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Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.  If you are a first time reader, we are glad you found your way to comicbookspeculation.com and encourage you to review the wealth of content available on this site.
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This is your Weekend Update!

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If you are a student of comics and you didn’t listen to our interview with Dinesh Shamdasani, I strongly suggest you do yourself a favor and spend an hour listening to him tell the story of how he and his business partners purchased Valiant Entertainment out of Bankruptcy.  It’s an amazing story and arguably one of the greatest behind the scenes stories in comics. I felt like I was watching ESPN 30 for 30 about comic books. I am confident you will enjoy the interview and have a heightened respect for the work he is doing representing the comic community in Hollywood.  Dinesh was also kind enough to share some closely guarded secrets with the community that you will only hear if you make the time to listen to the podcast.

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This weekend I am happy to report that I will be joined by T-Vo the host of the Lords of the Longbox YouTube show.  I am a longtime listener and a big fan of what they do. I find more and more that when they are reporting the same scoops as we are, I can be confident in the future of the “inside information.”  Lords of the Longbox reported countless scoops first, including Green Lantern, Blade and She-Hulk, when others were skeptical and sometimes down right rude. Beyond the groups uncanny ability to get big insider scoops, they do an excellent job of refraining from the bad mouthing and negativity that permeates too much of the community.  I am really excited to sit down with Ti-Vo and the boys and hope that everyone tunes in this Saturday, December 21st at 9:00 pm for this special episode.  

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Better Resources, Better Habits, Better Collection

 

As we approach the New Year I will continue to inundate you with the advice I need to hear.  One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard in the comic game is to surround myself with tools and other collectors that are more knowledgeable than me.  That advice is as true today as it was when I started collecting in my youth. If you are new to collecting, reach out to the knowledgeable employees at your local comic shop, join groups on the internet, read the wealth of information on the CGC Boards and make friends.

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One of the best resources in the hobby is the Key Collector App.  I have received a lot of criticism for my support of Nick and his revolutionary product.  Criticism is welcomed, but the reality is that I would have murdered for a product like the Key Collector App in my childhood.  Just because I can dig through most back issue bins and know the values and importance of the vast majority of books, does not mean that everyone can do that.  Obviously those who take the time to read my weekly article and watch the Comic Book Wars podcast are more sophisticated than your average collector and certainly more mature in their practices than entry level collectors.  What I want to encourage our readers to do is to look at all of the other features that the app has to offer.

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Last week we talked about the importance of studying the Overstreet Price Guide.  This week, I want to talk about the importance of studying the Key Collector App. It is without a question one of, perhaps the greatest, resource that collectors of modern comics have at their disposal.  My experience has been that the easiest way to browse the app is to go to the categories section and just browse. It is like flipping through a fascinating comic encyclopedia. Nick and his team are constantly adding to the app and there is information available at your finger tips that I promise you will be glad that you learned or re-learned.

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If you are my age, you probably remember a time when you heard guys say that they subscribed to Playboy magazine so they could “read the articles” and laughed.  You probably also remember a time when a few short years later you were reading Playboy magazine for the articles. I have a feeling that those who are laughing at my suggestion that they subscribe to keep collector to check out the categories will soon be subscribers and chuckle.

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Wolverine

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It is just a matter of time before the entire country has Wolverine fever.  I can’t be certain whether it will be in Phase 4 or Phase 5, but that moment in the market is inevitable.  I was recently encouraged by a dear friend and comic book mentor to go get a Hulk #180. I had recently purchased a Hulk #181 (a book I told myself I wouldn’t buy because the price tag was too inflated) and he suggested that I pocket a Hulk #180 before the market turned their attention to that book following rumor, news and speculation regarding the re-introduction of the character on the big screen.

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The question in my mind is whether or not whether books like Hulk #180 and Hulk #181 will see a spike, it only a matter of when.  In the interim, I think there are some other key books that may want to be thinking about as well. Both Wolverine #1 (1982) from the Frank Miller mini-series and Wolverine #1 (1988) from the ongoing series have been seeing increased interest lately in the market. This is basic organic growth and both of these books are reasonably priced.  Even newsstand copies of the 1982 mini-series routinely sell for around $350 in CGC 9.8 condition with direct market slabbed copies moving for less than $300.00 a piece in 9.8. If you get lucky, you may be able to score a Wolverine #1 (1988) CGC 9.8 at or around $200.00.

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Volume one of Wolverine’s ongoing series has a ton of killer books.  I particularly Wolverine #8 with classic cover art by John Buscema featuring Wolverine and Joe Fixit, issue #10 which is arguably the classic Wolverine v. Sabertooth book, issue #27 which features a classic cover that was used for Wolverine’s video game and killer art by Jim Lee just to name a few.

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GPA on Uncanny X-Men #133 in CGC 9.8 condition is between $400.00 and $475.00 depending on the time of year.  This book is amazing. It is the first solo Wolverine story and the first time he displays his healing factor.  There are a ton of quality Wolverine books and it is almost impossible to discuss them all in any sort of summary fashion.  The ones that I would focus on are the ones that you see that the seller is not properly valuing. I also think that you can’t get hurt buying high grade copies of X-Men #141 and #142.  This is probably every X-Men collector over the age of 30’s favorite X-Men story as a child. It will probably be incorporated into a big screen adaptation of the X-Men insofar as it is foundational to the idea of a time traveling X-Men space opera and it is a story that features Wolverine front and center.

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There are also a ton of really beautiful Wolverine ratio variants and incentive covers that simply don’t get a fraction of the attention they once received from serious collectors.  The Wolverine #145 Nabisco variant is perhaps top of the list, but the Wolverine #310 variants are incredibly difficult to find as well. Also remember that the first appearance of Old Man Logan in Wolverine #66 (2008) is no longer a hot book and copies come to auction cheap.  In fact as recently as December 11, 2019 at CGC 9.8 copy sold for $64.00.

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Wolverine is the safest bet in comics and the demand for his books are as stable as any blue-chip stock traded on Wall Street.  There are unquestionably more risky investments and a number of those books will have a higher probability of doubling, tripling, quadrupling in price.  Very few of those books have the low risk potential as an across the board in investment in Wolverine key comics. I obviously can’t guarantee that we will see the market soar in the next 12-18 months, but I can virtually guarantee that when Disney announces a Wolverine film that

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I hope you enjoyed this installment of the Weekend Update. That’s all for this week.  I’ll be back next week with more news. In the interim, “Happy hunting You bunch of savages!”
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– Nico, Esq.