Monday, November 21, 2016

The Quarter Bin: The $1 Challenge of Missing Covers!

Martinex1: Here at Back In The Bronze Age, we like to dive into the Quarter Bin at the local comic shop.   And often when we explore there, we find coverless reader copies of classic Bronze Age material interspersed with the graveyard of over-ordered inventory.   Now I know that the serious collector intent to find mint copies may pass over these rough copies, but I love to grab the oddities that cannot be found in the collected trades or the gems that just never made it onto my target list. 


So today, I am sharing not covers but rather splash pages for our $1 Challenge.   Imagine these are coverless books in a bin - four for a dollar.   (Or for you serious aficionados who wouldn't touch a mangled copy - imagine that you can only see the first page).   I figure there are enough BITBAs out there that cut up the covers or destroyed them from excessive reading that this might ring a bell.


And like the random comics you sometimes run across in the piles, we have a wide selection of humor, horror, and heroes.  We have Marvel, DC, Archie, Atlas-Seaboard, and Charlton.   We have Ditko, Buscema, Kirby and more. From Aquaman to the Brute, from Red Sonja to the Grim Ghost, from Red Wolf to Popeye - we've got it all!


So see if you can identify these copies with limited info.  Pick your top four and feed us the score. Happy hunting and as always... cheers!



























11 comments:

Unknown said...

Great topic! I actually have a coverless ASM 129. I got it that way in a trade as a kid. I didn't know what the cover looked like until I saw it at a shop years later. I keep all my old books that have endured rough handling, moves and attempts by mom trying to toss them. When I was a kid my local comic shop had boxes of coverless books, often for $.05. A buck would get me a stack of comics and a fruit pie. Its where I learned that the issue number, date etc where in the fine print on the bottom of the first page. I saw Marvel had an address in NYC which was so cool to me. That made the stories seem real to me then. The splash pages where so great, they set the mood and setting in just a page. I especially loved the Avengers mansion shots. It made it seem the characters did stuff when we weren't watching them. I also used them for the occasional school project to cut from. I think I wrote about Jack Kirby and Gil Kane and pasted cut outs of their art. Sometimes the coverless books would be included in my piles. I know X-men 95 and some JLAs were coverless treasures I found in the $.05 box. Its where I would try out new stuff too, like monster comics or a DC title. I have some half cover too. I think that had to do with stores return credit or something. I'm gonna dig a few out tonight!

Anonymous said...

When I was a kid my family used to shop at a warehouse grocery store. They sold three packs of coverless comics in plastic wrap. It was a bit of a crap shoot buying them because you never knew what the middle comic was.

Alan

Redartz said...

Great twist on the topic today, partner! Coverlet comics separate the collector from the reader fan- even with no cover, a good story can still be enjoyed. Many of the box lots I've picked up have included such books. That has led to a 21st.Century approach- I scan the coverless stories and load them on my tablet. Presto, a hi-def comics anthology; from Casper to The Spirit to Vigilante to Sabrina.

From today's selections:
Marvel Premiere with Dr. Strange
Adventure into Fear with Man-Thing
Atlas' "Grim Ghost"
The indeterminate Archie book featuring the Swamp Mist Monster (okay, Martinex1, you stumped me with that one- from "Red Circle Sorcery" or "Life With Archie", perhaps?).

Edo Bosnar said...

I've never seen these coverless books before anywhere. If I had ever come across any place selling them for 5 cents a pop, I would have bought stacks of them.
Anway, there's some really nice (and I mean really nice) stuff here in the art department: Iron Fist by Byrne, Tarzan and Thor by John Buscema, Shang Chi by Gulacy, and so much Jim Aparo, just to name a few highlights.

I'm going to go with:

Hawk & Dove #1 (60s-vintage Ditko art!)

Captain Atom #85 (at least I think it is, if I'm reading the indicia right - anyway, more classic Ditko art)

Space Adventures #4 (some really early Aparo art among other things)

Brave and the Bold #111 (if my Google search for that story title, "Death Has the Last Laught" is correct; Haney-era B&B, with more wonderful art by Aparo).

Unknown said...

Sorry got lost in memories, forgot to play the game:

Loved both Cap stories that were in the Madbomb arc, "Kill Derby" and "The Rocks are Burning"

Avengers "Never Bug a Giant"

And my fav of the bunch Super Villain Team-Up "Pawns of Attuma"

Anonymous said...

Well, I actually have Amazing Spidey #161, and I have that Avengers story with Psyklop (as part of a Hulk paperback book), so I guess I'd go for:

Superboy & the Legion
B&B #111
Defenders
and Wrath of the Spectre (Fleisher's Spectre stuff was wild)

I had some coverless comics as a kid, usually bought at rummage sales. I had a coverless Avengers #177 (final part of the Korvac Saga); it was years before I knew what the cover looked like!

Mike Wilson

Garett said...

Some nice comics there that I'd love to scoop up. There's a store in town here that sells comics 8 for a dollar, and they have the covers. I'm going with Aparo-- love finding Aparo comics I haven't seen before!

Aqualad-- not an Aqua-anything fan, but I've heard Aparo's Aquaman run is good.

Brave + Bold 175-- love B+B, but haven't read all the later issues.

The Imitation People-- Aparo at Chalton. I still have very few Charlton comics, but I've picked up some Phantom, E-Man, Yang.

For the last, I'll go Ditko. Either Dr. Strange, Captain Atom, or Hawk and Dove. I'd also check out Son Of Satan. I've read a few, like the character but the series didn't seem great. Is Gerber's writing good on this series?

Anonymous said...

Garett, Gerber's Son of Satan stuff made a nice, weird little '70's Marvel comic, in their line of spooky supernatural mags, if like me, yer into that kinda thing. I'd check it out.
I'd also recommend Aparo's Aquaman. I liked it. If you can get 'em for cheap, all the better. It's been many a year since I ran across a motherload of cheap used comics. Snag 'em! I once found a legendary haul of old Marvels in a hippie used-book store in Mankato Minnesota. Kind of a once in a lifetime deal, I guess. I nearly cried.
Wasn't Aparo's Aquaman stuff done under the title Adventure Comics? I think so.
M.P.

Martinex1 said...

Hi all. Thanks for some great collecting stories. Alan those coverless three packs intrigue me; I seem to remember that too but cannot put my finger on where I was.

Redartz that Archie comic was Josie and the Pussycats # 67 from Feb 1973. It had an almost identical cover as the splash page.

Garett said...

Thanks for the recommendations M.P. I'll check them out.

Anonymous said...

Hmm well let's see now, I'd go with Dr. Strange, the Defenders, Hulk #167 and Thor just for variety's sake.

I actually own two of these issues here, Iron Fist and Shang Chi, both coverless in reality ironically. The Iron Fist issue is great, Fist actually takes on the whole Wrecking Crew. If you wanna know how the power of Shou-Lao the Undying dragon stacks up against Karnilla, queen of the Norns, well, you just have to read this issue to find out!

The Shang Chi issue here is also great, part of the multi-story arc where each issue was told from a certain character's point of view. Shang Chi takes on his evil (test tube) twin here.


- Mike 'sadly most of my copies are coverless now' from Trinidad & Tobago.

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