Friday, October 30, 2009

This is Entry 113: It's Coming!

A massive Comic Book review posting!

- 94 Current Issues. 49 of DC, 43 of Marvel & 2 issues of Doctor Who.
- 72 Back Issues. 30 of them are DC, 30 are Marvel & 11 are from other companies. The others are were it's at! I'm really excited to share with you those!
- 16 Graphic Novels. 13 are DC, 1 is Marvel & 2 are from other companies. Of the DC books, over half are of Y The Last Man & also I've now read Watchmen. I've also seen the movie so Watchmen might get it's own post to review both the Book & Movie.

These numbers are subject to change since I buy more & more stuff each week & I'm all that quick on the updating. Look for these posts & more coming to a MyBlog near you!

And as always: Stay Jazzy!

-Brian

Sunday, October 25, 2009

This is Entry 112: OH YEAH!

A year or two ago I found one of the odder comics in my collection The Adventures of Kool-Man #1 & it's one comic that I've wanted to do a special post devoted to it's self but I just haven't gotten around to it (I will some day). But have no fear Linkara is here! He rescently reviewed said issue for his super cool & awesome web series Atop the Fourth Wall so I present to you his review:



To see his other videos click Here.

Enjoy & as always: Stay Jazzy!

-Brian

This is Entry 111: Comics!

I sort feel that I should be talking about my trip Down Under before I forget it all but I won't be. At least not now. It is definitely something I'll probably have done by the end of end of the year. This post is going to be about....

Comic Books! :)

Yes, yes. A topic frequently covered here on MyBlog but there is something I've been thinking about over the few days is other places where you can other then in your friendly neighborhood Comic Book Store. Ok, there might not be any in your neighborhood. But none of the one's I go to are in my neighborhood so I don't think that really matters.

Back on topic: So, your looking for comics in none traditional locations your most likely not going to find the most current stuff: everything from a month or two past to things from decades ago. Now if you want my opinion (since this is my blog your going to get it) I personally find Old comics to pretty super cool & awesome. It's not only the stories with in the comics but the Ads! Old Ads rock my socks off! It's been a thought of mine to go through my collection & search for the coolest Ads I can find. Now why haven't I done this? Well, my Scanner is kind of being kind of pissy. It will let me do 3 scans & then start freaking out. It's a big hassle so most of the time I just forgot about. This is also the reason why I stopped adding pictures to my Comic Review posts.

But I'm getting off topic again: where to find old Comics!

My main non traditional places are: Antique Stores, Used Books Stores & Thrift Stores. With most of these stores I've found they don't know what they have so your most likely gone to get your Comics for a pretty cheap price. I find most of my find for under 5 dollars & down to as little as a quarter.

One thing about Antique Stores not all of them sell Comics or Books for that fact but they are still cool to look through. Again another thing about Antique Stores & Used Books Stores if they have signs outside which say they sell "Old Magazines" this is a pretty good sign for you that there might be Comics included under that umbrella title.

It's story time!

Story #1: I had sometime while I was in New Zealand to wonder the City I was in (don't remember which one) I found a Used Book store which said it sold "Old Magazines" so I went in & almost directly in front of me was a pile of Comics. All from 1970's I think, maybe late late '60's. But as I looked through the pile I found some cool Australian reprint Comics of old DC Comics. But the major find of pile was a US copy of Amazing Spider-Man #121. What so special about that book? It's the Death of Gwen Stacy! One of the major moments on Spider-Man comics history! Now how much were they selling this book for? $2.00!

You know how much a mint condition copy goes for? 400.00!!!!! That's the price according to Comics Price Guide.com. That's the top of their scale on the bottom end the same issue goes for $16.00. A mid range book goes for 50 dollars. I'm not sure how much the copy I picked up would go for, certainly not 400 dollars but what I'm getting at I found a famous comic at well undervalued price at a non traditional place for comics.

Story #2: I work at a Thrift Store & every so often we get Comics donated. Now I'm not involved with the pricing of Books but I've noticed that all Comics & Magazines are priced at 50 cents. So, over the time I've been there I've picked up the Zero Hour mini series (6 Issues), Rom Spaceknight #1, a collected edition of Batman: Year One: all for 50 cents each. Well, cheaper since I work there (employee discount!)

3 more things on the more traditional front:
- Know what your local Comic Book store or stores are doing. At times they have sales & for the most part I've seen them discount their back issues at some nice price during these. I know one sale I went to everything was 50 off & I picked up a whole pile of cool comics!
- Comic Book Conventions! Attend them! Most times the comics sold there are at a discount!
- If you ever see a "Everything in this box is a Dollar/50 cents/whatever": look through it. I don't I've even been disappointed after looking in them.

So, that's enough for this ramble.

Until next time: Stay Jazzy!

-Brian

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

This is Entry 110: Laziness & My Comic Book Collection

Hello!

So, this post is going to be about Laziness & my Comic Book Collection.

After I buy my weekly amount of books (5, 10, 15, 20 books. It varies from week to week). I put them is a pile. A pile that is easily visible in my room, so they stare in in the face. After a few weeks, maybe month or two worth have built up. I then collect up the pile & take them to my Computer to entry them into my Excel database. After this or sometimes after this but I'll blog about them here. In the beginning the reviews/ramblings were longer but got shorter & short as a I start to have more & more books to write about.I keep trying to get the pile down but they never really happens. It also seems sort of like a pain to talk about them because for some issues I've forgotten what the book was about & then have to flip through the book to refresh myself. Sometimes this was for books just a month past. So, after this I would them bag the books (I don't have boards) & file the books away. That is my system.

What am I getting at. Not sure. Maybe I'm rambling. But before I left for a month I wanted to have as little Comics built up so that when I got back & had a month worth of comics to check up on it wouldn't be that much but remember that pile! The pile that stares me in the face. Well, that was only a week or twos' worth of books. BUT I forgot about a few other things: 2 shopping bags of a couple months' worth of books that had been entered into the database & blogged about but had not been bagged & filed away. So, I thought that wasn't much so I set about to bag & file them away today. I got out my bags, set the books, got already. BUT before I started I went look for a box to file away the books. "I'll start with Superman. Got a lot of those books. Now where is that Box?" All my Boxes are white & not labeled. So, I spend some time searching through the boxes looking for the one I want. So, I open the first box & none of the books in side are bagged! Wha?

I start to look through what's in the box & near the front were books from Free Comic Book Day, which happened on the 1st Saturday in May. So, all the rest of the books are from around then: 6 months ago!

So, I didn't bag up anything thing. Having 5 months worth of stuff that needed to be bagged. There is the month's worth of books that need to put through the process. Plus, there are also a dozen or some Graphic Novels that also need to processed & I have a large pile of Back Issues (had a short pile before I left but bought a few old comics on my trip) that also need processing. Look over all that I felt a bit disheartened so I packed everything away to wait until a time when I had a full day to devote to this effort. 6 months of Comics is going to take a while! I think I might even need another books or two.

Plus, tomorrow is Wednesday which means New Comics for the week which also means another stack to add to the pile!

*sigh*

Until next time: Stay Jazzy!

-Brian

Thursday, October 15, 2009

This is Entry 109: Vacation!

Well, I lied to you Jim Nation: I did not Blog from down under. But I have my reasons: Blogger was blocked on the Computer I was using, I didn't feel like paying money to get on a Computer, Didn't have time & a few other reasons so that's why there was not a post from there but do expect a post(s) about what I did on my Month trek around the underside of our great planet. I have a little over thousand & half photos to sort through. Once sorted Pic's will be posted.

As stated in Entry 107, I had a list of things I wanted to do:
While Down Under, there a few things I personally want to do which might be slightly geeky/odd:
1. Go to an Australian Comic Book Store & buy some Australian, not found in the U.S., Comics.
2. Go to a Grocery Store & just wonder around to see what it's like. What's the same, what's different, etc.
2a. Find Vegemite & see what it is. Not necessary buy some to eat (I hear it tastes nasty) but at least find some to see what it is.

Well, 1 sort of happened. I did find a Comic book store, a few in fact but didn't find any real "Australian" comics because they don't really exist not the market for it. All the comics I found were either shipped from the U.S. or Comics repackaged for the Australian market. More my Comic Book finds later & my major find! 2 I did & was much all there different with only a few things that made me wonder (Lime Milk?) 2a I did & eat it a few times. I was told how properly eat said food product from a local (my tour director).

Something else I wanted to see but didn't list was: see water flow in the wrong direction down the toilet: I didn't. The pot didn't flow in a smooth motion to see it. I did see a fountain do it so I guess that I could csay I saw it but just not how I wanted it to.

I saw 3/4th of the OZ (Australia) & a chunk of "The Long White Cloud" (New Zealand). More stuff on those places later on.

Until next time: Stay Jazzy!

- Brian