define999
New Member
Excited about new adventures in the foreign world, new beginnings......
Posts: 47
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Post by define999 on Jul 18, 2018 17:25:39 GMT
Over the years I have written many a thing on foreign comics. Wether those subjects be individual issues of note, entire articles on collecting styles, regions/countries, or even simply personal manifestos….. My writing style can best be described as a grammatical mess by most! But, one in which hopefully teaches you something you didnt know about. Or even better, inspires you to dive deeper into this niche I have loved so much for soooo many years. I am going to include some of those writings from my past in this thread, thanks for looking, and happy foreign hunting!
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define999
New Member
Excited about new adventures in the foreign world, new beginnings......
Posts: 47
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Post by define999 on Jul 18, 2018 17:33:29 GMT
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Post by KenW on Jul 18, 2018 18:24:40 GMT
Beautiful, Matt!
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define999
New Member
Excited about new adventures in the foreign world, new beginnings......
Posts: 47
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Post by define999 on Jul 18, 2018 18:40:26 GMT
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define999
New Member
Excited about new adventures in the foreign world, new beginnings......
Posts: 47
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Post by define999 on Jul 20, 2018 21:05:51 GMT
Wow, im starting 2018 off with a bang! My first big foreign key buy of the year is now in my hands. Boy, what a rare beauty this is. The Filipino Batman 238, Goodwill bookstore is one true gem. This book is one of 3 known! Of the 3 known condition-wise. One is better, then this book, then a real beater copy. Wait a second, did that sink in? Three! THREE FREAKING COPIES KNOWN! Rare enough for ya? HA! Couple things, I talk about the bookstore books from the islands all the time. Putting the rarity of these books aside for a moment the copies we usually see in the best condition are what I like to call "refuges". Books that somehow made it into the states. We think most bookstore books that made it here came from American military collectors based oversees. These books were then shuffled away deep into personal collections or made their way into back stock at local comic shops here in the states. Either way, finding bookstore editions from the islands is tough enough. But, finding well conditioned copies is even rarer my friends. Now, ontu the book itself….. Yes this book is a refugee, see the condition? I believe it was Texas that it was hiding. You will see a minor lack of registration in the color plates, both cover and interiors. This is a print quality issue we often seen with these books. Also, this book is what I like to call a "virgin". A bookstore book without any kind of pricing stamp on the cover. Most of the time you find these books with a price stamp, written mark, or some kind of after printing pricing on cover. This book is clean, also the weird numbering in the DC circle is typical of Goodwill books. You will notice the indicia on the splash page, Goodwill stripped out the numbering. Why? Well we are not quite sure? National Bookstore didn't do this? We think the Goodwill books had their own numbering system that was somehow tied to the date and the order in which they appeared in the run. No conclusive evidence exists to explain the numbering, but its fascinating for sure….. Now, in the interiors another thing you will notice is a lack of outside advertisement. The only exception is JMC press, the printers for Goodwill Trading. At this time we have never seen a Goodwill Bookstore book without the JMC house ads. But these are the only ads you will find. Also back cover is one big JMC house ad. A coloring page on the inside back cover rounds this bad boy out. You will often see Goodwills with coloring on these back pages. So score when you find one that hasn't been touched. This is a huge foreign Bats key and I am not quite sure how im gonna top this purchase this year? The year is looking good though and I am gonna try. 2018 here I come!
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Post by Jesse on Jul 20, 2018 21:11:44 GMT
That's freaking awesome!!! Great score!!
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Post by KenW on Jul 21, 2018 10:39:58 GMT
Yeah, I'm bowled-over by these, Matt! Sooooooo KEWL!!
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define999
New Member
Excited about new adventures in the foreign world, new beginnings......
Posts: 47
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Post by define999 on Jul 23, 2018 19:32:11 GMT
Why do I do what I do? Why do I collect foreign books? Id like for you to see the picture included in this post..... My response is below. Well, im guessing quite a few collectors probably feel the same way you do. For starters there needs to be a demarcation line between comic readers and comic collectors. Comic readers use them to collect and to read. Comic collectors like me treat funny books as collectable items. I still read plenty of comics just not in the traditional way. I get my comic fix thru TPB's, .cbrs, or digital. I rarely with the exception of reading modern stuff with my son crack open an actual floppy to read anymore. To many other places to get the content. So that puts me squarely in collector territory. Now that we got that reality squared away that takes care of the being able to read point. I don't care about being able to read because it doesn't really apply to my collecting style. I will not speak for anyone else but my story I think is pretty similar to many of the other hardcore and new recruits in the foreign comic niche. Now don't get me wrong, I have a pretty nice American collection that I have built out over many years. But, I realized a few years ago that I was tiring of the hobby. It seemed superficial, it seemed mainly concerned with value, grade, speculation and slabbing. I started trying to flip books to increase the grades of certain key books in my collection and it felt like a slog. With time I slowly worked my way into the silver age and started acquiring books from that era. What I realized real quick was that the grade chasing and just day to day mainstream comic collecting was creating a hole in my heart and budget. It wasn't fun anymore and it seemed like a damn job. I still really enjoyed the art and the books themselves but the hobby was lacking an important something. I also started realizing that for certain books in the silver age I was never even going to own even a low grade copy. Those books were completely out of reach for me financially. With a growing family at home and a middle class life I was reaching the peak of what I could ever realistically afford. Again, the hobby seemed only about money to me, and on top of that I had seen pretty much every wall book a million times at shows and on forums, etc etc. It got boring plain and simple. Very very boring seeing the same books over and over and over again. I was almost out, not selling my collection but putting my collecting of comics to sleep like a dying animal. Then a wonderful little book was found by me on Ebay. A Greek Spiderman 252 first black costume. I researched the book online and found not a damn thing. I seeked info for it in forums and found very little. I realized real quick the book was rare as there wasnt even a scan of it on the internet that I could find? I won the damn thing for 3 bucks. The book was a different format, the art was different and it seemed alien. This book ushered me into a journey that took me outside my norms! All of a sudden I was chasing books nobody had ever heard of and I was building friends and contacts from all over the world! I had also found the shadowy underworld of foreign niche collectors. This group of dudes is a small but hardcore cabal of like minded and extremely knowledgable collectors from within America and outside of it. Within that group we started working together and finding books that were completely unknown to 99.9% of collectors in mainstream comic collecting. Books so **censored**ing rare that you could count known copies on a single hand! Books so rare even collectors within their own countries didn't know about them. We were the equivalent of the goonies searching for "One-Eyed" Willy's hoard. And guess what we were finding it! Wanna know the really cool thing though? In the foreign collecting world yes money is involved, and yes it can be very expensive. But, the hunt is what is paramount for the most part. The contacts, the searching, the joy of owning a super rare book that you didn't have to mortgage your house for again is paramount. The soul is still intact in many ways. Anyone can enjoy hard to find and rare stuff in this niche at any price point. And the books are super rare in comparison to mainstream books. Yes, Money helps but with money alone you wont and couldn't create or build a decent foreign collection. Skills are needed. Skills are involved that many traditional collectors have let slip thanks to tech. Back in the 60's and 70's before the internet you needed to be able to use your social skills to build up a network of dealers and collectors you could trust. You needed them to trade with, source from, and build relationships with. The internet changed the comic collecting soul. It made almost everything but the rarest of the rare available. All you needed was money. It facilitated the change in the hobby from one that was more a labor of love into a very cold and sterile thing mainly concerned with value and wealth. Anything is at your fingertips to buy even a AF15. All you need is money. You don't need friends in the hobby anymore, you dont need social skills! All you need is one thing. I realized before I got into the foreign niche that what I was doing wasnt filling my heart. In fact it was killing my desire for comics at all. In the foreign niche yes we do have some villians. but for the most part in this small but dedicated community we help each other. It is still very small but growing very rapidly. WIthin the past 2 years I have seen many new collectors start increasing the amount of foreign editions they add to their collections. Even scarier still there is a dark side to this niche. We like to use disease as a metaphor for this phenomenon. Its a sickness with no cure, you start to realize that American books in general do not excite you as much but maybe only rarely. In really bad cases of the sickness we see collectors sell off portions of their American collections to fund their foreign addiction. And why not? All you need is money for the American books right? And for the most part almost any American book will always be available for sale. With some foreigns, because of rarity, if you skip a buying op another opportunity might not present itself for years if ever! So the sickness grows…. Why collect foreign books? Could it be for the ability to build a collection that would be almost impossible to reproduce mainly because you are so far ahead of the curve no one even sees the curve coming? Could it be because you are an adventurer and like to take the trail less traveled? Could it be because building a network of contacts and friends outside of the country forces you to build a social muscle you haven't had to use in some time? Yes, it could be all those things, but for me its something more important. The foreign niche saved my comic collecting life. I believe it can do the same for many others out there that are feeling the way I did. A phrase we like to use in the niche is simply this. There are plenty of foreign edition collectors out there right now, they just don't know it yet….. And I apologize for the manifesto..... it just gave me an excuse to write down my feelings on this issue. Also, im not even brining up the "reprint" stigma here. Or the nationalistic pop culture realities that can underly opinions of the foreign niche. Or the amazing art changes the foreign pubs did. All three of those issues could be written alot more about.
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Post by Jesse on Jul 23, 2018 20:43:48 GMT
Great manifesto!!! Thanks for sharing that. I can relate to a LOT of what you are saying!!
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define999
New Member
Excited about new adventures in the foreign world, new beginnings......
Posts: 47
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Post by define999 on Nov 5, 2018 17:12:08 GMT
Great manifesto!!! Thanks for sharing that. I can relate to a LOT of what you are saying!! Thanks Jesse!
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define999
New Member
Excited about new adventures in the foreign world, new beginnings......
Posts: 47
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Post by define999 on Nov 5, 2018 17:17:01 GMT
So I just recently acquired my Buki #146. The Israeli Tales of Suspense #59 is probably what I would call this comic though some might argue depending on interiors. Because of that, it must be said I have never seen the inside of a TOS #59. So I am not real sure if the guts match the cover? The book is Buki #146(בוקי #146) published by Ramdor Publishing(רמדור) sometime in the late 60's. The Buki's were the longest running comic publication in Hebrew up to that point in time. These books were published from 1967 until 1971 with a total of 170 issues. The Buki series was the brainchild of a wealthy immigrant to Israel from South African by the name of F. Orbach. Apparently, while in SA he had been exposed to western comics and wanted to bring them to the Hebrew speaking masses. Titles published in this series included Buck Rogers, Thor, Batman, Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, as well as Superman, Iron Man and a few others. Unfortunately Buki never set the world on fire financially and was pulled from the newsstand sometime in the very early 70's. I wonder with the wonderful rough, slapped together, qualities of these books if they are true licensed foreign editions or bootlegs? Either way I am in love and I would say there is a good chance these are rarer then the Silver age Norwegian Marvels or even the South African silver age foreigns. According to some articles I have read about these wonderful editions they are rare enough in their country of origin that no one collector in Israel has the whole run! Which, I think we can extrapolate exceptional rarity from that statement. Enjoy…..
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Post by Jesse on Mar 8, 2019 1:54:00 GMT
Define999 had written this essay on facebook last year. It came back up on my feed today and I thought I'd take the opportunity to share it here. I have edited it a little bit by breaking it up into smaller paragraphs to aide in reading. "Well shit…. What is it about Filipino Island keys that gets our juices flowing? I think I have some ideas? Well, its basically a perfect storm of rarity, cultural bias and environment. Let me explain a bit, follow me. 1. Rarity: We speculate that print runs were some of the lowest of any foreign Marvel or DC edition of the Bronze and Copper ages. Most Filipino books were printed for the bookstore consumer. National, Goodwill, Alemar, Universal…. all bookstores that had their own editions of Marvel and DC made. In order to supply the bookstores, the printers didn't need to run a bunch? For example National only had 3 stores on the islands at one time. There couldn't have been huge print runs made to supply 3 bookstores could there? Another factor to consider. We do know that indigenous collectors there tell us you could get bookstore books on the secondary newsstand market. Were these left over bookstore stock? Or maybe extra book numbers were added to the print run and these books were then sold out the back door to newsagents? One thing is for sure, we are pretty darn sure the numbers printed had to be minuscule compared to American or even European print run numbers. And, im not even talking about the Tagalog translations by MKPI. These rare taglaog editions might even be rarer as a majority of Filipinos are fluent in English very early in the schooling curriculum. There simply isn't a huge need for taglaog translation. My understanding of the taglaog books is these were even more looked down upon for the cheap paper and black and white interiors. How small were the print runs on these? 2. Cultural bias: Yup, I have heard horror stories of Filipino collectors throwing these books away when found in their collections! Or, using them as packing paper to wrap silverware for a move. Using them for art collage to be ripped up or cut out. Or simply giving them away to younger family members because their collection hosted mainly American books now that they had their own money. I have heard stories of Filipino collectors seeking American replacements for the Bookstore editions they had as youths almost as if their collection was being blighted by them. A bias against the local indigenous output really damaged the longevity/survivability of these books for years. If you dont love something you tend to not care for its condition over time. Now thankfully, some collectors there did love them and had a sentimental connection to them. But, from my research a majority seemed to use them as place holders until they could get the American equivalent or simply did not care what happened to them after they were read and done with. For every 1 Filipino that tells me they love these books maybe 10 would say they didn't care, or still dont care, or wonder why and the hell I cared? Make sense? This bias now seems to finally be changing and evolving there we think but the damage is done. In fact Tim Bildhauser and I like to speculate that their might possibly be some individual Filipino editions where every copy that was printed is now lost forever to the sands of time! We might not ever know the true complete output of the islands because huge holes exist where the examples are simply gone. No one ever thought to database the scans or write down lists of the output for posterity. Now the local Komics with a K books were kept and archived. But, that same respect many islanders have for Komics though didn't materialize for the poor American re-printings. 3. Environmental conditions: The conditions on the islands are not great for paper longevity! The Philippine Islands have a tropical marine climate, and experiences 15 to 20 typhoons a year from July through October. Of those Typhoons that hit about five or six may cause serious destruction and death. When people are trying not to drown do you think they are thinking about keeping their comics from getting wet? Relative humidity is high in the Philippines also which is not conducive to paper. No cold weather here, even in winter the temps do not drop below 70 F. During the summer the islands can and often reach into the high 80's which explains the foxing on most Filipino books that have lived a majority of their lives without bags and boards. It stays hot there, no winter to speak of with low temps. Staples tend to rust in these high heat/humidity conditions as well. And with rust comes rust migration to paper which is pretty common on these books. Needless to say the highest graded examples tend to be books that escaped the islands somehow. We think many made the hop back to the US from American service members abroad. Or ex-pats that moved to the states and brought their collections with them. Once here they somehow made their way into bag and board collections and homes with air conditioning or dryer areas of the US. Speaking of air conditioning. Here in the US we tend to keep air conditioning on all the time in a climate controlled way. Many US comic collections live in climate controlled dwellings. Not so in Asia….. I will post a blog proving this point in the comments below. All of these environmental factors have a part to play in destroying paper. How many Filipino editions simply disintegrated? All in all the Filipino books are true jewels. Simply owning 1 issue can be a great joy to a foreign hunter. I am no expert however, only an enthusiast. Many of my beliefs concerning the Filipino editions I have reached through my own research. Let me leave you geeks with one more interesting story. A friend of mine who was in the Philippines one year went to the annual big Comic Con Asia. Of course he was on the lookout for these books like a lion hunting prey. Any of them, any type, any locally produced Filipino edition he was after. He went to every dealer and booth he could. He did find some Komics with a K, but can you guess how many bookstore or Taglaog editions he found? . . . . ZERO!!!!"
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Post by kromak on Mar 16, 2019 16:26:47 GMT
Only saw this topic now! I already saw Define999 text on Facebook before and really liked it, however, this one that you posted a couple days ago Jesse, never saw before!. Really cool.
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Post by Jesse on Mar 16, 2019 17:45:15 GMT
Thanks!! Yeah, he has some VERY good foreign comic book history write ups!!!! I've kind of decided to become his chronicler. LOL!!! If I see an especially great article, and after I give him a proper length of time to share here, I'll post it on the forum. Facebook is great for timely things, but unless you know him AND that he wrote this, you would never see it a week after he posted it. I want to make sure that some of these things are easy to find and available to others. I know Define999 feels the same way!!! He just forgets we are here sometimes!! LOL!!! But I have the utmost respect for him and will ALWAYS credit him when I share something of his.
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Post by Jesse on Mar 16, 2019 19:43:05 GMT
No sooner do I mention about how you need to know Define999, then I see a post from 2017 that he tagged someone on to find on Facebook. I thought it was quite interesting and I'm sure Iron Man fans, as well as Spanish comic collectors, will find it interesting as well. Again, edited by breaking down into paragraphs. Otherwise, all credit to Define999. "Big foreign key time folks! This book is the Spanish Iron man #1, #2 and #3 published by Vertice in July of 69. Now why is this book important? Let me see if I can explain. Spain had been receiving Mexican produced Marvel and DC stuff for a while either by true Spanish price variants or just Mexican issues making their way there in a back issue way. But, it wasn’t until the Vertice roll out of 8 Marvel titles in 69 that a Spanish Publisher tried handling the Marvel license natively. This is my understanding of it of course; if one of my Spanish friends knows different please school me…. this is my understanding thru translated research. The Vertice format re-tooled some panels to fit a squatter format and in so doing changed some story elements including dropping whole panels I think. Also of note is Vertice’s use of Spanish illustrators to completely re-draw covers! When most people think of Vertice re-drawn covers they think of Lopez Espi. But, another Spanish illustrator was also very active helping Vertice out. His name was Enrique Torres or better known by his Nome de Guerre…. simply Enrich. Enrich is pretty well known as a contributing cover artist of Vampirella fame. His Vertice covers are different in style and tone from Espi and his importance to the comic hobby, especially in Spain, should not be underestimated. These initial early Vertice books are hard to come by and when finding one, usually pretty rough conditions are the norm. This copy is tight and has no tears but does have some cover scuffing and blunting which is common with these cover stock covers. As far as Enrichs artwork redraw..... he did some pretty intresting things and stuff I dont quite understand. I love the black background combined with the circle elements. I love the removal of the figures as well. I dont understand though the complete removal of the shattered walls? I love this book and I hope you guys enjoy checking out a big piece of Marvel Spanish history….."
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