Machine Man #19

Marvel - Feb. 1981

Key Issue Notes
First appearance of Jack O' Lantern
Last issue to series

Happy Halloween everyone. I decided to leave the horror comics behind for this last post of the month and move back over to a superhero title.

I was mulling over what to write about for this last post of October, and as I was riding around my neighborhood, I noticed all of those carved pumpkins lining the steps and walkways of many of the houses. That got me to thinking of reading Spider-Man comics when I was a kid and seeing the character Jack O' Lantern. I thought that was a good enough character to write about, and still keeping wiht the Halloween theme for the month.

To me, Jack O' Lantern is more of a Spidey villain than he is anyone else's in the Marvel Universe, but he makes his first appearance in this comic, doing battle with Aaron Stack, otherwise known as X-51 and Machine Man.

There have been a few people to take up the name of Jack O' Lantern, but I'm only going to talk about the original in this post. I'll probably get to the others at some point, but I have no idea when that might be, but for now, on with the show.

Before he became Jack O' Lantern, he was CIA agent Jason Macendale. His superiors found his tactics to be too brutal, and he was let go from the agency. He eventually became a freelance mercenary and became the villain that appears in this issue.

Jack O' Lantern

When we meet Jack O' Lantern, he is with this gang of thugs making plans to hijack and take over a prototype, state of the art security compound. His idea is to sell the plans to the highest bidder. However, Machine Man just happens to be there and ends up saving the day, but not without consequences. His co-workers learn that the man they knew as Aaron Stack is really a crime fighting robot. Stack leaves his job, and basically walks the Earth like David Carridine in Kung Fu.

Jason Macendale would eventually become Hobgoblin and is responisible for the death of Ned Leeds. He is the man that hires the Foreigner to track down and kill Leeds. So, even though Jack O' Lantern isn't an very popular villain, the man that originally took up the mantle plays a pretty big role in the life of Spider-Man and the people around him.

This issue would also mark the end of Vol. 1 Machine Man series. What the actual reason is, I'm not sure, but I can only assume that it was from poor sales. He would get another series of his own only a few years later in 1984.

If that wasn't enough for you, it's also got a great Frank Miller cover and Steve Ditko art all throughout the interior. That's two legendary comic artists for the price of one.

Since Jack O' Lantern isn't a very popular character, CGC census numbers are quite low. But don't get the idea that this is a rare book. I'm sure there are a ton of copies stuffed into long boxes all over the country. This is definitely not a hard comic to find. You can find a multitude of raw copies almost anywhere you look on the internet.

Values of Machine Man #19 on GoCollect

Since I brought up the CGC census, let's look and see what's on there. To date, there have only been 89 copies graded. Like I already said, don't let that fool you. The CGC census can create a false scarcity for key issue comics that aren't on everyone's radar. That only means that no one is sending in there copies to be graded. Anyway, a lot of the copies that have been graded are nice high grade copies. There are 57 copies graded between 9.4 NM and 9.8 NM/M. So, if you're looking for an already graded copy, there are a few out there to choose from. You may even find a CBCS or PGX copy too.

If you do decide to go already graded, don't expect to break the bank either. The latest eBay sale for a 9.8 NM/M dropped for only $134.48. The listings that I saw were grossly overpriced if you compare it to these sold listings. There are a couple of auctions at that grade on eBay right now that have Buy it Now options for well over that last sale.

If you've got a good grading eye, you may want to take a chance on one of the many raw copies that are out there, or you can wait till you find one that is in your price range. Either way, this is a very affordable key issue you can add to your collection.

Have a safe and Happy Halloween everyone.

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Nailbiter #1

Image Comics - May 2014

Key Issue Notes
First appearance of Eliot Carroll
First appearance of Nicholas Finch
First appearance of Sharon Crane
First appearance of Edward Charles Warren (Nailbiter)
First appearance of Norman Woods (Book Burner)
First appearance of Raleigh Woods
First appearance of Officer Link
First appearance of Alice
First appearance of Hank
First appearance of Robby

I thought I'd talk about a newer and more obscure key issue comic this time. Since Image Comics seems to have moved out of the superhero genre and moved to more supernatural and horror stories, I thought it would fit nicely into the October horror theme.

Welcome to the town of Buckaroo Oregon, the birthplace of the serial killer. Sixteen of the worlds most notorious serial killers have, at one time, called Buckaroo home. What is it about this town that created all of these madmen? Well, that's pretty much what this series is about. Lets' see who some of these killers are.

The most recent and most notorious of these serial killers is Edward Charles Warren. As a child, he had the nervous habit of chewing his fingernails. As he got older, and the monster grew inside of him, he would seek out men and women that had the same nervous habit that he did. He was given the nickname "Nailbiter", because he would chew the fingers of his victims down to the bone before he killed them.

Edward "Nailbiter" Warren

Even though everyone knew that he was a killer and committed all of these crimes, a jury somehow found him not guilty of them and he was acquitted. He was free to leave and ended up moving back to Buckaroo, where he still lives today.

The next serial killer mentioned in this comic is Norman Woods, also known as The Book Burner. When Norman was a kid, he was picked on because he couldn't read or write. One day, he decided that in order to take revenge on people that could read and write, he would burn down libraries, with those people still inside them. He was presumed to be dead and buried in the Serial Killers Graveyard, but when his body is exhumed in issue four, they find his grave is empty.

The Book Burner

Norman had himself a grandson by the name of Raleigh Woods. He wasn't a serial killer, but more of an entrepreneur. He decided to make money on the notoriety of the town and opened up "The Murder Store". In it, he sold nick knacks and replica masks that the serial killers wore. The store is eventually burned to the ground in another issue.

Now let's move on the to first appearances of some public servants in this issue. Let's start with Eliot Carroll. He is an FBI agent that becomes obsessed with learning the secret of why there are so many serial killers coming from the same small town. He goes to Buckaroo to investigate, but winds up going missing.

Just before Carroll goes missing, he calls his friend Nicholas Finch, tells him that he learned the secret he was looking for, and asks him to meet him in Buckaroo. When Finch arrives, Carroll has already gone missing. Finch is an Army interrogator, that is on suspension and awaiting trial for losing his temper, and accidentally killing a man in the interrogation room, when he receives the call from his friend.

Eliot Carroll and Nicholas Finch

When Finch arrives in town, he runs into Sharon Crane, who is the sheriff of Buckaroo. She was working with Carroll, and when he doesn't show up for their weekly meeting, she knows somethings wrong. She is the one that informs Finch that he has gone missing. Now, both Finch and Crane are on the hunt to find their missing associate.

The last of the service workers is Officer Link. He only has a brief appearance in this issue. He is asked by the sheriff to take Hank and Robby down to the station to cool off after a confrontation with Alice and Nicholas Finch. Eventually, in a later issue, he takes over as sheriff of Buckaroo after Crane is relieved of her duty.

Sheriff Sharon Crane

Wait, hold on a sec. Who the hell are Hank and Robby? Well, they are, in their own mind, the hot shots of Buckaroo. In actuality, they are the bullies of the town. They are hired by a mysterious figure to destroy evidence that Carroll had collected in his investigation. They don't last that long, and are eventually killed in a later issue.

And lastly, we have Alice. She is a high school rebel that is on the opposite side of Hank and Robby's unwanted advances. The two boys approach her outside of the Murder Store, where Finch is getting a little lesson on the town by Raleigh Woods. The commotion is heard by Finch, and he comes outside to assist the teenager. Finch, having a bit of a temper, socks Hank in the face. That's when Sheriff Crane shows up and has Officer Link escort the the two bullies to the station.

Phew, that was a lot of characters. Since this series is still relatively new, and I've only read 12 of the issues that are out, I'm not sure where the characters fit into the larger scheme of things yet. But anyway, enough about them, let talk numbers now. 

Charlie Adlard and Wes Craig variants

This comic has a fairly low print run, especially for a 1st issue. According to ComiChron.com, there were only 22,746 copies printed. Now, I don't know if that includes the variant covers or not, and like most new comics, there are a lot of variants for this book.
If that number does include the variants, then copies for the first print would be much lower than that number.

A couple of the variant covers include the Charlie Adlard cover that was printed exclusively for Infinity and Beyond Comics, and the Wes Craig cover printed for Beach Ball Comics and Laughing Ogre Comics. There is also a second print floating around out there. I couldn't find anything on how many of these copies were produced, but there have only been 22 graded by CGC thus far.

In total, not including the second printing, there are 447 copies listed in the CGC census. That includes the original cover and five variant covers. Of those 447, 314 are the first print, and as you can guess, almost all of them are graded 9.8 NM/M. There is at least one 9.9 Mint copy that was graded by CBCS out there too. I'm sure that the census numbers aren't higher is because that most people don't think that this comic is worth being sent in to be graded and it has everything to do with the current value of the comic.

Values for Nailbiter #1 on GoCollect

So if you were to make any profit at all by getting this comic graded, you would have to hope that it came back, from whichever grading company you used, a perfect 10 Gem Mint. That sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. Let's say you sent in a copy and it comes back at 9.9 Mint. The last copy, and maybe only copy in existence at that grade, only sold for $47.44 on eBay in Feb. 2015. That is almost the same price that 9.8 NM/M copies are currently selling for. The last three copies that sold were all sold between the $41 to $46.50 range. If you figure that grading costs plus shipping costs would run you around the $35 - $40 range, that doesn't leave much room for profit if you're only going to sell it for $45. So, I'm sure that people are either selling them raw, or holding on to them if this comic series ever gets made into a TV show, and maybe this comic will get a boost in demand.

Find a copy here
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Creepy #1

Warren Publishing - Jan. 1964

Key Issue Notes
First appearance of Uncle Creepy

Ok, I'm kind of cheating a little bit here because this isn't exactly a comic book, it's actually a magazine, but Warren Publishing kind of cheated a little bit too to work their way around the Comics Code Authority. Let me explain how, but first a little history.

In 1954, Dr. Fredric Wertham published a little something called "The Seduction of the Innocent". Maybe you've heard of it? In SOTI, as it's become known, he claimed that horror and crime comics were the direct cause of juvenile delinquency. The Senate used Wertham's words, and the Comics Code Authority was created. The Comics Code's job was to edit and remove content from comics that they deemed inappropriate, and that meant horror comics were no longer published since they were by far the most inappropriate of all.

So, about a decade after the Code was established, Warren Publishing decided they wanted to bring back the very popular horror genre of the 50's, but they couldn't publish them in comic book format, so they published them as a magazine. They could get away with it because the Code only related to comics, not to magazines.

Uncle Creepy

So, now that you know why this is a magazine and not a comic, let's talk a little bit about it's key issue-ness. First and foremost, it's the first issue to the series. That one's a given. The second is that it holds the first appearance of Uncle Creepy.

Uncle Creepy is the host and storyteller of the series. He is what the Crypt Keeper is to Tales from the Crypt or the Vault Keeper was to the Vault of Horror. He introduces all but one of the six stories that are in this magazine with a bit of wit and humor.

It would seem that the powers that be were able to get some of the top artists and writers, like Jack Davis, Joe Orlando and many more,  that made the EC Comics so popular. It seems to me like Warren Publishing was trying to pick up right where EC left off.

Many of the stories in this issue of Creepy have to do with the old horror stories of vampires and werewolves. There is a voodoo story and also a story that features the now extremely popular zombies that are out for revenge. This story reminded me a little of the movie Creepshow.

If you like horror comics and are able to find a copy, It might be worth a read. It didn't find it a captivating as some of the 50's horror titles, but it's not bad. The black and white format kind of took something away from it for me. Don't get me wrong, I still loved the artwork, but having it in color is just my personal preference.

I have no idea what kind of print run Creepy #1 had. If you look at the CGC census, you might think it's low. There are only 267 copies listed there so far. But with a quick search online, there are still a lot of raw copies floating around, so just how low the print run isn't really easy for me to figure out.

Values for Creepy #1 on GoCollect

I'm surprised at how many super high grade copies are out there for this book. Most of the copies listed on CGC's census are between the 8.0 VF to 9.2 NM- range. There is one 9.8 NM/M copy and three 9.6 NM+ copies listed. I wonder if it's harder to keep magazines in as good of condition as it is comics. Or did people not as careful with the magazines as they were with comics.

Values for this book haven't really changed that much over the last few years. A 9.4 NM copy sold at Heritage for $418.25 back in 2012, and the latest sale for the same grade on eBay dropped for only $415. There was a copy that almost reached the $600 mark via auction on eBay in early 2014, but obviously that value didn't hold up. If you're looking for a nice high grade copy, don't expect to pay more than $400-$420. However, if you're looking for a copy and are on a budget, you should be able to snag a nice 8.0 VF or 8.5 VF+ for less than $100, you may want to check out raw copies too. Most of those I found available are well under the $100 range, but buyer beware.

Now, there's no hype about a Creepy movie being made or Uncle Creepy appearing in his own show and I don't expect there ever will be, so don't expect this comic to blast through the roof value wise anytime soon. But, if you're a fan of horror comics, you may just want to pick up a copy. I may just take my own advice on this one.

Find a copy here
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Tales from the Crypt #33 - CBCS 5.5

E.C  Comics - Dec. 1952 / Jan. 1953

Key Issue Notes
Origin of the Crypt Keeper

I'm a big time horror movie fan. Not so much of the movies that are coming out now, but more of the slasher horror movies of the 80's. Besides being traumatized by the original Nightmare on Elm Street when I was a little kid, there are two main reasons that I love horror. One is seeing Evil Dead 2 for the first time, and the second is the HBO show Tales from the Crypt that was based off the comics of the same name. But anyway, I keep repeating myself here. I'm sure by know you probably all know that I like these kinds of movies and T.V. shows, so I'll move on.

Ok, since I've already talked about the first appearance of the Crypt Keeper, I decided it would be the perfect time for me to dig into my box of goodies and share one of my comics with you, and it's also keeping with my October horror theme as well.

This is my copy of Tales from the Crypt #33, and this comic holds the origin of the Crypt Keeper. See, everyone gets an origin story, even creepy undead storytellers that live in dark, eerie basements.

I'm not going to go into the specifics of this comic, or talk about the origin of this character, but rather tell you the story of how and why I decided to buy it instead. As I stated in the beginning, I liked the HBO show, and when I learned of this comic and it's key issue goodness, I immediately started hunting for a copy.

Now, copies of this comic don't come up too often. They are more plentiful than the first appearance of good ol CK, but not by much. Usually the copies that I found were either too expensive, or in dirt condition that I didn't want it. It had to be a decent looking copy that wasn't way overpriced.

So, as I was cruising through eBay one day, I found a raw copy that I thought looked pretty nice from the pictures that were available. I don't exactly remember what the seller was asking for it. I want to say it was $250, but that could be wrong. I did my normal research, i.e. checking the price guide and GoCollect, and decided that $175 was the highest I was willing to go and made an offer. Buying raw copies online is always a gamble and I didn't want to overpay if the grade was lower than I thought I might have been. So, with no counteroffers from the seller, I ended up snagging this comic for $175. I felt like I got a pretty good deal, and I'm assuming the seller got what he wanted from the sale, so all parties left happy.

Baby Crypt Keeper

Now, CBCS had recently opened their doors for business, and I'd already sent in my sample book to try them out. You can read about that comic here. So, I sent this in with my next batch of books to be graded. I try to send in more than one book for grading because it helps to save money on shipping charges. It does take a while for me to get enough books to send in, so I usually only have one or two shipments for grading each year. It took a while, like it usually does with grading companies, but I finally got it back.

Overall, I'm happy with the 5.5 F- that this book got, and it was a little higher of a grade than I was expecting it to be, but only by a half grade or so. I think I made a good investment decision by buying this book at the price I did. There is no sales information that I could find for this grade, but recently a 5.0 VF/F copy sold on eBay for $370.

Since I like these old horror comics, especially the old EC Comics, this is one of those books that's a part of history and I'm very proud to own a copy. Needless to say, this will be staying in my collection for quite a while.

Find a copy here
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Crime Patrol #15

E. C. Comics - Dec. 1949 / Jan. 1950

Key Issue Notes
First appearance of the Crypt Keeper
First Crypt of Terror

In keeping with the October horror theme, next on the list of key issue comics is this gem of a comic. This historic comic introduced the first horror story to the E.C. line of comics, which would be what they were to become known for all these years later.

This comics holds the first appearance of the Crypt Keeper, who was made popular by the HBO show Tales from the Crypt that ran from 1989 to 1996. I have to admit, this was one of my favorite shows when I was growing up. The mixture of laughs and gore really caught my attention.

If you've been keeping up with entertainment news, then you've seen that M. Night Shyamalan is going to reboot the series for TNT. I wonder how much of the gore and language that they can get away with on a cable network like TNT. However, I've noticed that it's gotten pretty gruesome on some shows like The Walking Dead.

In earlier interviews with Shyamalan, he had the idea of creating a season long story line for the show, kind of like what American Horror Story does, but recently it seems he's going for more of a direct reboot of the original series, Crypt Keeper and all. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I, personally, am having mixed feelings about it.

Enough about that, let's talk about this comic. As I'm sure you've all noticed, this is not a horror comic, but a true crime comic. In the beginning, EC decided that it would be a good idea to try out the idea of introducing a horror related story in these books to see if they would sell. As it turns out, that was a very good idea.

We are introduced to the Crypt Keeper and his Crypt of Terror in a short seven page story called Return From the Grave. In this short story, two executives are trying to swindle a company from a poor business owner. The business owner is so poor and down on his luck that the two executives convince him that he should commit suicide and make it look like and accident, so his family can collect on his life insurance policy.

A short time later, the two execs get a phone call. Apparently the old man took their advice and jumped in front of a truck. Now that the two executives own the old mans company, they get a call for a large order of perfume. The factory that makes the perfume doesn't have the formula for it so the now the two panicked men try to find it.

They find out that the formulas are in the pocket of the suit that the old man was buried in, so the two start digging, and find the coffin empty, except a small piece of paper with a note scribbled on it. The note said "I have discovered how you have stolen money from me for the last three years driving me to suicide. I have risen from my grave... and will not return until I have taken my revenge!" I don't want to spoil the ending, but in true EC style, the two executives get their just deserts.

I've gotta tell ya, it wasn't easy to find a copy of this story to read. Not only that, It's also a hard comic to find. As on now, there have only been 40 copies graded by CGC. It's kind of a mixed bag of high to low grades, but surprisingly there are five, that's right, I said five 9.8 NM/M copies. I'm assuming that these are going to be the Gaines File Copies. Don't worry, If you don't know about the Gaines File Copy pedigree, I will be writing about it very soon.

Values for Crime Patrol #15 on GoCollect

High grade copies of this comic are expensive, but they're not Action Comics #1 expensive. It's not going to cost you millions of dollars to add this to your collection. It may not even cost you tens of thousands. There was a CGC 9.8 NM/M Gaines File Copy that sold at Heritage Auctions for only $7468.75. Yeah, that's a lot of money, but for a piece of history like this, I think they got it at a bargain. However, There was a 9.6 NM+ Gaines File Copy that sold at Heritage a few years earlier in 2010 for $13,800. So, does that mean that interest in this comic is going down? Not likely. With comics like this, they hit the market so rarely that it can drive the price up or down, depending on how many people are interested at that particular time. The more people that know about the auction, the higher the price will go, and the less, the lower it will probably go.

The information of the two other sales that I was able to get from GoCollect don't really tell me where this comic is headed in terms of value. There was one sale for a CGC 7.5 VF- that sold for a penny shy of $1,850 in April 2015, and a low grade 2.0 G that ended up selling for $412.05 in June of the same year.

Like I said, it's hard to say where the values of this comic are going. I can tell you that there has been no change in value in Overstreet over the last two years. Horror comics are a genre that aren't collected by the masses like superhero comics are. Values will slowly rise within this small community of collectors. Since I'm a fan of horror comics, I have this one on my want list, but being able to afford a copy is a whole different story.

Find a copy here
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Eerie Comics #1

Avon - Jan 1947

Key Issue Notes
First horror comic book

It's finally October, and it's time of the year when everybody dresses up in scary costumes, decorates the yards with the latest items they got at Spirit Halloween store, and binge watches horror movies (or maybe that's just me.)

In honor of the scariest month of the year, I decided that all month long, I'll be talking about nothing but horror comics, and to start it all off, I'll go all the way to the beginning with Eerie Comics #1.

To be completely honest, this isn't the first horror comic ever made, but it is the first comic that has original stories written for it. Before this comic came out, horror comics were adaptations of stories that were already popular, like Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

This issue of Eerie Comics was a one shot deal. It wouldn't be visited again until years later in 1951. Why did it take so long for? Perhaps it wasn't very popular at the time. This was the beginning of horror comics, so maybe it wasn't a big seller. Horror comics really seemed to take off in the early 50's, so it could have been a wait and see mentality from the folks over at Avon Comics. Perhaps they got a lot of complaints from the parents of the kids that read it and they decided to stop producing this title. These are just a couple of theories of mine. I have no idea what the real reason is behind there only being one issue.

One of my favorite about writing this blog is being able to read all of the wonderful historic comics. It wasn't easy to find a copy of this comic, but I did. The stories in them aren't as graphic or horrific as the horror comics that would be put out by EC Comics in the 50's. In fact, it's rather tame in its depiction.

Eerie Comic #1 is a 52 page anthology comic, meaning that it is comprised of many short stories, and not one long one. It's interesting to me that the picture on the cover has nothing to do with any of the stories within it. I was hoping to learn the story behind it, but alas, there was no story to be had. Instead there are stories about a vengeful ghost of a tiger, a haunted mansion, and a short story about an attorney that learns a valuable lesson in perception. In all there are six stories, including a fun two pager staring Goofy Ghost. My favorite part about this story, is that it was supposed to be continued in the next issue of Eerie Comics, but that issue never came saw the light of day.

Again, because of the age of this comic, don't expect there the be a lot of graded copies available on the market. As of now, there have been 71 copies graded by CGC. I don't expect that number to change very much in the near future. I expect that a lot of copies of Eerie Comics #1 made it's way to a landfill or into a fireplace at some point. Of the copies that are listed in the census, none are graded higher than a 9.2 MN-. Most of the graded copies are in the 4.0 VG to 6.0 F range. Don't expect to find many high grade copies out there.

Values for Eerie Comics #1 on GoCollect

If you're lucky enough to find a copy on the market, you might want to call your bank and get a loan. These comics are not cheap, even in lower grades. There isn't a lot of sales data out there for this book, but the numbers that are available, are quite high. I'll start off with an 8.5 VF+ copy since there are some good data points for it. In 2009 a copy at that grade sold for $3,107 at Heritage Auctions. That last sale at the same site and at the same grade sold for over $9,500. That really is quite amazing. However, lower grades aren't seeing this kind of growth. A 5.0 F- copy sold for $1,191 in 2012 and went up to only $1,250 in Feb of 2016. As we go down to a 4.0 VG copy, there was a sale in 2011 that dropped for $711 and then rose up to $775.25 about a year later. If you're looking for the best investment potential, the higher grade the better.

Rarity will play a huge factor in the value of this comic. It's almost impossible to find any copies online, graded or raw. I can usually find one or two copies of hard to find comics at one of the big online auction sites like eBay, but as of this writing, I couldn't find any. I'll leave the links at the bottom of the page like normal because you never know when a copy will be listed. My advice for you is to check back often, and if you find a copy for sale, buy it.

Find a copy here
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