eBuying Comics: Week 23

The sun is shining the MCU is trending wildly on Twitter, it can only mean one thing… San Diego Comic Con was this past weekend. This year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the comic con behemoth. All of the news coming out of the convention center was positive and exciting. Whether it was Kevin Smith dropping a new trailer, to the announcement of the worthy winners of this years Eisner awards. The only negative for me, and this is nothing new, is that the oldest and  biggest comic convention is mainly now all about movies and TV projects related to the four colour format. Come on “Comic” is the third word in the events title! With that being said I am going to look at how some of the announcements comic and movie related are going to effect prices of comics going forward.

First up Marvel Studios arguably stole the show with their now famous Hall H Saturday night panel. It has been rumoured for sometime that Phase 4 would consist of The Eternals and Shang Chi, as well as the long over due Black Widow movie. Everyone was expecting a Fantastic Four or X-Men reveal, but it is still too soon. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that Blade is now in the hands of the MCU with Masherhala Ali as the Day Walker. Currently you can get a first appearance of Blade (Tomb of Dracula #10) on eBay for a 9.8 CGC for the staggeringly high price of £9,650 plus postage. I would hazard a guess and say this has increased in value since Saturday! Whilst a raw good condition copy is upwards of £400. Blade has always had a cult following since his first two movie outings but that never transferred to comic book success. Likewise the series where he made the most of his appearances Tomb of Dracula also had cult status due to its legendary creators Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. Therefore it’s back issues have always been highly sought after. As the Blade announcement caught people off guard it would have been good to see what the valuations were last week leading up to SDCC. A few years back I was looking at starting to collect Tomb of Dracula and while #10 was out my budget I don’t recall it being quite that high. Perhaps now would be a good time to relist the few issues of Tomb of Dracula I did purchase before venturing down other paths. Blade only appeared in twenty six of Tombs seventy issues and then went on to have various sporadic series of his own. One of these was Blade The Vampire Hunter from 1994. Now here is a comic that best showcases the good and evil of eBay. There is one listing for a ‘new’ copy with a starting price of 99pence. Then there is another listed as ‘NM High Grade’ and the desciption contains the phrase ‘New Marvel Movie.’ The seller is asking £64 plus £13 P+P. I know which one I would take a chance on.

Moving onto The Eternals. They are always going to garner attention from comic book connoisseurs because they are a Jack Kirby creation. People will buy Eternals back issue for the Kirby art even if the story blows! The King wrote and drew all nineteen of their original series starting in 1976. CGC comics of high grade for the Eternals #1 are around the £800 marl. But if you shop around there are some goood offers dependng on what grade you want. I found an auction listing starting at £49.99. The condition is described as ‘great’ but it is a UK edition with a 10pence cover price. It is also a newstand edition. So if the condition is as described, forty year old Kirby artwork for that price is not to be sniffed at.  I also came across a listing for the first fourteen issues of The Eternals with a starting price of £200. I’m interested to see what this goes for so will be keeping an eye on it. In 2006 Neil Gaiman had a fresh take on The Eternals with John Romita Jr on art. Seeing as Gaiman has been making news lately with Sandman coming to Netflix I just looked up a few of Eternals #1. You can get it still in good condition with either variation of the cover for under £5, so nothing to write home about. Lastly from Marvel was the news that Shang-Chi will hit cinema screens on Febuary 12th 2012. Two days before my birthday which is a nice eraly present, but the news that the ‘Master of Kung-Fu’ is coming to the MCU is going to hit my wallet the hardest. I started collecting Shang-Chi Master of Kung Fu comics two, nearly three years ago now. Part of the appeal for me to start diving through long boxes at conventions for these comics was that they are well written with gorgeous art and they are elusive so I have the thrill of the hunt at every con I attend. So far at the cons I have attended in this three year period I average about five Shang-Chi comics each visit. They all range from G to VF+ and there are a few UK editions for the older issues. I have never spent more than £5 on a single issue and now all that is going to change! It is part of the double edged sword of liking certain characters. You want them to have succes and break through to offer forms of media but that inevitably drives up the prices of the original source material. Shang-Chi’s first appearance which is the book everyone will be looking for between now and Febuary 2021 is Marvel Special Edition #15. You can find CGC of 9 grade and up for £800 and up. A raw comic around a Good grade (2) is still clearing £140. If you are looking for a higher grade but still a raw comic you are looking at a price anywhere between those two. Having been looking at these comics for some time to add to my collection I can confirm they haven’t increased in price since Saturdays convetion panel. I only expect them to go up from here on in though.

Perhaps flying under the radar was the news that the Russo Brothers are producing a GrimJack movie. GrimJack, I think it is fair to say, is that level just below cult following. Does that have a name? GrimJack was created by John Ostrander in 1984. Ostrander is a writer with a huge fanbase after penning such loved series like Suicide Squad and the Deadshot mini series. Finding GrimJack comics on eBay is a mindfield. After the original series ran for eighty one issues there were numerous mini series across a range of publishers. There were a few listings for the first issue all ranging in grade but all £15 and under. Someone was selling the entire eighty one issue series for £199 with free shipping. Of course their headline included the words ‘movie tie-in.’ In the item description they go even further mentioning the Russos by name and thier previous credit of Avengers Endgame. As mentioned last time I myself recently brought a GrimJack comic GrimJack #26 for £3.49 with free P+P. Interestingly the bag and board it came in had a £10 sticker on it. I like to assume that is the original bag it came in and I scored myself a real bargain!

I only focused on those news items as nothing from DC really stood out. But that is just my opinion, I don’t want to recieve any DC hate! There was mention that Hush would play a role in the CW Batwoman series. Whilst I am looking forward to that series and whilst Hush is a modern day classic I didn’t feel that news would increase any comics value. Other exciting news from DC was the teases of what to expect from the Infinite Crisis cross over on the CW next season. Perhaps when that cross-over hits I will do a price guide to the comics that shape that story. DC is not my strong point but I have time to research.

Until next time…