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Weekend Acquisitions: Weekend of September 6-8 2019

Posted on September 9, 2019 by Walt

Over the weekend, I wound up with a lot of "extra" purchasing that’s a bit beyond "normal." In addition to weekend comic shop visits, I had an InStockTrades order come in, as well as having gone to Cleveland Comic Con 2019 (that’ll be detailed in another post).

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I jumped on the chance to get Savage Sword of Conan #1. As this was a "regular-priced back-issue" (and not a 25-cent/50-cent/$1 bargain-bin issue) I had no qualms with "just" getting #1 since it was available. Plus, it’s from a time when #1 MEANT something and was "special"–in this case kicking off an over 200-issue series! (Whereas modern Marvel seems to MOSTLY max-out at 50 issues before a new #1, if not multiple #1s for the same title (renumbered/new volume) within a single year (or 12-month span).

I also snagged Deathmate: Black, having seen something recently noting it as the first appearance of Gen13. And then at another shop, snagged 2 copies of Gen13 #1. These are for the ongoing series, and not the original mini-series of the same title…but still, for the novelty of it, I was happy to spend the $1.25 (total!) for the 3 issues (again).

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Being on an Aliens kick recently, I’d ordered some recent-ish collected volumes. Though I have the single issues for all but Aliens: Resistance, I was willing to pay the discounted online price, where the full price was not worth it to me. I’ve also been a bit resistant to these "skinny" paperback volumes in light of the various omnibus volumes and library-edition oversized hardbacks and such.

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I was, however, quite willing to pay full price for Spawn: Origins vol. 1 as it was already one of the "Image $9.99 vol. 1s" and so a bargain at cover price.

And Classic G.I.Joe vol. 15, which I believe is TECHNICALLY out-of-print and unavailable online except for massively over-jacked-up third-party scalper prices. This still leaves me missing vols. 10-14.

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Filed under: 2019 Non-Review posts, 2019 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Newest DC Omnibus: Brave and the Bold Bronze Age vol. 1

Posted on February 6, 2017 by Walt

There’s a danger with seeing something available for pre-order well in advance, at a massively-discounted price.

Case in point? Batman: The Brave and the Bold – Bronze Age Omnibus vol. 1.

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I apparently pre-ordered this some time back, for a great price…but completely, totally forgot about it.

And then I received a notification from Amazon. My “order” had shipped.

…Oops.

I would not have preordered it if I wasn’t interested…but I had not consciously planned for the book, nor even remembered it was due out…and did not note it in any stores.

I’ve been increasingly interested in the _____: The Golden Age and _____: The Silver Age volumes in paperback…but hadn’t really figured to snag any of the hardback Omnibus volumes.

Guess there’s a first time for everything, though!

Filed under: 2017 Non-Review Posts, 2017 Posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Showing off the Shelves: X-Men January 2017

Posted on January 24, 2017 by Walt

Today, I’m showing off my current X-Men shelf configuration, with some volumes "weeded out" for present, possibly permanently, or to be added back in once I expand my shelving, which my collection has pretty much outgrown at the moment.

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One of my earliest collected volumes ever was that original The Essential Uncanny X-Men 1 that I bought right before leaving for college back in 1999. Obviously, my X-collection has grown significantly in the last 17 1/2 to 18 years!

I have stuff largely in chronological–or near-chronological–order, moving through the franchise’s history, with this first shelf pretty much covering 1963-1994-ish.

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Picking up in 1995, this second shelf pretty much takes us through the later ’90s, early 2000s, Morrison, Whedon, and up to 2010 or so.

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And moving beyond Second Coming and the Fraction run, a bunch of the miscellaneous/skinnier volumes taper off the X-Men proper, and get into other stuff…primarily Wolverine and X-Factor.

Of course, with Marvel discontinuing the Essential line in favor of the Epic line, I may eventually be swappign out some of the Wolverine and X-Factor stuff, or pay inflated prices to fill the Wolverine run in. Time will tell!

The X-books are–next to Superman–the most significant part of my entire collection, and certainly out-do the rest of my Marvel collection; while not exact, I’d say these account for at least 35% of my entire Marvel collection.

Impressive as they can be…knowing the "gaps" in content from the various X-Men oversized hardcovers and omnibus volumes…I find it kinda hard to imagine sticking just to the omnibus/OHC format…there’s so much more to be had by combining the formats. That said…I’d be interested in the Inferno and Inferno Crossovers volumes if I could get them relatively cheaply…though more immediately I’ll probably be content to just get the paperbacks as those’ll be much cheaper, period, and there are several other paperbacks that I want that do not (to my knowledge) have hardcover counterparts…including several Gambit volumes!

But that all gets off on other topics (like "wishlists")…

Filed under: 2017 Non-Review Posts, 2017 Posts, 2017 Reviews, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

New Arrivals: Cap and X-Men

Posted on January 21, 2017 by Walt

"Bonus" weekend post!

These two books just arrived today!

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Back in December 2014, I’d thought I’d "completed" the set of Brubaker Captain America Omnibii with The Trial of Captain America. Of course, turned out I was wrong.

However, over the years, I lost track of and/or just flat-out missed the thing’s release, until several weeks ago when I saw someone post about it in a Facebook group.

So, I believe, if I haven’t missed anything else…NOW I have a "complete set" of Brubaker omnibus volumes for Captain America (I’ll likely "show off the shelf" in the near future).

Additionally, the X-Men: Bishop’s Crossing volume is one that I’d thought I’d missed out on entirely, having known OF the hardcover, but not seeing any listing for it online (except massively over-priced third-party stuff) with the newer paperback edition just releasing recently.

However, doing a last-second search "just in case," it was available, so I’d added it to my order.

Of course, I’d never touch volumes like these without a massive online discount. I absolutely want to support local comic shops, and continue to buy what I’d "usually" buy from ’em (my DC bundles from DCBS are in addition to my "usual"). Marvel volumes are–almost entirely–far too expensive for me to justify ever paying "full cover price" for.

Also continues to be amazing (to me) that virtually everything I do have interest in from Marvel (content-wise) tends to be OVER 10 years old, and in many cases, over 15 years old! Brubaker‘s Cap stuff seems to be a primary exception.

While I was able to squeeze the Captain America volume onto the shelf, that was partly due to it "replacing" (and going beyond) two other books I’d had already from bargain purchases and partly to my apparently having left a little bit of extra space for something like this.

Unfortunately, I am out of space for X-Men volumes, and have to wait til I can get a couple more bookcases and do some rearranging to properly integrate X-Men stuff from the last few months.

But that’s something for another post sometime.

Filed under: 2017 Non-Review Posts, 2017 Posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Showing Off the Shelves: Batman (December 2016)

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Walt

I’ve been getting newer stuff worked in and generally re-situating my shelves, leading to showing off the current configuration.

Lagging a bit behind my Superman collection, which is well onto its third shelf, my Batman collection still has a little way to go to fill its second shelf and creep onto its third.

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While The Dark Knight Returns is more of an "ending" to the story (or should’ve been, but Strikes Again and III are another subject/post entirely) I ended up starting the shelf off with it–I have the story in numerous editions, much like other favorites The Death of Superman and Kingdom Come.

Then, following what I did with the Superman stuff, I lead with the "survey" collections spanning the years, then try to approximate rough chronological order from the Silver Age into modern times. The Batman run seems a lot more solidly event-oriented, with the bulk of the "inches" on the shelf being the event collections.

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Following the event stuff, I ease a bit into the New 52 era, and then back out into broad stuff. Even as I type this, it crosses my mind that the Batman Arkham volumes actually belong up in the earlier volumes as ‘survey’ books that are not collecting any singular story but a broad range of issues featuring a particular character.

The glaring gaps in my Batman collection are all the more glaring compared to Superman; but that’s not terribly surprising, as I’ve been a much more solid Superman fan than Batman over the years. No great dislike of the character; just a far deeper like of Superman.

The few hardcovers that I have are largely glaring stick-outs to me, such that I’d be somewhat interested in trying to replace them with paperbacks; particularly Heart of Hush and Batman: R.I.P. I’d ordered Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader at the same time as the Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow counterpart, so am somewhat hesitant to replace one, as they tie together in my mind; perhaps someday I’ll replace ’em both.

It’s simply astounding to consider the vast library of Bat-stuff out there…I have a relatively large collection here, but I swear I don’t have a fraction of what’s (been) available!

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

Showing Off the Shelves: The Flash (November 2016)

Posted on November 30, 2016 by Walt

My Flash stuff is the most recent "subcollection" to take off for me, having "started" with The Secret of Barry Allen and not really counting the Flashpoint volumes to pulling those in, and adding a number of other volumes in 2016…including having pre-ordered the Flash by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato Omnibus prior to being laid off.

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As Flashpoint was an "event," I’d had those books grouped with my other "event books," but decided that as the only "event series" that I have like this (and keeping what I do have of Blackest Night with the Green Lantern stuff, made sense to me to move Flashpoint over to fit in right after the Road to Flashpoint volume, leading directly to the Omnibus (which has the first 25 or so issues of the New 52 run).

I would hope that there’ll be another omnibus collecting the back half of the series, but for now, I’m more interested in/looking forward to The Flash by Geoff Johns vol. 3 and The Flash by Mark Waid vol. 1!

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

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.

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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.

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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 »

Showing Off the Shelves: Superman (November 2016)

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Walt

My collection is constantly growing and shifting, with gaps filled in here and there, a new/superior or preferred edition replacing another, and so on.

I have a large DC collection overall, though primary within that are my Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern collections. I think from there it drops down to The Flash and then the remainder of DC stuff and events.

Today, I’m showing off my updated Superman collection!

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I start the section with the two Archives volumes I have, and then other general/history-spanning volumes. Then the Superman Chronicles of the Golden Age stuff, then the Showcase Presents kicking off the Silver Age/Middle stuff; the "themed" volumes, then the Superman vs. _____ books; several other collections, to Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? Kicking off "my" Superman we have the World of Krypton and The Kents, both (to my understanding) taking place before we jumped in with the Byrne reboot. Then For All Seasons as a general beginning/Year One/Origin thing. Next, the Man of Steel series collecting the entirety (I believe) of the Byrne run. I have stuff as much in order as possible from there; roughly publication order, working within existing structure.

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We quickly get into the Death of Superman stuff, and the few volumes of stories after, before jumping to the weird semi-complete-ish (sorta) run of stuff from 1999-2001ish with the numbered Superman volumes (and Emperor Joker) to Our Worlds at War, the "new" "origin" in Birthright, and then stuff from around Infinite Crisis and into the New Krypton era, Black Ring, skipping the New 52, and I’ve got the Superman: Lois and Clark volume here. I have my Death and Return of Superman Omnibus as a "divider" to other quasi-miscellaneous stuff–the Superman: Doomsday tpb, the Gil Kane and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez volumes, then what I have of the various Superman/Batman collections.

While I’ve no significant interest in the older, incomplete "omnibus" that had a lot of the Death/Return stuff, I do also have my original volumes collecting the stories, including several editions of the Death of Superman volume itself–the original edition, the updated edition, and the hardcover edition they put out "recently" for the Book/Blu-Ray/Digital combo packs.

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Spilling onto a third shelf, my two Superman hardcovers from the New 52 era–Unchained and Superman: Doomed. From there, the Earth One volumes, All-Star Superman, and other semi-isolated volumes into Supergirl and Superboy stuff, before getting into general-DC Universe stuff.

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And while showing off "the Superman collection," I can’t leave out the shelf of 3D depictions of the character!

Of course, this is a "snapshot" of the collection at present–I have several figures packed away from moving; and several paperbacks have gotten shuffled around and pulled and not re-filed to read…and there are plenty of others I’d like to get as able.

But for now, November 2016, this is the core of my bookshelf-able Superman collection!

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

New Arrivals: Shadow of the Bat 1 and The Infinity Watch 2

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Walt

Just a quick post for today. These two books arrived. I’d ordered them back on the 10th or so, but they only just arrived today…ugh.

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Batman: Shadow of the Bat was the first “legit” Batman series I got in on from #1 back in the day. I really dug the covers–and they stood out quite a bit to me with their solid borders around distinctive images…it was a cover dress that really worked.

And proving that not all of their books have to have crap-pricing, Marvel collects the back half-ish of its Warlock and the Infinity Watch series (dropping Warlock from the title for the collected book). The entire 42-issue run and then some is collected across two volumes, making an excellent set of paperbacks!

Unfortunately, DC‘s Rebirth stuff the last few weeks has cut into my spending on collected volumes…though once the “bundles” kick in and such I’ll have several other volumes I’m eyeballing.

Then there’s also the fact that DC actually keeps their books in-print unlike Marvel. But that rant is a subject for some other time.

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

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!)

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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.

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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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