This week Comic Culture hosts Chris Owen and Walter Durajlija celebrate talk some comic talk.
Chris drills Walt on some of his past Undervalued Spotlight picks and the boys talk about the Black Panther movie and Good Girl Art comics as collectibles.
So kick back, relax and enjoy this week’s Comic Culture.
Oh, and please, please make sure you go out and support your local comic book shop.
Comic Culture is written by Walter Durajlija and engineered by Chris Owen.
Enjoy Comic Culture’s February 28th 2018 Edition:
Is it Wednesday already?
Honey Badger is still a thing. Just this week my daughter told me that her science teacher was lecturing them and said something about a honey badger, and from beyond the closed classroom door they heard a kid in the hallway say, “Honey Badger doesn’t care!” (Presumably he knew an exact quote would not be tolerated.)
I am 100% in agreement with Chris on Kevin Smith’s movies and general persona. I wish him a full recovery, but not a fan.
https://companionparrotonline.com/Baretta_Fred.html
Speaking of Richard Blake, the original art for the cover of Giant-Size Man-Thing #1 is in ComicLink’s auction that closes next week.
I am also 100% in agreement with Chris about Black Panther. This is a mainstream film. I went with my family (no other comic book people) and they loved it. It was beautifully done, but the connection to the Marvel Universe is pretty minimal. (However – I haven’t done any background reading on this – but the purple color of the vibranium seemed to me to be the same color as the purple soul gem in GOTG I.) Totally agree with Chris on the quality of the costumes and sets. I found the final fight very hard to follow because it is a martial-arts type battle between two (mostly) black-clad opponents in a dark environment. Obviously the outcome was foreordained, but as a climax I expected more. I won’t spoil it, but I and especially my family were completely confused by the teaser after the credits.
I could only find this on Bleck – turns out he was in Marvel Comics #1 – but I don’t think you intended this Bleck – do you have a reference?
http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Bleck_(Earth-616)
However I did find a reference to a baseball player hitting a sausage with a bat:
https://deadspin.com/hey-its-10-years-and-a-day-since-the-randall-simon-s-734045362
On Undervalued Spotlight: Walt, this is your well-deserved claim to fame, and I felt that the segment sold your insight a bit short. The key point is that you have wisdom and feel developed from decades in the business. (Along the lines of Klein’s _Sources of Power_.) I have seen countless discussions (including in Overstreet) that try to guess at what the market wants or will want, and these are just like stock picking – pointless. Your picks seem more to come from a sense of the overall picture of the hobby versus the particular book, and a feeling that the book isn’t as appreciated as it should be in the grand scheme. Not to get too grandiose, but it’s the difference between market research and art appreciation. The former might work to some degree, but it leaves me cold. I think the latter works just as well – perhaps better – and is infinitely more fun. So even if some of the picks haven’t been or aren’t good investments, they still have hooks that increase their psychic value.
Just to touch on a few more winners: Strange Tales #110 (+450%), Flash Comics #1 (+400%), Batman #1 (+250%). Also Farmer’s Daughter #3 in 7.5 sold for $2.9k recently.
I won’t mention a couple of other picks that I don’t want to draw attention to at this point (shades of Tales of the Unexpected #16).
I agree with your point about the tone of the CGC boards, but if I can I am going to try to lurk there more, just in the past couple of weeks I came up with some good information on storage topics.
And as far as pedigrees go, I get you on Mile High, but anecdotally I think that some of the other pedigrees get some love, for example Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain.
Thanks for cheering me up Chris!
That baseball sausage story was great, does anyone know if weisswurst finished the race? I like Weisswurst.
The Blek we were discussing is actually a French comic, this was the only link I could find
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=uscc_part1
Whoa! After $8300 for a 3.5… $10,000 USD for an FF#4.0
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Marvel-Fantastic-Four-1-CGC-4-0-Nov-1961-1st-Appearance-Of-OW-White-Pages-/263497446817?epid=85380886&hash=item3d59abf5a1%3Ag%3AyLIAAOSw%7E4taXUvO&nma=true&si=S9KF%252Bw2W1OEpaxm2qXjKHBzpK4g%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
2000 AD is a British weekly that started in 1977 and is well over 2000 issues.