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Sounds like Topps at least put in some effort. I remember being so excited for that first Jurassic Park issue. Topps must have saw the writing on the wall for trading cards, and went all in on comics. The relationships between comic, trading card, and action figure companies in the 90’s are interesting.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 07:26 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 01:34 |
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Edge & Christian posted:That's exactly what it was, and it was just as good as that sounds! I remember how they did "digital comics" where they released an issue with voice acting and sound effects on CD. My local Software Etc. had a pile of those and the Prime one that sat around for years. I'd be tempted to get one now and see what it was like, but I'm not spending $5 on it.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 14:52 |
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Everyone thought they could cash in on the new universe craze. Image was huge Malibu's Ultraverse was initially a hit. From there it seemed like every company tossed their hat in.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 15:38 |
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Rhyno posted:Everyone thought they could cash in on the new universe craze. Image was huge Malibu's Ultraverse was initially a hit. From there it seemed like every company tossed their hat in. I think it was Valiant that really started that goldrush, since they predated the other "new superhero universe!" launched by a couple years and had become a pretty big success. But Malibu's Ultraverse line and Image's enormous sales certainly caused it to explode.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 16:00 |
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I always forget about Valiant, it just felt like they were always there. LoL Comics Greatest World. I had a complete run of all those books and I couldn't even get $25 for them.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 16:11 |
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Rhyno posted:LoL Comics Greatest World. I had a complete run of all those books and I couldn't even get $25 for them. I literally came across a giant stack of those books in a box a couple of days ago. I got rid of the bulk of my collection a few years ago and I still had a pile of those books... And somehow a comic book from that line got a movie before Spider-Man did...
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 16:12 |
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I also had a complete run of Defiant books and the trading cards. I'm pretty sure I threw them away and later acquired another set. Like a curse.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 16:18 |
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Random Stranger posted:I think it was Valiant that really started that goldrush, since they predated the other "new superhero universe!" launched by a couple years and had become a pretty big success. But Malibu's Ultraverse line and Image's enormous sales certainly caused it to explode. There's a fair bit of speculation (maybe confirmation somewhere I can't find) that part of Valiant's "boom" was because of fortunate timing, given that Wizard was starting to get really hot in 1992 and their early editorial slant was a weird "X-Force #1 is so hot and everyone should buy at least five copies and it's a great investment BUT you know they printed millions of them, right? Here, have some hidden gems which were usually just slightly older Big Two back issues. A couple of months before Image launched is the first time that Wizard even mentions Valiant, mostly as a "good alternative to endless X-Men crossovers", and it's not until right around the time Image launches that any Valiant books (touted with low print runs compared to all these Marvel and Image books) show up in any of Wizard's "hot" lists. This might have had something to do with The Wizard of Cards (a store owned by Gareb Shamus's family) having picked up a lot of Valiant backstock at just the right time to go "wow, these are really rare and easily worth $30 apiece!" So Valiant's existence predates Image's, but their big coronation as a Hot New Universe happened after Image launched. It's also weird to look back and realize that Jim Shooter lasted less than two years into the Valiant Superhero Era before getting forced out because he didn't want to expand the line too quickly and do a bunch of gimmickry. So naturally a couple years later when Shooter got someone to put up investment money for his new company Defiant, they insisted that the first comic they publish be in the form of trading cards, where you had to buy a special limited edition binder to compete the set/story. Edge & Christian fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Jan 18, 2019 |
# ? Jan 18, 2019 16:54 |
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CapnAndy posted:I mean, it's definitely not a bad idea to make sure you establish who everyone in the story is, what they want, and what they can do, especially in a time before people just yell "alexa who is cyclops" at thin air and get an answer. The problem comes in when every comic is its own self-contained story, so every comic has to introduce its entire cast, every single time. In the mid-90s Wizard magazine started doing comic reviews, and woe betide any comic that didn't introduce the characters and premise and ongoing plot in every issue. They gave Starman a rating of "mediocre" because it had so many characters but didn't explain who they were. I'm convinced that's why later issues of Starman start with a short, pointless introduction from the Shade, like "Jack is in space" over a panel of Jack in space.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 17:12 |
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Valiant was like Image except for writers instead of artists.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 17:13 |
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Edge & Christian posted:They did, though my recollection is that they were more up front with it, and generally got people who were at least tangentially related to Kirby/Silver Age Comics (Steve Ditko, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Don Heck, Gary Friedrich, John Severin, Dick Ayers) to work on them. I still don't remember liking them much. Only thing I remember from Topps was them trying to pass off a book as a Jack Kirby book called Morgan Miller, Homo Geneticus. Edit: upon further research it was called Silver Star, and a company called Pacific Comics released it. Maybe Topps did a republish and that's what I'm remembering. El Gallinero Gros fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Jan 18, 2019 |
# ? Jan 18, 2019 17:17 |
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Wheat Loaf posted:Valiant was like Image except for writers instead of artists.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 17:20 |
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From the Ottawa thread. Looks like a local store is on the brink of bankruptcy. He’s started a gofundme for 150k (goddamn). quote:The Comic Book Shoppe, the company that I’ve built up over 31 years, is in danger of closing. This is the store I stopped shopping at because I thought they didn’t value my business but I feel real bad for the employees and I hope he doesn’t have to close. But seriously what the gently caress, pay your taxes rear end in a top hat.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 19:24 |
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quote:The problems that myself, my businesses, and my wonderful staff are facing, stem from a singular problem that occurred in 2014. I was told by my previous accountant that I could easily do my bookkeeping myself, but between three stores, a personal life, and a family at home, I fell behind on my accounting and filing my tax returns. You stupid motherfucker
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 19:42 |
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I don't think his accountant really told him that.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 20:33 |
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Yeah that's entirely his own fault.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 21:10 |
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I guess props to that guy for writing out in exacting detail why he deserves to go bankrupt? At least it's honest.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 21:47 |
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Yo E&C: I just want to say I appreciate the historical context you can bring to discussions. It's also amazing how much Wizard influences the industry for a time and how much they were clearly doing it for their own gain since it was before ubiquitous internet. In other appreciation not comics related: I'm one of the several hundred thousand furloughed federal workers and the people and businesses in my city have have been coming out in amazing ways to support people like myself (and, more importantly, ones who earn far less than me and have families to support). I loved this city before, but this is really adding to that even more.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 21:53 |
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Endless Mike posted:In other appreciation not comics related: I'm one of the several hundred thousand furloughed federal workers and the people and businesses in my city have have been coming out in amazing ways to support people like myself (and, more importantly, ones who earn far less than me and have families to support). I loved this city before, but this is really adding to that even more. Christ I'm sorry, gently caress trump holding y'all hostage
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 21:55 |
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Endless Mike posted:Yo E&C: I just want to say I appreciate the historical context you can bring to discussions. Even if you're furloughed, can you and your coworkers still get in the building? And rip the copper wire out of the walls?
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 21:57 |
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I dunno. Haven't made my way over there but probably. There's still a skeleton crew working, and I doubt security is checking furlough status. Like, honestly, being furloughed sucks, but not NEARLY as much as people who have to work without knowing when they'll actually get paid.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 22:03 |
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Endless Mike posted:people who have to work without knowing when they'll actually get laid. Ain't that the way.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 22:05 |
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If you're doing record sales, you can probably afford to hire an accountant. Sales don't necessarily translate to profit though.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 23:22 |
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If you have multiple stores doing "record" profits you should have an accountant regardless. They exist explicitly to avoid this sort of thing. Or at least tell you it's on its way.
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# ? Jan 18, 2019 23:44 |
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Small Business Owners are almost universally megalomaniacs.
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# ? Jan 19, 2019 00:18 |
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Gripweed posted:I don't think his accountant really told him that. That's what accounts do, right? Tell you that you don't need their services. Not exactly a big surprise that nobody is willing to give him money if that's the reason he's giving. Also I remember liking the Topps X-Files comic. It was basically just a horror/scifi anthology series with two main stars since it went with self contained story arcs instead of a big running serialized thing.
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# ? Jan 19, 2019 00:33 |
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Well he’s managed to get several k out of people. Hope he uses it to pay his employees.
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# ? Jan 19, 2019 02:18 |
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Boy doing previews for marvel this month sucks. Between War of Realms and a bunch of new X books I have no idea what to order or hold for people.
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# ? Jan 19, 2019 03:24 |
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Jordan7hm posted:From the Ottawa thread. Is actually really easy to avoid and stop that problem he's talking about. He's right that when you don't file certain taxes they use historical data or use your previous year income tax return to make a guess at what the taxes should be and Bill you. Then all you need to do is just actually file that return with the real numbers and they will accept that. Real example. My uncle is a gently caress head. He stole all my grandmother's money. We had to take money out for my grandmother's funeral because he stole all her money and she died penniless. I hate this gently caress. But he came to me because he was hosed because he never knew he had a file sales tax for hair salon. So the government was charging like $20,000. But the reality is the only sales that are actually taxable for sales tax New York for a hair salon are the sales are shampoo. So when he finally eventually loving gets his goddamn bank statements over to me or gives me a loving break down because he's notoriously stupidly lazy then I'll just file a New York State sales tax return with the proper break down and frankly he probably owes only like a couple hundred dollars. And they'll accept that because that's how that works.
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# ? Jan 19, 2019 11:21 |
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- I like Matt's info gathering strategy, that consists of always hitting the exact same bar and then everyone inside it. At least he didn't break the windows the last time. And now that I finished the Kingpin's reintroduction I can see that this poo poo is going to go loving wild.
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# ? Jan 19, 2019 15:11 |
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So they're doing another TMNT boardgame kickstarter - its kind of a 2nd edition I guess - better miniatures, arcade mode, etc. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/idwgames/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-adventures-city-fall/description But if you're not interested in that - every backer is going to receive a bunch of comics when the campaign is over. It seems to be an advertising thing, for every 1,000 dollars above the starting point pledged over the weekend every backer gets an issue of the IDW comics once the campaign closes. Currently thats 36 issues. As far as i'm aware, that's every backer - including the ones that pledge $1-10 and choose no reward. That seems like a good deal to me if you haven't already got them - the IDW TMNT series is a really cool melding pot of ideas from all TMNT iterations.
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# ? Jan 19, 2019 23:40 |
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I can see that they’re including a lot of stuff, but still — two hundred and fifty U.S. American dollars
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# ? Jan 20, 2019 01:43 |
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I'm not really interested in board games (because I have no friends to play them with) but I do like comics (ibid) and since I have not read any of the Turtles comics, it seems to me that backing this Kickstarter could be a sensible way to get into them.
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# ? Jan 20, 2019 01:55 |
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There are much easier and better ways to get those great comics. For instance the IDW Collection Hardcover which have all the TMNT main series and mini comics in official reading order. You should all buy those.
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# ? Jan 20, 2019 02:28 |
It is incredibly dumb to make a kickstarter with such high minimal pledges.
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# ? Jan 20, 2019 02:40 |
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Lurdiak posted:It is incredibly dumb to make a kickstarter with such high minimal pledges. nah it's pretty common in miniature games. There's a big demographic of people who will throw down 100+ bucks for a big box of miniatures without batting an eye
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# ? Jan 20, 2019 02:42 |
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X-O posted:There are much easier and better ways to get those great comics. For instance the IDW Collection Hardcover which have all the TMNT main series and mini comics in official reading order. You should all buy those. While I agree with this - the hardcovers are great and I own all 8 - I don't know of any way that is cheaper. Currently there's about 2 hardcover collections worth of comics for $1.
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# ? Jan 20, 2019 02:59 |
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Didn't say it was cheaper. Said it better and easier. You don't have deal with a Kickstarter and wondering when they're going to email you codes for digital issues. The same amount of issues are covered in he first four volumes of the hardcovers in addition to 20 more side issues. And if you do want to go cheaper the first 7 or 8 trades are on Comixology Unlimited.
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# ? Jan 20, 2019 03:09 |
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Gripweed posted:nah it's pretty common in miniature games. There's a big demographic of people who will throw down 100+ bucks for a big box of miniatures without batting an eye Yeah that is not at all unusual for a mini-heavy boardgame KS, and boardgames (especially ones with lots of minis) are huge on KS.
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# ? Jan 20, 2019 03:14 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 01:34 |
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My friends and I pooled together like $250 for the Gotham City Chronicles board game. We’ll Probably seriously consider this one too.
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# ? Jan 20, 2019 03:42 |