Into the Sunset
After writing this column for the past twenty months, I have decided to end this column. I want to thank you, my wonderful readers, for spending time at this column. It has been a tremendous pleasure and honour to share my…
Comic Book Daily
Discussing the minutiae of comic book collecting.
Comic Book Daily
Discussing the minutiae of comic book collecting.
Category Why Comics Rule
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Hunting for Bargains Among Amazing Spider-Man Issues
This year has been another banner year for the comic book industry. The yearly comic collecting cycle seems to culminate in the comic convention circuit during the summer and the release of the new Overstreet Price Guide at around the…
Review: Uncanny X-Men 26-31
Summertime is a time for me to catch up on reading some of the comic books that I didn’t have time to read. For my recent reading, to pass those lazy days of summer, I decided to read a story…
Drawing Real Life Lessons from Early Avengers Comics
The Avengers are in the spotlight right now, mainly because of the movie, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” which is currently screening in theatres. I loved the story and character development in this second Avengers instalment so I’m going to write…
Fan Expo Vancouver: 2015 Edition!
Fan Expo Vancouver took place on the first weekend of this month (April 3-5) and it was another big event. This year’s Fan Expo appears to have attendance that was bigger than previous years. The celebrities included Jennifer Morrison; Carrie…
Is It Worthwhile to Collect Resurrection Issues?
It’s almost Easter-time, so I thought it would be interesting to explore issues of life and death in the comic book world. The “comic book death” of a major character mirrors the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is…
Review: Superior Spider-Man 22-26
It has been two years since Marvel “killed off” Spider-Man by causing a “brain switch” that put Doctor Octopus’ mind inside the body of Peter Parker. Naturally, this created a lot of havoc in the life of Peter Parker, the…
Future Marvel and DC Movies: Who Will Be Next?
Happy New Year, everyone. It is now 2015 and it will be another fun and exciting year in the comic book industry. Last year was a busy year for movie announcements. Marvel made a slew of movie announcements including new…
Collecting Comic Places
This month saw the release of Guardians of the Galaxy #21, a much-anticipated story set in the home planet of the Venom symbiote. This story inspired me to think back on the first appearance of Venom’s home planet, which appears…
Getting to Know Gotham
The tv screen is getting crowded with comic-related tv shows this season. Agents of Shield, Arrow, and the Walking Dead are already well-established shows, and The Flash just debuted this month on the CW network. I’m going to look at…
1st Brief Appearance Vs. 1st Full Appearance: Which Is Better?
If we only look at the Wolverine example, we would assume that the value of a character's first full appearance always trumps the value of the first brief appearance. It would stand to reason that a comic book reader gets more of the character in the first full appearance issue and this would increase more buying demand (and value) for the first full appearance issue. However, as I sifted through and compared first brief appearance and first full appearance values in this year's guide, I found that this wasn’t always the case. Here are examples of comics showing both cases: examples where the first brief appearance issue is more valuable, and examples where the first full appearance issue is the more valuable of the two.
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Review: Legendary Star-Lord 1-2
Many readers of this website have already seen the new Guardians of the Galaxy (GOTG) movie. According to box office returns, GOTG is the highest grossing movie this year, which is really impressive because GOTG pulled in more viewers than…
My Summer Reading: Astonishing X-Men 44-47
It has been a while since I’ve followed the Astonishing X-Men comic book series. I hadn’t really followed this series since the great early issues by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday, so I decided to read up on Astonishing X-Men issues # 44 to 47, which was the “Exalted” storyline done by the creative team of Greg Pak, Mike McKone, and Rachelle Rosenberg.
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New Grading Company: Comic Book Certification Service
A few weeks ago, I attended a local comic convention here in Vancouver and I heard about the new company Comic Book Certification Service (CBCS). This company was started by Steve Borock, the former president of CGC so he definitely…
Mapping the World of Superheroes
When I was a kid, I was fascinated by geography and exotic locations throughout the world. This interest translated into the comic book world as I was fixated by the ways that Marvel and DC depicted the locations for their…
Review | Afterlife With Archie 1-4
I first heard about the new comic book series Afterlife with Archie at Fan Expo Vancouver, which took place last month. I never followed Archie comics very much but I was intrigued by the concept of a zombie apocalypse occurring in Archie’s world. I am also aware that this whole concept is gimmicky because it has already been done by Marvel and it has been done countless of times in other media. However, I did read some good press about Afterlife with Archie, so this convinced me to pick up the issues from my local comic book store.
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Scenes from Fan Expo Vancouver 2014
Fan Expo Vancouver rolled into town on April 18 to 20. This was the third edition of Fan Expo in Vancouver and it was another big success. This year's Expo was expanded to three days instead of two, and it was a little unusual to fall on the Easter holiday weekend. Like the upcoming 2014 Fan Expo in Toronto, this year's Fan Expo Vancouver was scheduled on a holiday long weekend, and this may have prevented some folks from attending. On the bright side, the organizers seemed to have solved the long line-ups problem from last year, as this year's wait lines didn't seem as long as the ones from last year.
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Movie Villains With Poor Comic Book Values
Joss Whedon had just announced that Ultron would appear as the main villain in the Avengers movie sequel. Like some frantic stock trader with insider information, I swung into action. I desperately phoned a few comic dealers in an effort to snag some copies of Avengers # 55 (the first full appearance of Ultron) for cheap. It took about a day to hear a back from them about the comics, and when they did call me back, the ink had already dried on the new price tags that they had slapped on the polybags. I think one dealer wanted $300 for a very fine copy of #55 so I passed on it.
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The Gender Gap In Comics
For me, this forty percent figure exaggerates the actual percentage of women comic book readers. My own experiences from attending Comic Cons and comic book stores in Vancouver would put the figure more at about twenty percent of comic book readers being women. The comic book industry is still largely dominated by men.
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