• December 2025
    S M T W T F S
     123456
    78910111213
    14151617181920
    21222324252627
    28293031  
  • On Facebook

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Comic Blog Elite

    Comic Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory

#HPBHaul – May 29th & 30th, 2016

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

More Than Doubling my GI Joe Collection

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.

day1_old_joes

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.

day1_misc01

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).

day1_arah01

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.

day1_arah02

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

day1_gijoe

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

day1_snakeeyes

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

day1_cobra

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

day2_arah

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).

day2_gijoe

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.

day2_snakeeyes

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.

day2_cobra

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

day2_misc1

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…

day2_misc2

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.

full_stack

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…