Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Comic Books >

What's your most valuable comic and why?

Page: 1(2)

07:10 / 13.04.05

warrior number 1
*sigh*
marvelman and v for vendetta, just blew my away at the time and both those stories still seem better than just about anything i've read since. worth feck all though. got the US colour versions of both these and they are alright and worth the wait to see those stories finished off.

09:49 / 13.04.05

2000ad 225

I was on holiday at Sandown Bay holiday centre on the isle of wight aged 5 and it caught my eye in the mini market. My dad, who used to buy me old commando comics and the like got it for me. Mum didn't approve and binned it, giving my dada a bollocking for buying such a gruesome thing for his son, but I bided my time and replaced it... oh yes...

Not sure why she was never bothered about me reading about the dastardly japs machine gunning POWs and the like, but hey ho

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

03:28 / 15.04.05

this is a really hard topic. I have problems with it because I own single issues which i later got trades for, so most of them are easily parted with.

Grant's last Animal Man, I will NEVER sell that issue, I might frame it, and hope to someday meet him and get him to put a signature on it (not HIS mind you, because other people surely have that)

I love my hardcover New Xmen collections, and i really hope they due the whole run in that format.

I think I have the full run of Batman and The Outsiders around still, and thats really close to my heart, was my first "collector" experience putting it together. I really hope they didnt get left somewhere in a move, but much of my collection is in storage currently.

06:15 / 15.04.05

On a monetary tip, I've been flogging my collection off on ebay since last August. Made about £900 so far. Yesterday sold a Watchmen first edition trade signed by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. It only made £21 - thought that might have brough more.

08:26 / 15.04.05

"monetary" value (= might be worth some $):

Amazing Spider-Man 100
Maus 1 and 2, signed by Spiegelman
Sandman 1 - 75
and lots more of old marvel, vertigo, image, ...

"emotional" value (= read them again and again):

Enigma by Milligan
Pip and Norton by Dave Cooper (check this out, it´s hilarious!)
ABC by Moore, especially Promethea, LOEG and Top Ten
HATE! by Bagge
and lots of Paperbacks by Vertigo, Fantagraphics, Dark Horse

10:49 / 15.04.05

Hmm, this is a hard one… in emotional terms, it’d probably be my copy of Contract with God (signed). In financial terms, it may well be Swamp Thing 20, Alan Moore’s first issue (despite what DC now appear to be claiming with their First Taste thing), of which I have a signed copy (bought it for 60p, and had it signed by him in front of me in the late 80s, so I know it’s legit). Oh, and maybe the Watchmen hardback or the French Watchmen portfolio, the latter of which I gather is a pretty rare item now. Oh, and maybe the complete run of Miracleman.
Blimey, looks like I’ve spent all my money on Alan Moore stuff over the years. No wonder I don’t own a car or any of those other trappings of adulthood.

13:51 / 15.04.05

yeah, what is Swamp Thing 20 like? For years I was cruelly told that 21 was his first issue and then I heard that 20 was actually his first. All I know is that he tied up loose plot ends from Len Wein's run. Is it a co-writing credit Wein/Moore?

13:59 / 15.04.05

DC seems intent on denying that #20 was Moore-o's first ish.

I think he used it for clean up, but I'd not know 'cos they never bleedin collect it do they?

15:08 / 15.04.05

ST 20’s not bad – it’s called ‘Loose Ends’ (hence the issue at the end of Moore’s ST run called ‘Loose Ends (Reprise)’), and it does indeed tie up the stray plot threads before having Swamp Thing shot repeatedly to set things up for ‘The Anatomy Lesson’.

It’s not as good as many other issues of his run, but it’s pretty decent for a first issue – the art’s slightly hampered by having a semi-conceit of having images bookending and/or bordering pages – kind of like Williams’ art in Promethea, come to think of it – so you have eagles on the page corners when the government agents are being dodgy, beer cans when Matt Cable’s there, that sort of thing. Not a bad idea in itself, but if memory serves it’s rather hampered by two-page spreads being broken by adverts and the like.

It’s bewildering that DC seem intent on pretending it wasn’t his first issue as writer, and yet reprint the Crisis tie-in issue in the collections, as that requires a hell of a lot more explaining in terms of ‘what has gone before’ etc.

09:05 / 16.04.05

I've no idea about the monetary value of any of my comics because I'm worried if I did find out I'd a) be too worried to read them if they were valuable and b) be tempted to flog them when short of booze money.
Emotionally I'd say it's Amazing Spiderman #275 where the Hobgoblin kidnaps Sha-Shan because the english re-print oof that (possibly in "Zoids") is my first ever memory of Spiderman.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

13:49 / 16.04.05

Not necessarily "most valuable" in terms of money, but probably a toss up between my nigh-complete run of Milligan's "Shade the Changing Man" or the Alan Davis "Excalibur." The Excalibur stuff primarily because I still love the artwork and some of the stories are completely ridiculous, but also just because it was the first comic that I made an actual effort to follow and gather all the back issues so I could read the whole story. It matched up with my preferred level of weirdness.

Shade ended up being my "one true love" in comics for a while.

Also quite fond of Doom Patrol #50, it's high on the list, at least partially because it has a really nice Biz cover, Jamie Hewlett art, and all those "imaginary Doom Patrol stories" at the back.

18:29 / 16.04.05

(Uncanny) X-Men #14. Old school issue featuring the fist appearance of those wacky robots, the Sentinals.

19:10 / 16.04.05

Fantastic Four #52, 'cause
(a)It introduced the Black Panther by having him kick the FF's collective ass, single-handedly.
(b)It was one of the first comics I ever bought.
(c)It has an Indian character who doesn't spend the whole issue wearing a headdress and doing a cod holyman spiel.
(d)It made me fall in love with the Lee/Kirby FF and introduced me to, well, both of them.
(e)I still want a technojungle of my very own.
(f) It was a long, long time before Panther would get to do anything other than wear kitty tights and punch people. Gas-emitting claws and spiking the heroes' drinks is so, so far cooler than donning ceremonial kitty tights and trying to punch out, y'know, Ultron or somebody. Not that actually trying to stop Ultron just by hitting him with your more-or-less humany-human fists isn't kinda badass all on its own.

My copy is so horribly bent, folded, mutilated, and otherwise fucked at this point that it is probably entirely worthless on a monetary level. I love it even more for that, 'cause comics that show signs of use warm my heart far more than uber-mint air-tight-sealed wall-mounted collector's items.

Page: 1(2)