SCC's Comics Talk

I've been collecting comics for twenty years now. I love the hobby and would go to the local comics store regularly picking up weekly/monthly issues from my pull list. As I progressed further in the hobby, I started to make more friends that started collecting “key” comic issues.
What we mean by the term “key” is that the issue is significantly important in that it might contain an event that can shock a storyline prompting collectors to collect those comics. Events such as Secret Wars, Civil War, The Infinity Gauntlet, Death of Superman and more recently the death of Wolverine are some examples. These are key events and collectors will scramble to get the best copies, variants and also aim for the best possible “condition” of the book available.

The concept of slabbing collectibles (coins, trading cards, comics, toys, video games) has had its share of (common) problems and controversies over the years. If you are starting or have pondered starting to collect slabbed / third-party graded comics, do be aware of the three concerns below and make a considered decision before slabbing your comics or purchasing slabbed ones. 1) You Can't Read the Book Anymore! This is the one thing that amuses me the most when I discuss slabbed comics. Let’s first be clear on what I mean—I really mean that if you remove the book from the (not-unbreakable) slab, you are essentially undoing the grade given by the grading company. That is why people do not remove the book from the slab. Of course, the flipside of this is that you lose one very key reason why the book was to enjoyed and owned in the first...

Rarity - a foremost quality to hobbyists. A comic book with a print run of 100,000 is spawned from a single canvas - an original piece that was inked, coloured and then mass-produced. In the quest for exclusivity, novelty and investment value, original comic art is becoming more attractive to collectors. This article seeks to briefly address a few basic aspects of the hobby.

S!LENCE Story/Art: Tanky Big Egg Comics One of the best local comics to come out this year, S!LENCE debuted at this year's STGCC and reading it again, it still holds up as a strong story. Created originally as an entry for the Silent Manga Audition, Tanky has done a SF / jungle manga story that will have you at the edge of your seat and still tug the heartstrings. S!LENCE didn't win anything but it gave Tanky the opporunity to create this delightful silent comic, which reminds me of HK's Lai Tat Tat Weng. The same kind of quirkiness and sense of discovery.  Silent comics have been around for a long time. See David Berona's Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels. And for us in Southeast Asia with our myriad of languages, a silent comic actually transcends boundaries and borders. I did a few myself with artists from Indonesia and...

The Fix Story: Nick Spencer Art: Steve Lieber Image Comics Comics are like cable TV these days. Writers and artists plan their story arcs like TV series seasons. And the way we consume comics is like watching Netflix. Instead of buying the single issues, we wait for the trade and read everything at one go. That’s how most of us would have read The Fix, the new crime / comedy series by hot writer, Nick Spencer and the ever-reliable, Steve Lieber. The first issue had good press when it was released in April (it went into third printing). Four issues later, the first trade is out and it did brisk sales at this year’s STGCC where Spencer was a guest and was on site to sign and promote the book. Two bad LA cops (who rob old men in old folks home among other things) are under orders from their...