Weight Watchers

Tis the season for excess. Last week I had the Big B Comics Christmas gathering on Wednesday night, Thursday night I had my old high school buddies’ beer and wings Christmas cheer, Friday night I was invited to help friends celebrate their Slava for Saint Alypius the Stylite and Saturday we entertained for some friends who will be away for the holidays. It is not easy to discipline yourself at such gatherings, a little too much to eat and drink on one evening can easily be countered with a couple of days of routine but lining up so many days in a row has left me loosening the belt down to the next hole. I might have to take up one of those gym membership brochure offers which are piling up in my mailbox if this keeps up.

I had a slightly smaller stack of comics in my eBay auctions pile this week. This pile ends on December 25th so while we want to have a good representation of books we don’t want to inundate the internet with our offerings in fear of overwhelming the system and hampering NORAD’s ability to track Santa; just doing our part. The cover of the week belongs to Avengers #130: when I saw it a bunch of other covers flashed in front of my eyes. Marvel has tried this motif so many times: remember Avengers #53, Fantastic Four #73 and one of the greatest covers of the Silver Age Avengers Annual #2. The Avengers #130 cover reminds me of the ones I mentioned above and many more that I just can’t quite pin down the specifics at this second. I wonder what the first Marvel cover with this theme was? Anybody venture a guess?

I found this ad near the back of Giant-Size Super-Heroes featuring Spider-Man #1 and it teases a book that never reached the newsstands. Giant-Size Super-Teams #1 doesn’t exist: what book did they actually release instead? Reading this blurb from the editor it sounds like Marvel was all over the map; they weren’t sure what format they were going to go with and it’s obvious that something changed immediately after this announcement.

Looks like Tailspin Tommy is in a jam: some dame with a gat is calling the shots, he’s gonna have to think fast. This splash page is from a very unique offering in Tailspin Tommy Air Adventure Magazine Volume 1 #2 from January 1937. This is old, old days, predating Detective Comics #1 and interestingly the book features mostly text with some full-page art thrown in but it is in a comic book format, like I said, early, early days and very cool.

A healthy crop of books and toys ended on our weekly ice collectibles eBay auction last night. I was pleased with how well our raw copy of Batman #27 finished, it sold for $711 USD. I picked the book up in August at Fan Expo in Toronto and when I saw it I told myself I’d put it aside and time it for an auction close to Christmas. I think I did the right thing.