Cyberspace Comics market report, reviews and more

April 7, 2011

Famous Fanmail #53 Ralph Macchio

Filed under: Famous Fanmail — Doorman @ 6:46 am

You may not be surprised to learn that most people in the comic business grew up reading comic books. However, you might be interested in knowing what they were reading. Here’s a look at “Famous Fanmail”!

Comic book editor, Ralph Macchio , has a strong handle on Marvel continuity. In this letter he carefully considers the dangerous implications that might be caused by inserting the Eternals storyline into the Marvel Universe. This one was printed in Eternals #3 (cover date – September 1976).

Eternals letters page with Ralph Macchio

On Ebay: Eternals | Ralph Macchio
On AtomicAvenue: Eternals

April 6, 2011

Cyberspace Comics Market Report #8 April 2011

Filed under: Cyberspace Comics Market Report — Doorman @ 9:30 am

I’ve been selling comics in my sparetime since 2002 but I only recently started selling them on a full-time basis. March 2010 was my first full month of full-time comic sales. It’s been a fun ride and it’s allowed me to continue to maintain this daily comics blog. Here’s a look back at the previous month.

Number of listings in eBay’s “comics” section: 1,519,844 (15.52% decrease from last month)
Number of those that are Cyberspace Comics listings: 7,119 (4.43% increase)
My “market share” of comic listings on eBay: .46840% (23.62% increase)

Number of eBay comic listings that are auctions: 88,779
Percentage of eBay comic listings up for auction: 5.84%

My current eBay feedback (unique): 11,134
My current eBay feedback (total): 23,259
My positive eBay feedback score: 100%

Position Dollar Sales # of Current Listings
First Underground Bad Girls (966 listings)
Second Bad Girls Marvel Comics (746 listings)
Third TPBs (↑) Image Comics (635 listings)
Fourth Marvel Comics (↓) Other Indies (522 listings)
Fifth Image Comics (↑) Magazines (450 listings)

 
Number of listings on Atomic Avenue: 1,319,830 (.9448% increase from last month)
Number of those that are in the Cyberspace Comics Store on Atomic Avenue: 28,162 (10.96% increase)
My “market share” of comic listings on AtomicAvenue: 2.1338% (9.92% increase)
My estimated “market share” of AtomicAvenue orders: 5.75%

This month showed a large drop in eBay listings (15.5%) which may be in response to their upcoming fee increases (actually, eBay is decreasing their fee percentage but, they are now applying it to shipping costs, as well – this will effectively raise the amount of fees they collect).

April 5, 2011

Comic Book Cover Swipes Exposed #53 X-Men

Filed under: Swiped: Comic Book Cover Swipes Exposed! — Doorman @ 11:54 am

After looking at hundreds of comic book covers, it becomes quickly apparent that not every cover is 100% original. Whether done intentionally or even underhandedly, there’s something about uncovering these “swipes” that adds a new element of fun to reading and collecting comics.

New X-Men paid homage to the tough guy pose of an Uncanny X-Men comic published 20 years earlier.

Uncanny X-Men #210
Uncanny X-Men #210
October 1986
John Romita Jr.
New X-Men vol. II #25
New X-Men vol. II #25
June 2006
Mark Brooks

On Ebay: Uncanny X-Men | New X-Men
On AtomicAvenue: Uncanny X-Men | New X-Men

April 4, 2011

One-Shot At Greatness #53 Ren & Stimpy Holiday

Filed under: One-Shot At Greatness — Doorman @ 3:48 pm

Because publishers want you to buy their product every month, comics are typically serial in nature. However, occasionally (and more often nowadays than ever before) publishers launch a comic title that is only meant to last for one issue. While ongoing series often have multiple chances to hook in new readers, the comics highlighted in this ongoing investigations only had One-Shot At Greatness!

the Ren & Stimpy Show Holiday Special #1Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Date: February 1995
Cover Price: $2.95
Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Mike Kazaleh

*Warning! Plot Spoilers Below*

This special an all-new framing sequence of Mr. Yak channel-surfing on Christmas Eve – flicking back and forth between Ren & Stimy “reruns”, the Muddy Mudskipper show and It’s A Wonderful Christmas Carol, Santa. The first story is reprinted from the Ren & Stimpy Show #3: In the spirit of Christmas, Ren starts working a bunch of jobs in order to save up enough money to buy Stimpy the Log he’s always wanted for Christmas. But, when he’s finally able to buy the prized Log – it’s quickly eaten by Mr. Horse! Will our duo be able to put this aside and spend a peaceful evening enjoying the things that really matter? Of course not! The second story is reprinted from the Ren & Stimpy Show #15. In this tale, Ren discovers that he’s on Santa’s dreaded naughty list! And, he’s quickly driven insane with paranoia that Santa is watching him at all times. In the final story, also from the Ren & Stimpy Show #15, our boys dress up as North Pole elves in order to get a sneak peek at all of the new Christmas toys. Too bad for them that their charade doesn’t pan out – and they soon find themselves under attack from a gun-toting, commando-ized Rudolph! They manage to get away and happen upon Santa’s Record Room. Always one to capitalize on other’s mistakes, Ren steals the files that Santa keeps on everyone and uses them for blackmail. Powdered Toast Man caught eating a competitor’s cereal! Mr. Horse in a rubber walrus protector! And you won’t believe what Ren’s got on Santa himself!

If you enjoy the madcap, lunacy of the Ren & Stimpy cartoons then you’ll surely be please with this issue – and any issue done by Dan Slott and Mike Kazaleh. Kazaleh is a perfect pick for this book – the only thing missing is a zoomed in gross-out painting – but we’ll let that slide. And, as for the writing – Slott is amazing! He captures the voices perfectly and writes them so you can easily picture cartoon voices in your head! His Ren & Stimpy stories are so good – and so similar in tone to the cartoons that it’s surprising to me that he wasn’t a writer on the show. If you’re a fan of the show – you really should read this special (and the other issues written by Slott). If you’re not … then this’ll probably just read bunch of weird nonsense.

On Ebay: Ren & Stimpy | Dan Slott | Mike Kazaleh
On AtomicAvenue: Ren & Stimpy

April 2, 2011

Minimate Spotlight #46 X-Men

Filed under: Minimate Spotlight — Donny B @ 9:08 pm

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

With a new X-Men movie around the corner, I thought it’d be fitting to take a look at the very first comic-based Moviemates that Art Asylum released – X-Men 3 Minimates!
These were released as Wave 14 of the Marvel series, and opened the door for a brand new sub-category of Minimates. Not only that, but this particular wave came after what fans consider to be the lowest point in Marvel Minimate history, when most of the characters released were comprised of previously released parts (which saved the company a decent amount of $ in production costs, but in the end, made the products suffer) … it is argued that the X-Men 3 wave breathed new life into a line of toys that may have died out otherwise.

Wave 14 was Art Asylum’s first venture into comic movie Minimates, and so they hadn’t yet perfected the marketing aspect of it. First off, they weren’t released until long after the movie had left theaters. Second, with this wave, we were only given 7 different figures – Storm & Colossus, Juggernaut & Beast, Wolverine & Jean Grey, and Phoenix packed as the variant. This isn’t even close to being the full line up of main characters from that movie, but one traditional wave only consists of 6 releases plus a variant.
It wasn’t until Spiderman 3 that more than one full wave was dedicated to a single movie.

Since then, AA has found a pretty solid formula for producing and selling Moviemates, with one full wave for the main characters, supplemental 2-packs released exclusively via TRU, an “army dump” for villains (like the drones from IM2 or the Frost Giants from Thor), and the occasional 4-pack sold through online stores or comic shops – all of which are now appearing on shelves with plenty of time before the film’s release date.

Interestingly, this wave did one additional thing that helps fans track the history of Minimates. On top of being the first Moviemate wave, and the first in several waves to sport a complete line of new sculpts, it also raised the bar in terms of detail. I can still remember when this line was initially released, many of my fellow Minimate collectors had much praise for the ‘impressive detailing’ on Juggernaut, specifically.
Looking back on it now, these particular ‘mates really aren’t too remarkable. But at the time, they were a sizeable leap in terms of the evolution of Minimate design. 

Behind the Image: 

This idea is based very closely off of an officially released posted for the 3rd X-Men movie. I essentially just followed the formula of that poster and altered it to feature each of the 6 released Minimates of that film. The backgrounds were simply lit up with different colored bulbs, and each image was passed through some filters in Photoshop to achieve a more dramatic intensity.

On Ebay: X-Men
On AtomicAvenue: X-Men

April 1, 2011

Guide to Marvel Comics Presents #2

Filed under: Guide to Marvel Comics Presents — Doorman @ 8:28 am

Marvel Comics Presents launched in 1988 as an ad-free anthology showcasing four eight-page features, stuffed inside a wrap-around cover. This guide will tell you everything you wanted to know about the series – and more!


Marvel Comics Presents #2
Cover Date: Mid September 1988 | Cover Price: $1.25 | Cover Artist: Alex Saviuk


Wolverine in “Save the Tiger” part 2
written by Chris Claremont
art by John Buscema with Klaus Janson

 
The hoodlums who roughed up the Princess Bar in the last issue are now answering to their boss, local crimelord Mr. Roche. Unpleased with their performance, he’s hired a mercenary named Razorfist to complete the job they couldn’t finish – destroy the Tiger. Meanwhile, back at the Princess Bar, Logan explains to O’Donnell and Sapphire that Davis Chapel’s dying request was to have a keepsake returned to the Tiger. As the bar patrons stow their weapons and the place calms down, Logan notices someone watching him from outside the bar. He tracks her down and discovers that the girl is Jessan Hoan! (For those not in the know, Wolverine and the X-Men rescued Jessan from the Reavers in an issue of Uncanny X-Men published a few months earlier).

Man-Thing in “Elements of Terror” part 2
written by Steve Gerber
art by Tom Sutton

 
This issue opens up with General Selbert being questioned by Senator Wycombe as to his involvement in anti-drug initiatives in Colombia, as well as Super Soldier experiments devised by the Freedom Science Studies Institute. The Senator also asks about Project: Glamour – to which the General uneasily denies any knowledge of. Later that night, the inquisitive Senator is murdered! Meanwhile, our muck-monster protagonist continues to get used to its malformation due to contact with an experimental creature (as seen last issue).

Master of Kung Fu in “Crossing Lines” part 2
written by Doug Moench
art by Tom Grindberg with Dave Cockrum

 
Shang-Chi dons a new outfit and catches up with his old companions. He learns that Black Jack Tarr has taken over as leader now that Sir Denis Nayland Smith has retired to Scotland. There’s also a new member named Xiao who seems to be romantically linked with Leiko Wu, Shang-Chi’s first love. Later that night, assassins break into their home, murder Xiao and kidnap Leiko!

the Captain in “the Cold War
by Al Milgrom
 

 
After his encounter with the Silver Surfer (last issue), the Fear-Eater has journeyed to Earth to find unique fears to feast upon. And, with its alien abilities, the extraterrestrial infiltrates the body of his next victim, the Captain (aka Steve Rogers formerly Captain America). During his latest mission, the Captain has to free people from the icy madness of a mishap at the Cryogenic Center of New York. The frozen employees conjure up memories of the Captain’s own past history – frozen in a block of ice for years and later unfrozen – left to live in a world unknown to him! These memories begin to turn into fear – the very substance that the Fear-Eater thrives upon. To stimulate more of that emotion, the alien uses his powers to animate one of the frozen employees – attacking the Captain. However, the Fear-Eater soon learns that the Captain doesn’t cave under pressure. Instead, the first inklings of fear only cause him to summon up his courage all the more to defeat the icy villain – unknowlingly driving the alien off in search of weaker prey.


Note: Razorfist, the villain in the Wolverine feature, is traditionally a villain from Master of Kung Fu.

Note from the Format Dept: this issue doesn’t utilize the wrap cover format that the first issue established.

On Ebay: Marvel Comics Presents | Wolverine | Man-Thing | Shang-Chi | Captain America
On AtomicAvenue: Marvel Comics Presents | Wolverine | Man-Thing | Master of Kung Fu | Captain America

Famous Fanmail #52 John Van Fleet

Filed under: Famous Fanmail — Doorman @ 8:27 am

You may not be surprised to learn that most people in the comic business grew up reading comic books. However, you might be interested in knowing what they were reading. Here’s a look at “Famous Fanmail”!

John Van Fleet is a comic artist who’s done a number of covers, most notably for the X-Files. His style is very recognizable. He got a letter printed in Masters of the Universe #12 (cover date – March 1988).

Masters of the Universe letters page with John Van Fleet

On Ebay: Masters of the Universe | John Van Fleet
On AtomicAvenue: Masters of the Universe

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