Comic Book Resources

Good lord — those are some absurdly low prices, especially for the Sgt. Fury & Marvel Super-Heroes ishes. (Both of which I own, of course. The reprints in MSH #s 15-20 or thereabouts marked my intro to Golden Age Marvel/Atlas as a kid.)

As it happens, I’ve bought basically a short box of Silver & (mostly) Bronze Age Marvel Westerns over the last couple of months via eBay, Lone Star & Mile High, & as you know I’m something of a cheapskate, so the average price per ish has certainly been under $2.

If anyone is interested in a cheaper version of Amazing Spider-Man #80, there’s always Marvel Tales #61 from 1975. Marvel started reprinting all the Spider-Man stories in the Marvel Tales series. There’s several copies of #61 on Ebay for only a $1.00. Some of the first issues of Marvel Tales are giant-sized and have reprints of very early stories of many of their main characters, in addition to Spider-Man. Pretty great.

As a kid, I never liked war stories comics. Then I read a Sgt. Fury and was surprised to find I liked it! Stan Lee and Jack Kirby brought the same kind of energy to anything they created in the 60′s.

I’m a little disturbed to see the Rawhide Kid wearing a high heel version of cowboy boots, btw…

Too bad for me I didn’t see that Iron Man #14 for $5 on eBay. I would have picked that up in a heartbeat, as I’m working towards a complete run of the first Iron Man series right now and would love to get a vintage book like that in VG/F condition for such a low price.

The only one of these I own is Marvel Super Heroes #16. Can’t remember exactly where I got it, but I know it didn’t cost me more than a few bucks. I’m a big fan of Silver-Age Western and War comics, but so far mainly have DC stuff. Haven’t found a ton of Marvel stuff for as cheap as I’d like.

Why is there no teen humor books in there?

J.A.P.

I picked up Marvel Superheroes #16 in San Diego last July for $2, so I can vouch that it shouldn’t be hard to find.

Great comic. Thanks for the recommendations, Scott! I’ll go look for that Rawhide Kid…

@ J.A.P: Why should there be? Do your own list.

“If anyone is interested in a cheaper version of Amazing Spider-Man #80, there’s always Marvel Tales #61 from 1975. Marvel started reprinting all the Spider-Man stories in the Marvel Tales series.”

Yeah, but didn’t Marvel usually edit out a page or a hand full of panels to make them fit? I recall several reprint books that cut out some full page splash panels, specifically from Kirby FF’s and Ditko’s SM.

Who is this Evan Braun character?

I’m extremely cheap and I never buy anything for more than four dollars (with a couple of rare exceptions), so I am really stunned to find that I can afford some of these. Unfortunately, I don’t think I could find them around here. The only comic book store in this area has limited shelf space, and they won’t stock any back issues that aren’t in high demand and are valuable or in great condition. (They might have that Iron Man or the Spider-Man, but if they do, they’re probably in the six or seven dollar range. All the ones I seen there from before ’79 or so are that expensive.)

Richard, good question. I don’t know the answer. Nothing really replaces having the original book anyway…

“both Hitler and Evan Braun make an appearance”

Do you mean Eva Braun or Evan Bourne?

Seriously?

2 of the 12 comments focus on the same typo?

Are you serious?

Listen, I crank these out on a weekly basis while dealing with a full time job as general legal counsel at one of Canada’s top investment firms, raise two kids under the age of 4 and run my own blog. I try to come up with an new and interesting topic each and every week, hoping that we can all find out a bit more to love about pre-Crisis comics.

If you are going to go out of your way to make a lame joke about a typo; I wish you’d do it elsewhere.

To all others – I continue to enjoy and appreciate your comments on the editorial content and whatever you have to add to the discussion.

Is that a first appearance of Eva Braun!!???!

Rest assured, Scott, that your contributions here are appreciated – even by us previously silent readers. This is my first comment to the CBR site. I find both your columns here and your posts at Seduction of the Indifferent always useful, enlightening, and a blast to read. Even when I forsake other comics sites due to lack of time, I always drop in to SID to see what you’ve put up. I’m 46 and seriously back into comics after many years. Thought I’d only be picking up collected editions, but your efforts have sent me back to the bins. I’m very selective – usually only buy done-in-ones or anthology issues, so your guidance in posts like this one, or the Gold Key one-shots column is particularly valued. You’ve put so many issues on my want list – I’ll be hunting down nearly everything from today. A big, belated thank you.

I’m the first guy to appreciate a pun, even a bad one, but don’t let the dominance of those posts get you down. There’s plenty of us out here who value your work. We just need to pipe up more often.

Best,
Joe

Hey douchebag…

[Deleted as it really wasn't very nice]

That wasn’t very nice.

Ignore that moron, Scott. The rest of us appreciate your column and look forward to it every week.

All right – I’ve calmed down (and removed the cussin’ from my initial comment).

I appreciate the positive comments.

I don’t care wWhether people want to agree of disagree with the content of these columns. People should not even feel the need to comment.

If you are going to comment, however, it would be best if it was part of an overall discussion.

One of the great problems with the internet, is that it provides everyone with carte blanche to give glib jokes that usually result in derailing any actual conversation or debate.

If you are going to take them time to log in to make a comment – just try to keep it within the context of the discussion at hand, keeping in mind that there may be typos, or grammatical slip ups or even some misinformation, as I really only have time to type like a madman for 15 minutes and add a few photos.

Thanks

To Joe – I’m glad I’ve help get you back into old comics. There is a lot of great stuff out there. Sadly, I’ve been a net seller in recent years – but I’ll be back into the swing of things once I get my home finanances under control.

I am actually going to post a comment on the content of one of those fantastci books you recommend.

One of my top 3 favorite series of Marvel’s Silver Age was RAWHIDE KID.
You make a good point Scott on how dirt cheap the market is on those Marvel western gems.
At the same time RAWHIDE KID # 46 came out, Ditko was in the middle of his AMAZING SPIDER-MAN run (issue # 25), Kirby was still drawing X-MEN (#11), etc. Try finding comics of that era in VF at less that $10!
I own a VF copy of RAWHIDE KID # 46 and I concur on your recommendation.
Not only did Alex Toth did the pencils on that back-up story but he also wrote the story!
Too bad Vinnie Coletta was chosen as inker. He is not suited at all for Toth. Then again, I’m one of those who have a hard time liking anything inked by sloppy Vinnie.
And the main story is not too shabby either: the Kid meets Doc Holliday! Loved that tale.

Seriously, Rawhide Kid is my favorite western series of all time.
They were lots of cool, action packed, fun with a dash of pathos stories in that long run.
Larry Leiber (Stan Lee’s brother) was never a good artist, but he was a good storyteller.
He did his best on RAWHIDE KID, probably because (as he told in an interview), Marvel left him alone to do his thing on westerns. Westerns weren’t high on Stan’s priority list just as Marvel’s line of Superheroes was starting to explode in popularity.

Good column Scott!

I own the title page to that Toth page – and it’s gorgeous. Although I’d much rather see someone like Dan Barry ink Toth, I didn’t think Vinnie C was too bad here. He did still try sometimes, espectially earlier in the 60s.

In terms of Lieber, I’ve always liked his work on RK. I’ve owned plenty of original pages over the years – and they all looked quite nice (especially when inked by John Tartaglione). I had a page inked by Sal Buscema from #68, and that looked really sharp. I sold most of it over the years, but I’ve held on to the cover to Rawhide Kid #90 – it’s an awesome one co-starting Kid Colt. One of my favourite covers from the entire series, and it looks soooo good in b&w.

OMG!
You own a Toth page and a Rawhide Kid cover!?!?!
You were already high on my list of cool guys Scott, but you just jumped a few notches! hehe!

I have never owned any original pages myself, way too rich for my budget on a modest educator’ s salary.
I did managed to collect an almost full run of RAWHIDE KID from # 40 to 115 (last issue with new story) in mostly VF condition and it’s the pride and joy of my collection. They are about the only stuff i own of early Marvel Silver Age.

Yeah, I went a little nuts with the original art between 1998 and 2004. I was child-free and living in a smaller (hence, cheaper to maintain) house.

I probably had over 75 pieces all told. I’ve since sold all but a dozen pages – keeping the Toth page and the RK kid cover.

The Toth page was a realative bargain – picked it up for $175 about 8 or 9 years ago. Now, that was a lot more than I had spent on a page at that point but it was Toth, and it was early 60s twice up size and a title page, so seemed like a real bargain. I’m sure it would sell for much more today. If you go to my blog and search for Toth, I probably included a picture of it when I wrote about his death.

I bought a ton of Larry Lieber RK pages around the same time – I was buying big lots with an average cost of $15-$20 per page. I sold all of those for a lot more a couple of years ago. Marvel Silver Age pages really appreciated in value.

The cover to RK #90 was pretty cheap for a cover ($450) but it about 10 times what I had spent on anything prior. I had a good bonus that year so I rewarded myself and I love it. It is nicely framed and looks very sharp.

Covers are crazy expensive these days – but you can still find some relatively inexpensive interior art, especially from the 70s from the non-Kirbys of the world.

$15 to $20 a page!!!!!
OMG!!!
I would have jumped on those pages as well.
I must not be very lucky because I rarely see origianl comic book pages go for under $100.