MightyMags.Com Newsletter

Fellow Fans & Collectors:

    Thank you for visiting the MightyMags.Com website.  These catalogs have been recently updated and are viewable as HTML and Microsoft Word.  If using Microsoft Word I suggest that you adjust your zoom to 200% before you read the catalog.  They're in 6 point font which can appear as fairly small print.  The catalogs include MAGAZINES, OLD COMICS and COMPLETE COMIC SETS  

    The selection is larger and wider than ever and most items are priced below guide and many are way below guide prices. You can receive even deeper discounts when you make larger purchases. Click on the "discounts" icon on the main page for details on how to get 10% or 20% off discounts. 

    Of course price doesn't mean much if you're not receiving comics in the condition advertised. My main focus is on accurate grading (to CGC standards) so that you'll be confident in receiving the quality that you've ordered. When you open a box from me, I want you to smile real big. It's very important to me that you be happy with your purchase because repeat business is what I've always thrived upon. 

    I offer a 15-day, unconditional money back guarantee. You may return any item for any reason. I ship most orders within 48 hours but still take the extra time to package items carefully and securely to ensure against damage during shipping. People often describe my packages as being bulletproof.

     I've been a full-time comic book retailer since the late 1970s and have over 25 years of comic grading experience. I take the time to examine each book carefully, taking all flaws into consideration and then grade conservatively. On the average I can grade about 15 comics in an hour. If you're going faster than that you'll run the risk of missing something that should lower the grade of the book. Too many people give their books a quick glance at the cover and assign a grade and subsequently overlook major flaws. If the jobs worth doing, it's worth doing right. I have more to say about grading a little further down on this page.

    The comic book market over the past few years has been pretty much the same from year to year. Inexpensive and lower grade comics priced under $5 sell well and there's also a demand for high grades (especially keys) due to their relative rarity. I always try to find comics in the highest possible grade but since they are rarely ever as nice as people tell me they are, I end up with plenty of mid and low grade comics for those of you who are looking for reader copies. Through my last catalog I finally saw non-superhero comics match the sales of super-hero comics. TV and movie related Dell and Gold Key comics, especially ones with photo covers, have made a big come back. Disney, Hanna Barbera, Archie, Harvey as well as other cartoon and humor titles are becoming more and more popular. Of course, horror, sci-fi, mystery and more recently romance titles from all publishers continue to sell well. Marvel and DC superheroes still sell well due in part to big budget comic character movies. Hero comics are in greater supply and price guide increases over the past few years have slowed their sales in some cases. For that reason I keep my prices below guide (in many cases way below) on comics that are more readily available. You may want to take a second look at those titles (often from the 70s and late 60s) as a lot of them have good stories and artwork. It's just a matter of time before they are rediscovered or revamped into a new comic series and become popular again. Always popular are comics with artwork by Jack Kirby, Neal Adams, Berni Wrightson, Michael Kaluta, Jim Starlin, John Byrne, Mike Grell, Wally Wood, Steve Ditko, George Perez and other top talent (sorry if I missed your favorite). The comic back issue market is strong and getting stronger as collectors continue to discover new areas of interest and there is a lot left to be discovered.

    Monster and horror continue to rule the magazine back issue market but sci-fi, barbarian and super-hero mags are gaining ground. Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Planet of the Apes and Hulk move well thanks to great artwork and stories. Crazy, Cracked and especially MAD and Sick have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. The magazine back issue market is still relatively young and still has a lot of room to grow. Part of that growth occurs as comic book collectors cross-over into collecting magazines and in the same way magazine collectors start collecting the comics that highlight their areas of interest. For example Warren and Heavy Metal magazine fans who start buying Marvel, DC and other horror comic titles such as Chamber of Darkness, Tower of Shadows, House of Mystery, Unexpected, Twilight Zone, Frankenstein, Ghostly Tales and dozens more. They're slightly smaller and in color but have many of the same creators in common such as Wrightson, Adams, Kaluta, Ploog, Orlando, Crandall, Toth and Craig. After all, it was EC Comics that actually started that format back in the 50s. 

    I recommend the comic collectors check out my 22-page magazine catalog were I have magazine format titles listed such as Amazing World of DC, Foom, Marvel Graphic Novels, Savage Sword of Conan, Comic Book Artist, Comic Book Marketplace, Crazy, MAD, Rampaging Hulk, Vampirella and much, much more. I also recommend that magazine collectors check out my 42-page old comics catalog for titles like Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery, Chilling Adventures in Sorcery, Conan the Barbarian, From Beyond the Unknown, Ghost Manor, Haunted, Red Circle Sorcery, Ripley's Believe It or Not and many, many others. Then there's all the TV and movie titles like Four Color, Star Trek, Adventures on the Planet of the Apes, Man From UNCLE, Konga, Korg 70,000 BC, Six Million Dollar Man, Space 1999, Battlestar Galactica, Logan's Run, Star Wars, Lassie, Flipper and tons more. Of course if cartoons are your thing, there's an endless supply of those. Hanna-Barbera (Flintstones, Jetsons, Yogi Bear, etc.), Warner Brothers (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.), Harvey (Richie Rich, Sad Sack, Casper, etc.), Archie (Jughead, Sabrina, Josie, etc.) and everything else you can think of. 

    The great thing about comic books and magazines as collectibles is that they are the actual entertainment in and of themselves. For example, Spider-Man comic books are collected for their artwork and stories whereas a movie poster is collected because it represents a movie that you like or a sports card represents an athlete that you admire or an Elvis plate may remind you of your favorite singer. Of course comic book characters spawn cards, posters, movies, TV shows and everything else as well but it's worth noting that the original art form is the comic books themselves. Did you know that the 1965 TV series Lost in Space was based on the 1962 comic book series Space Family Robinson? Many people think it was the TV show that came first but it was the other way around. When you consider that the first comic hero, Superman, was introduced in 1938, comic book heroes have made a huge impact on the pop culture in the relatively short period of time. 

    More about grading. Upholding strict and accurate grading standards is always very important. Whether you're buying comics to read and enjoy, as an investment or a little bit of both you should always expect to receive the quality that you're paying for. In order to let you know what you're getting when you order from me I often specify flaws that do not fall within the average wear that defines a particular grade. Those flaws may be the main reason that the book doesn't grade higher. These are things like "moisture damage" (mst.dmg.), "finger print" (fgr.prt.), "subscription creases" (sub.crs.), "date stamps" and many other problems that may plague books in otherwise excellent condition. The definitions for the abbreviations listed in the catalog can be found when you click on "abbreviations legend". With this information you can be sure to avoid the defects that bother you the most. I always want you to be happy with what you buy from me. 

    The number that immediately follows the letter grade (for example, the "7" in fn7) represents the whiteness level of the comic's interior pages. All of the comics in my catalog are rated for page quality using Overstreet's Owl card. It's a card with different levels between brown to white. It's like matching paint with a paint chip. 10 represents white paper that many older comics weren't printed on to begin with. 9 is near white (very rare in older books), 8 is off white to cream (usually as good as I find), 7 is light tan, 6 is tan, 5 is dark tan and things go down hill from there. 99% of comics printed before 1980 have suffered some degree of yellowing or tanning during the past twenty plus years due to oxidation. They didn't usually print comics on high quality white gloss paper back then. You'll notice that I will price the same book and condition with Owl 7, 6 and especially 5 pages lower than one with Owl 8 pages. I consider Owl 8 to be average and may price books with Owl 9 or 10 (few that there are) a little bit higher.

The Overstreet guide refers to covers printed off-center as "bindery defects" (bnd.dft. is the abbreviation used in my catalog). It's a common flaw, especially with comics printed in the 1970s and earlier. If you check through your collection you'll probably find that 5% to 10% of your comics have covers that are not perfectly centered. I used to get shipments of hundreds of copies of an issue, all of which had covers that were printed slightly off center. Most people don't notice this or don't care but it is a factor in grading especially at the high end. If you aren't bothered by that flaw, then I don't recommend that you start caring about it now. You can simply save yourself some money by buying comics listed with "bnd.dft." listed next to them in my listings. I've given you the information so that you can decide for yourself. It's really only a factor when buying comics in extremely high grade and most people aren't bothered by it but it is considered an imperfection never the less. The CGC only assigns 9.6 and 9.8 grades to copies that have covers that are perfectly or nearly perfectly centered. You can read about the various types of "bnd.dft" by clicking on "abbreviations legend". You can click here to view an example of bnd.dft.1A on one of the comics listed in my catalog. 

    It is quite refreshing to see that the CGC (a professional comic grading service) is grading comics accurately. I hope that this will spill over into the rest of the comic book collecting community. Someone suggesting that grading is subjective and will vary from person to person is really just making an excuse for their own over-grading. You can be sure that they won't be under-grading. Their so-called "grading mistakes" will be to their advantage and you'll be the loser. 

    I've sent a lot of comics and magazines to the CGC in the past but I've sold all of them. Due to the cost, I think it's only worthwhile to slab 9.4 or better copies of books that list for more than $75.00. I might see what I have left in high grade at the end of the year and send them some comics early in 2007. A few years back I did that with copies the 1974 Ka-Zar and Sandman first issues that I had listed in my catalog for less than $20.00. When I got them back from the CGC (graded 9.8) I sold the Ka-Zar #1 for 203.50 and the Sandman #1 for 180.50 on eBay. The Overstreet guide lists for copies in nm- 9.2 but for 9.4 and better (nm in my catalog) it's seems like the sky's the limit. My user ID on eBay is MightyMags1 and on Yahoo it's MightyMags_com in case you want to see what auctions I'm posting there.

    Here are some other examples of CGC graded magazines on eBay.  Creepy #1 nm+ 9.6 $1650, #15 nm 9.4 $76, #27 nm+ 9.6 $201, #92 nm/mt 9.8 $216, Marvel Super Special #1 nm 9.4 $495, Epic Illustrated #1 nm 9.6 $77, Marvel Preview #2 nm/mt 9.8 $748, Spectacular Spider-Man (mag) #1 nm 9.4 $369, Vampirella #5 nm 9.4 $287, #11 nm+ 9.6 $426, #98 nm/mt 9.8 $360, #102 nm+ 9.6 $306, #103 nm+ 9.6 $306 and Bizarre Adventures #25 nm/mt 9.8 $70.  

    For comic fans the COMPLETE COMIC BOOK SETS & RUNS offers a cost saving method of beginning a series with an uninterrupted run or completing a series in one smooth motion. You will also avoid the frustration of tracking down those last elusive issues needed to complete a series. It's the best of all worlds.

    I've posted some scans of the comics listed under the letter "A" in the HTML old comics listings so that you can view the actual copies by clicking on "view".  If you'd like to have me post more scans like those ones of other issues just e-mail me to let me know that you'd like to see that.   

    I hope you will enjoy perusing these pages and perhaps allowing me the pleasure of providing you with the optimum quality of service. Feel free to e-mail me with questions you have or to reserve something that you are about to purchase. E-mail address MightyMagsCom@aol.com MightyMags.com, PO Box 22916, St. Petersburg, FL 33742-2916  Web Site http://members.aol.com/hrbholding/index.htm 

    To sum things up, I offer an all-around positive mail order experience that is free from the typical frustrations. Remember that collecting comics should be fun and we should enjoy our hobby to the fullest.

All the best,