What up CHUstice League!?! Another One Year Later round up, where we take a look at all of the comics that Anthony, Mel and Poyo spec-ed on one year ago. Their specs turn out to be quick flips, slow burns, straight up winners, straight up misses, and on and on. Sometimes they spec with their hearts out of their passion for comics. Sometimes they spec based on data. And sometimes they spec based off of the word on the street. Either way all of their specs appeal to a few or many collectors whether it is due to them having similar taste in writing or art or just an opportunity for a collector to flip a book and make money to “support their habit”. So this is our weekly chance to take a look back at how some of our buys from a year ago are doing today. With that being said, let’s get to it!
Winners
The Fix #2 – Tony Pick
Original Value: $4 Current Value: $5
Like I said a month ago, I love this series. Still plenty of active sales a year later.
The Fix #1 2nd Print – Tony & Poyo Pick
Original Value: $4 Current Value: $6
Low print run second printing. This one was going for $10 up until a couple months ago.
Unleash #1 – Tony & Poyo Pick
Original Value: $4 Current Value: $7
Still above cover now but was going for over $10 for quite a while after release.
Alan Dracon #1 – Poyo Pick
Original Value: $4 Current Value: $8
Not a ton of recent sales. But going for $8-20.
Still Have Potential
Action Comics #52 Oliver New 52 Homage Variant – Mel & Poyo Pick
Original Value: $4 Current Value: $4 Still available at Midtown
I’m a fan of homage covers. Even if they are from a more recent book.
All-New X-Men #9 Age of Apocalypse Variant – Mel Pick
Original Value: $5 Current Value: $5 Still available at on-line retailers.
Only a few of these AoA variants have done well so far.
Black Panther #2 Age of Apocalypse Variant – Mel Pick
Original Value: $4 Current Value: $4 Not a lot of recent sales but sold out at on-line retailers. Between this being a popular series and a Jamal Campbell cover I am hanging onto this one for a while.
Deadpool #11 Age of Apocalypse Variant – Mel Pick
Original Value: $4 Current Value: $4 Still available at on-line retailers.
I do dig the green and purple on this one.
Silk #8 John Tyler Christopher Action Figure Variant – Mel Pick
Original Value: $4 Current Value: $4 Still available at on-line retailers.
I still think this is one to keep…..just in case Silk ever becomes worthy!
Darth Vader #20 John Tyler Christopher Action Figure Variant – Poyo Pick
Original Value: $4 Current Value: $4-5
Midtown sold out. Copies for $5 available at MyComicShop.com.
This being a Star Wars character not in a movie yet, hang onto it and Darth Vader #8.
Misses
All-New All-Different Avengers #9 Alex Ross Design Variant – Mel Pick
Original Value: Listed at $60 but went for cheaper on eBay Current Value: $20 on eBay. Still available for $60 at Midtown.
Wasp hasn’t taken off yet but if she did it would be good to have Alex Ross art of her. Or I am just telling myself that because I bought one. But I was lucky and got it for $19.99.
Black Panther #2 Frank Cho Variant – Mel & Poyo Pick
Original Value: $30 Current Value: $20
Mel had a love/hate relationship with this one a year ago. I wonder how he’s feeling now. Personally, I like this cover a lot.
Shawn’s Shameless Plug
Southern Bastards #14– Poyo Good Read Recommendation.
Original Value: $3.50 Current Value: $I don’t care!
This is my favorite series ever so far. Was cool seeing Poyo recommend it (50 cool points to Poyo) so I was taking this opportunity to shamelessly plug the fact that this series is incredible. And if you haven’t read it yet, you should. I had my letters printed in 3 issues including this one(shameless plug #2). There are often big gaps in between issues and one time I sent this, not as funny as I thought it was at the time I sent it email, to them complaining about the delays. Latour replied to it in the next issue and basically shamed me in a half a page reply for not having patience. I went to see him at a con not too long after and he was very gracious and signed and sketched on a bunch of stuff for me. The series has also been optioned for a TV show on FX but we all know how that song and dance can go.
Unspecced Winners
Adventures of Supergirl #1
Original Value: $3 Current Value: $4-5
Sales are all over the place on this one. From $.99 to over $10. Most retailers are sold out but MyComicShop has quite a few VFish copies going for $7-8.
The Vision #7
Original Value: $4 Current Value: $10
This was going for as high as $15 back in December of last year. Awesome series with some low print runs.
Thanks again to Shawn B. The One Year Later Investigator for this.
My apologies for getting this out late.
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Informed Comic Book Speculation and Pop Culture News
Southern Bastards issue was fantastic as is the series. That Cho cover is exceptionally nice imo. Love his artwork. I think you’re right about Jamal Campbell. There are certain artist who grab your attention with every cover. He is on of those guys. Love the article
Ah the Vision! That is my favorite comic I’ve read so far (I’ve fairly new to comics. Only been reading for about a year and half now). But I think #7 was one I had a letter posted in haha.
The glaring fact is that with 95% of these books listed are have only gained $1-2 in value, it can be said with brutal honesty, that most of these are duds. When anyone goes to sell these for a $1-2 above cover on Ebay, this margin is immediately gone when you take EBay fees, Paypal fees, supplies, opportunity costs of the work to travel, labor to USPS. Weekly books are hard to speculate on, and in the last 5 years only a very select few have made huge jumps and stayed that way. Its a bad time to speculate on weeklies, because most speculators are just shooting for the stars with high priced variants anyway. Just my thoughts on the collector industry anyway.
Couldn’t of said it better myself. I rather buy what’s hot when its getting hot and it’s in the $20 range and going up instead of dumping $50 a week into new issues that just create storage problems for me and most are duds. That being said I do have some hits in the past 5 copies of God Country preordered, that trump coloring book with the Wolvie #181 homage selling for $50+ Have 8 of those but for each winner there’s stacks of losers. Why I don’t buy weeklies anymore once again.
And the variants are not any better most go down. I’ve been lucky enough to grab some variants for cover price and turn them on ebay to some sap for $100. But that rarely happens, so when it does it barely pays for the gas of the unfruitful twenty past weekly trips to the comic book store.
I think that is the dichotomy between collecting/investing and flipping. I am able to flip the hot new books early on for more than I pay in order to buy books I want, mostly horror books.
The problem is it is tough to track what they were originally selling for when it first comes out as eBay only shows the past 90 days of history. Some weeks are better than others. You know that from doing your own list for many years, that some weeks turn out to be duds. However, there are ones that were good flips that turned out to be dead spec long term.
I agree on the variants though. Variants usually have a week or two shelf life at best.
But now that they have fallen in price, and thanks to Shawn B. for mentioning them again, I went back and grabbed some of the Apocalypse Variants I missed out on because of the prices at the time, and liked for the art.
I still have a feeling that Southern Bastards is going to end up being the best spec of any new series in the past few years besides Saga. It’s the only unique comic out right now (again besides Saga) that has a story with potential FX/AMC mass appeal. I know it was optioned by FX, I am hoping it actually gets created one day.
I hope so. I love this series.