COMComics

With my long dormant interest in comic books being awoken shortly before COMC's last Black Friday sale, I decided to appease those recent stirrings by trying to seek out some new (to me) reading material during the sale.

Spending so much time on the site, I was aware that the amount of comics on the site had been growing fairly rapidly over the last year or two, but with no real interest at the time, I had yet to ever look through the comic book listings. Not knowing what to expect, I was surprised to see just how many books were on the site, and since I had no expectations whatsoever, so to come away with five books seemed to be alright, considering that it was my first foray into the comics section of the site.

Having just bought a cheap lot of Unexpected books on eBay the week before, it seemed only natural to try and find some more cheap copies during the sale. I ended up finding two, both of which were later issues in the series, that I considered to be reasonably priced.

Even though I knew that it wasn't going to have anything to do with the 1936 film, just seeing "Dracula's Daughter" on the cover of this issue triggered an almost Pavlovian like response, so much so, that in that moment, I probably would have bought it for almost any price. Being away from comics for so long, I'm pretty clueless as to what the going rate is for most things, but I think paying $1.80 and $2.60 respectively for these two issues wasn't too obscene.

Back issues of The Tomb of Dracula were still a very popular, and expensive, when I was young, so for me, it was always one of those someday series'. I don't know if this point in time qualifies as "someday" yet, but I certainly won't pass up any cheaper copies that I happen to come across... even if they are what some people might consider to be "well-loved" copies.

I vaguely remember the original Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series, but I don't recall ever seeing issues #13 and #14, which featured dead and inactive characters. And I know for a fact that I somehow never encountered issues #16-20 of the expanded Handbook deluxe edition series, which was an A to Z of deceased characters. Considering that the deluxe edition came out in the late 80's, I find it almost impossible to believe that these were able to have escaped my attention all the way through the 90's, as I was still very actively collecting at that time.

All the comics in the Handbook series had wraparound covers, which look especially cool on the Book Of the Dead titles. Since I couldn't find any pictures online (big surprise) that showed the inside of the books, I didn't really know what to expect.

To say that I was very pleased with the amount of detail that was put into the write-ups, would be a major understatement for sure. Everything you could possibly want is here, first appearances, history, personal information, death's (obviously), and so forth. Since the binding is so tight, I wasn't about to try and scan the inside, so this picture is really the best I could do.

And one more. Some of the major characters get 3 or 4 pages, while the lesser names get a page or less, which was fine, as some characters weren't developed enough to warrant more than half a page. Either way, you get/got plenty of bang for your buck (or in my case, a $1.25).

I was only able to get the first two, of the five Book of the Dead's, which covered Air-Walker to Hobgoblin. Hopefully I won't have too much trouble getting the last three for a reasonable sum.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with my first group of purchased comics from COMC. And as per usual, everything was packaged really well, which is a credit to them, especially since they had fit them in with multiple other small card boxes. Like any other place, there are plenty of overpriced items on the site, but if one keeps an eye out, deals can be had... and as more stuff continues to be added to the site, I would imagine that, in an effort to keep up with the competition, the owners of those overpriced items might start coming down a bit, lest they be left out in the cold.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.