Summer is well underway and I’ve spent the better part of this month fixing little things around the house. Next on the list is to give our deck a fresh coat of paint. I saved the old paint can so that I can get the store to match the same colour. I remember paying about $27 for one standard can…
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My comments here are going to be short but sweet. I did not know that the Original Art to Amazing Fantasy#15 was donated to the U.S. Library of Congress in 2008 by an anonymous donor. The story goes that the anonymous donor approached Steve Ditko to give him the art, and Ditko didn’t want it! https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0805/spiderman.html You can view the…
We are in the month of June with the last vestiges of spring, the flowers are blooming, the bees are buzzing, and a young couple’s thoughts turn to marriage and a life lived happily ever after… (insert screeching brake sound here)! Well that might have been the norm in days gone but today it’s just a wee bit different. In…
I had lunch with a friend Saturday who had an extra ticket for the Niagara Falls Comic Con and asked if I’d like to join him. With no plans that day and a free ticket who could say no? He handed me the ticket and I stopped, staring incredulously: Total $46. Yes, that’s $46 for one day. It says advanced…
Last September, I acknowledged a shift in back issue sales that began in November 2015. I wrote about three concerns I had as we entered the biggest shopping season of the year: Holiday sales The US political climate Movie fatigue Now that we’re about half way through 2017, let’s revisit these concerns… Holiday Sales I had hoped that there would…
Another amazing Toronto Comic Arts Festival, or TCAF, this past weekend. It’s a free show in a wonderful space, so there’s nothing to hold a reader back from attending. As has become our tradition my son and I attend Saturday from show opening until we’ve browsed everything twice. He is eight and the world of comic reading at this point…
We are going to take Arcs & Runs in a slightly different direction this week and look at a Silver Age run of issue #4’s. Yes #4. I have listened to all the love and support for issue #2’s and their value relative to #1’s. I think many of them overvalued. I have always believed that issue #4’s only bent…
Speaking of milestones, both DC and Marvel Comics celebrated their 75th Anniversary during the past several years. DC Comics was officially founded in 1934 and Marvel Comics back in 1939. Despite all the promotions and industry events, anecdotally speaking, the 75th Anniversary of DC and Marvel seems to have been met with indifference among collectors, with very little recognition on…
It cannot be underestimated how important the artistic team is on a comic book. It can make or break a title. The interesting thing is that over time (sometimes years) a title will go through wild swings in the life of that title. To name a few, John Byrne’s Fantastic Four, Miller’s Daredevil and Gene Colan’s Doctor Strange were all great examples…
We are finally back in the saddle here on Arcs & Runs and we will start the year with a look at some comic books that were connected from their first publishing date or “birth”. Twins if you will. In today’s post, the two titles both began in September 1963 and through a few fits and starts are still running…
One of the most sobering aspects of growing older is the loss of the people around you that have had a profound effect on your life. The loss of reference points to different times in your life, one by one, inevitably pass away. Those of you reading this right now, who didn’t really connect with me here, other than the fact that…
Last updated on April 11th, 2017 at 07:37 amI’ve got a lot of things I’d like to discuss but I’m gonna have to put that on the back burner because this past weekend was the Toronto ComiCon, 2017! I usually split a booth with someone but this year I went solo, although I did have someone to help watch my…
I’m not even sure how I came across this, but I sure knew I wanted to share it from the moment I saw it. Superman debuted in 1939 and shortly after that the Max Fleischer Studios were approached to do a cartoon of the character.They weren’t really interested in doing it. They were doing Popeye Cartoons and a big success for…
About a month ago I wrote a column called You’re Creators…So Create Already. It was quite a passionate column with a lot of comments. Mostly lamenting the direction in which Marvel, in particular, had taken in their storytelling. The vast majority of comments lamented the the fact that so many characters no longer bore more than a passing resemblance to the characters that…
In Part 1 we looked at various criteria that helped to identify “quality” books as potential investment vehicles. In this follow up, we’ll examine some common traits that may, or may not exist as we continue the discussion with a look at some esoteric qualities. There’s a lot to cover so let’s jump right in. Not too long ago, there…
Last week I traveled back in time. It was a simpler time. I drank water from the outdoor water hose. I watched Saturday Morning cartoon shows and I read “The Worlds Greatest Comic Magazine”! I stepped back in time to wonderment and surprise that can only come to the innocent and wild eyed! How did I get transported back to my childhood? Back to 1967/68? Well…
If you’ve read any of my past posts, then you’ve read me drone on about buying “quality keys” versus “junk keys”, and yet I’ve avoided trying to define what I meant by “quality”. Many of you probably rolled your eyes and just assumed I was referring to the big Silver Age keys, and for the most part, you would be…
You know, I realize that I am just a single comic book fan, who is fortunate enough to have a forum like Comic Book Daily, to blab on about what is on my mind regarding comic books in general. I have been a fan since the Silver Age, and that is truly where my love of comics are centered. Marvel…
In 2012 I noticed I was buying far more comic books than I was reading. I love a good sale and tend to pick up books I wasn’t willing to pay full price for, but was willing to give it a shot at 50% or greater off (thanks to Black Friday and Boxing Day). I also noted if I reviewed…
Happy New Year Everyone! At the end of 2016, I decided to sell off some of my original art collection. It is always a bit of a scary proposition, because unlike Graded Comic Books the price of artwork can have real wild swings, and oftimes it has no rhyme or reason. We often talk about the advantage buyer or seller…
