in ordering.

new_ist_books

I’m at least the previous volume behind in reading on The Walking Dead. But I really did not want to let myself get away from "keeping up with" the series in collected volume format…and I can definitely see sitting down and binge-reading several in one go, my periodic binge rather than slogging through issue by issue.

I’d heard really good things about Titans Hunt, and rather than track down 7 or 8 issues at $3+ apiece, I waited a couple extra months for the collected volume. While I certainly do NOT disapprove of it also containing an issue of New 52 Justice League along with the Titans: Rebirth issue…it kinda makes the Lois and Clark volume look a little light by comparison.

I thoroughly enjoyed Superman: Lois and Clark as a series before I had any inkling of a Rebirth or this Superman (the closest to "my" Superman I see in modern comics) "taking over," and was quite thrilled that "even though" the series was retroactively a "mini-series," it was leading into the character taking over the main books.

But honestly…if Titans Hunt can include two additional issues beyond its core-titled run…why the heck did this Superman volume not contain Convergence: Superman #s 1-2?!? The inclusion of just those two issues would have pretty much made the volume as perfect a collected volume as I could imagine.

I have no desire to buy one of a bunch of other TPBs "just" to have those two issues on my bookshelf. I might have to just bag the Convergence issues and slip ’em in between this and whatever’s on the shelf next to it.

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Latest Aliens and Predators Shelf Configuration – September 12, 2016

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Walt

aliens_shelf_sept12a

aliens_shelf_sept12bWe’re into September, which means a couple of new Aliens related books due out.

I believe this week will see the release of The Complete Aliens Omnibus volume two, collecting two of the Dark Horse novels after the initial trilogy.

And the end of the month will see the release of Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon (Book 3 of a "crossover trilogy" called The Rage War by Tim Lebbon.

We also have the current Dark Horse Comics series Aliens: Defiance in progress, as well as a new Judge Dredd/Aliens/Predator series with an upcoming Aliens: Life and Death (though after 2014’s Aliens/Predator/AvP/Prometheus event and subsequent one-volume collection, I’m just waiting for the one-volume collection this time around, most likely).

There was also a recent collection of general DC Comics/Dark Horse Aliens stuff put out, and more recently a volume of DC Comics/Dark Horse Superman stuff (of primary interest to me, the Superman/Aliens and Superman/Aliens 2 material) published.

Along with the various books and comics, there’s the new Aliens Queen 6" Funko Pop figure that just came out (at least according to a months-old Amazon pre-order that just arrived). While I’ve had the "regular" Alien, this Queen is one of the larger oversized figures… and I quite like it, all things considered.

A couple weeks ago, I found one of the mid-2000s Dark Horse Press Predator novels at a used book shop*. Rather crummy condition, but at half cover price and to have it, I won’t complain much for the moment.

(* not Half-Price Books. I figure it could be missing the cover and they’d mark it up to at least $50 just because it’s out of print and not necessarily due to any great demand beyond myself…)

I believe there are only 3 or so Predator novels I’m missing, now to have all of those; certainly still missing a bunch of comic/collected volumes, but I’ve found the novels a lot more satisfying for both Aliens and Predator, and certainly more "history" with the novels.

And as seen in the photos above, also some cool toys for them–primarily Funko product, with a couple Minimates creatures and a Neca figure thrown in for my kinda bookshelves…

aliens_shelf_sept12c

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Toy Chronicles | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

#HPBHaul or #HPBFail? Not All OOP are Equal

Posted on September 5, 2016 by Walt

While not actually a comic or graphic novel, I was looking for a copy of a D&D volume, and basically the only one the HPB I was at had was the (3.0, I believe) Players Handbook II. For $35. Because (gasp! shock! awe!) it’s out of print.

hpb_oop_pricing_001

$34.95 cover price, but hey, let’s add 4 cents and call it a day. But I did notice more than other times–there’s a date on the sticker…06-06-16. So I believe this means the book has sat there unsold for three months at that price. Makes me wonder if I could "make an offer" on it–would they rather move the book, or let it sit there as a potential sale?

And as I’ve mentioned before: they have a whole separate section for rare/out of print/"collectable" volumes. I REALLY wish they would NOT shelve full-price/OOP-priced stuff with "everything else"!

hpb_oop_pricing_002

Huntress volume. Half-Price Books wants $24.99 for it. Not half price.

Heck, this one’s not even full price.

hpb_oop_pricing_003

Seemingly JUST because it is "out of print," they’ve tacked on an additional 25% to the cover price. And with the date on the sticker, the thing’s been there nearly three months. This is at LEAST the SECOND time it’s caught MY eye before I (re)realized the price.

TWO times at least that I would have bought this–at $10. But it’s not something I’m willing to pay $19.99 for…and sure as heck not willing to pay a marked-up price for it just because it’s out of print!

hpb_oop_pricing_004

Particularly maddening on the pricing is finding this volume.

Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage. This looked like an "original edition," from the early/mid-1990s (when collected volumes at all were a relatively rare thing!). Sure, the book is pretty beat-up: white edges, bends/folds in the covers, torn spine, etc. But it’s an original edition! (or close enough to it–there have been at least 2 editions AFTER this one that I am personally aware of!) But since when does damage matter to HPB if it’s out of print?!?

I mean, honestly…I am really, truly curious: why is this one priced so cheaply for being vintage and long out of print (and I’m pretty sure even any newer edition is now also OUT OF PRINT) while other out of print stuff is marked up?

Where’s the consistency?!?

hpb_oop_pricing_005

I actually bought the All*Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder volume. It was at a different HPB, but was half off the cover price. Yet even this one is confounding–this is an out of print edition, I don’t even think the collection has an in-print edition right now.

9 issues’ content for $10 and it includes the infamous Batcave fold-out? For something that–if only for the notion that Miller considers it as canonical with Dark Knight Returns–I do want to read.

And where I’ve mentioned their having a full-priced Age of Apocalypse Omnibus listed as "out of print," I did finally ask about it–whether it was "the 2012 edition or the 2016 edition." It is the 2012 (original) edition, that at one point DID go out of print. But as there’s a new 2016 edition, and omnibii are expensive enough as it is, with an in-print newer printing, I can’t imagine many would care that much about an older printing if they just want the book itself. I’m not aware of any visually-distinctive differences.

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Showing Off a Shelf: Dragonlance Hardcovers and Gaming

Posted on August 26, 2016 by Walt

A couple weeks ago, I showed off a shelf of a few of my Magic: the Gathering books; here, now, are my Dragonlance  hardcovers.

dragonlance_shelves_with_mage_knight

Along with the books themselves, I have the Fifth Age game and several of its supplements.

These hardcovers are virtually all by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, or one or the other. I also have a number of graphic novels–several from the ’80s or early ’90s, and most from when Devil’s Due had the license in the earlier/mid 2000s.

Above the books are four dragons from the short-lived Mage Knight game, and then sharing the shelves are several giants and vehicles also from the Mage Knight game. While these are not associated with Dragonlance, in being from a game with a fantasy type setting, they fit well enough on these shelves for me at least for the moment.

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

A Half-Price Books Book…That Was Actually Half Price!

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Walt

While browsing Half-Price Books, I happened to notice this volume: The Irredeemable Ant-Man–the second volume. This is a 2007 (9 years old!) edition, collecting issues 7-12 (I believe the single-issues ended at 12)…from back in the days when Marvel was playing with the digest-sized format for younger-reader/all-ages titles (such as Runaways, Sentinel, Spider-Girl, and Mary Jane/Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane).

irredeemable_antman_vol_2

This a long-out-of-print volume (again, 9 years and Marvel doesn’t seem to keep any given edition of much of anything “in print” for more than a few months!). Cover price on the book was $9.99 at the time. And didn’t we just have an Ant-Man movie out last year?

So here we have an out of print volume from nearly a decade ago, featuring the back-half of a series starring a character that (granted, this is not the same character as what was in the movie) just had a movie…this is surely the sort of rare, collectible volume that Half-Price Books would seem to love to sell as a collectible!

All the more because even if the original series was reprinted, now it would be as an “Epic Collection” or part of some “Omnibus” or a “Premier Edition Hardcover” or something–this is a long out of print rare book in a format not likely to be duplicated even if the material it contains is reprinted.

So really, I am honestly quite curious at how this slipped through at “only” $4.99, or (wait for it) Half. Price.

Really.

Half-Price Books, a place whose purpose is to take used/non-new books and sell them back to the public at half of cover price…and despite age, despite condition, despite status (out of print), despite being related to some huge movie (Marvel Studios), even despite being a Robert Kirkman-written book for Marvel (seems he’s sticking firmly to The Walking Dead and his other creator-owned/run projects as well as being a huge figure at Image and not terribly likely to be expected to produce anything else for Marvel at this point), this edition was price at half its cover price.

Meanwhile, there was an oversized Batman volume by–I believe Paul Dini and Alex Ross–that has a $9.99 cover price, and is Half-Price Books priced $19.99. In rather beat-up, dog-eared condition. Sure, out-of print, but not even masquerading as a good-condition edition, the thing’s been reprinted in a collected volume, and I’ve seen actual comic shops selling the Superman one, at least, and I think the Shazam! one, for $10 (so cover price) even all these years later.

Which ultimately tells me that there is very definitely no consistency to HPB‘s pricing scheme for comics/graphic novels (except as “wannabe collectible dealer”).

If something is looked at first as whether or not it is “in print” and marked up if not; having some media tie-in or not and thus marked up; featuring a popular (say, movie-worthy) character and the number goes up if so… why not something like this?

Then again, in this particular case it’s a Half-Price Books that has junk comics listed as “unless priced otherwise with an HPB sticker, all comics are $1 each.” When any of the comics matching that criteria are barely quarter-bin fodder and many comics have price stickers putting them at “full cover price” or more… And yet I’m reasonably certain that if I were to take any of my comics in to sell, they wouldn’t come anywhere near offering even 25 full cents to me per issue (if “everything” was bound for the generic bin, they’d still be “making” 75 cents an issue giving me only 25)…and they’d be making even more if they price-stickered anything.

Anyway…I bought this volume. I already had vol. 1, and never really expected to get around to snagging vol. 2. But finding it, and it being priced at half-price…it’s worthwhile. All the more having 6 issues’ content in an age where new Marvel #1 issues seem to be flirting with the $4.99-$5.99 price point.

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

#HPBHaul – May 29th & 30th, 2016

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Walt

Along with getting to see one of my best friends for the first time since last year, I got to visit a Half-Price Books location far off my beaten path…one that I don’t think I’ve been to in at least a couple years (the last time that I went to it with her).

And this visit was quite a jackpot!

hpbhaul_may29a

First off, just walking down the main aisle, I spotted a distinctive Batman logo on the spines of two hardcovers. When I stopped to pay attention, I noticed a third one with no dust jacket. I had no idea what these were, I did not even know they’d existed. Now, I have a couple of mass-market paperbacks, The Further Adventures of the Batman (a friend gave me years ago, featuring the Joker) and I recall two others, The Further Adventures of the Batman vol. 2 (featuring the Penguin) and The Further Adventures of the Batman vol. 3 (featuring Catwoman).

These three hardback editions seem to be still other volumes focusing on a mixture of big-name Batman rogues. And I knew that if I left ’em, I’d totally regret it, so I grabbed all 3 (even the one without a dustjacket…at least I have the volume, and maybe I can find a dust jacket for it later).

hpbhaul_may29b

Another excellent score are these Aliens and Predator MMPBs–somehow, I did NOT already have the Berserker one despite all the other Aliens books. And until a couple months ago with discovering the The Rage War "crossover" I’d not paid any attention to past Predator volumes. Finding these three–I believe–leaves me only the DH Press books published back in ~2006 by Dark Horse that are unfortunately extremely rare and absolutely ridiculously priced on the secondary market (I, for one, will NOT pay $230.00 or $90.00 or even $30.00 for a single MMPB!)

hpbhaul_may29c

Finally, there’s Manhattan Transfer, a sci-fi book I remember getting and reading from the library at LEAST twice as a kid–I loved the story! And I’d thought of it here and there and occasionally tried looking it up online, but could never even find placeholder references for it. Several weeks ago I was talking about this with a coworker, and it rang some kind of bell with him, and he found it…AND revealed why I’d had zero luck finding it. The book is Manhattan Transfer while I’d been looking for variants on Manhattan Project. Oops.

And the Super-Powers dvd would not normally have interested me, but it was "only" $7…I figure all I have to do is spend 15-20 minutes watching it, and it’ll justify itself in value against two $3.99 comics! Anything more is just bonus on that.

hpbhaul_may30a

And then on Monday I went to another HPB where I (finally) bought the GI Joe: Cobra Civil War and GI Joe: Cobra Command volumes. I’d been eyeing them for weeks, and had determined that if I was going to buy either I wanted to buy both…but even at half off, it wasn’t a minor purchase.

Fortunately, both yesterday and today, what I bought was 20% off the posted pricing, which made the already-great buys even better…and I "pulled the trigger" on buying these to avoid "missing out" and truly regretting it later.

Continued Grousing about HPB Comics Pricing

Continue reading →

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

New Old Books: Kingdom Come and Hellblazer

Posted on May 20, 2016 by Walt

Considering I just placed the order on Friday, receiving books on Tuesday is excellent service from InStockTrades! I’ve been keeping up with the new Hellblazer editions–here we have vol. 13–which catches the series up to about where I first came into the series back in 2001 with Azarello‘s run…and off the top of my head, I believe this now gives me a complete run of the entire 300-issue Hellblazer series in paperback volumes! (From here, it’s just a matter of swapping out the old editions for the new on a rolling basis, I think!)

kingdom_come_20th_and_hellblazer_vol13

While I don’t like the cover nearly as much as I liked the image on the original paperback, that had much more of the “feel” of the story…this seems to be what DC is sticking with for now, taking the cover they’ve used for roughly 8 years over the one they used for about a decade or so…or over one of the original covers or even a celebratory new cover image.

That said, I quite like the 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Kingdom Come, and for a very rare thing, part of that is the extras the book contains.

kingdom_come_20th_extras_interior

I don’t care much for sketch material or pencils-only stuff–I’m just not a “primarily-for-the-art” kinda guy when it comes to comics. And I prefer to write about, talk about comics more than any true interest in actually writing comics, so even seeing script pages doesn’t tend to do much for me (though I tend to prefer those more). But there’s plenty of text with the sketches and whatnot, and lots of images reproduced in full color, some even full-page, and this is a volume, a story, a creative team, a singular truly special isolated thing that (to me) actually deserves “extras” and such be thrown in.

But the quality of the extras, their relevance and insight, the smile I found myself with, grinning as I flipped through them–some of the pages bringing back memories, others a bit of wonder, some just pleasant, collected excitement seeing stuff I haven’t seen in years or am simply curious about and look forward to reading in-depth. And this is without even getting to the core of the book, the story itself, to get to re-read in this format.

I have the original single issues; the original paperback collection, the 2008 paperback with this new green cover, as well as the hardback original edition of the novelization (bought from a local comic shop at initial release), and even bought the mass-market paperback edition of that for a friend shortly into college. I do not have the Absolute Edition and don’t truly expect I ever will unless it’s reprinted and the timing and finances are just right. But for this not being the Absolute Edition, I really dig this one.

Thanks to the online order, but including shipping, I think I functionally paid about $22 for this, which at the price of a mere 5 single Marvel comics and some shipping, I find to be an extremely reasonable price and very much worthwhile for this.

I also find myself feeling a bit old, that I now own a 20th-Anniversary edition of something I remember buying the original first issue of, new, when it first came out. Time flies…

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, QUASI-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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