Weekly Shaker Report: August 9th, 2024
August 9th, 2024
Welcome to COVRPRICE's SHAKER Report, where we cover our favorite high comic book sales of the week, including comics from all corners of the hobby - from vintage comic books to modern comics! In this week's shaker it almost became the Skottie Young Variety Shaker Show, BUT we have amazing issues from ANIMANIACS, BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY, GHOSTBUSTERS, MILK AND CHEESE, SAVAGE DRAGON and so many other comics from all ends of the comic spectrum!
SHAKERS OF THE WEEK
These are all comic books that hit our daily SHAKERS list. This list refreshes EVERY day, so don't miss out!
SHAKER: ANIMANIACS #1 | DC | 1995
By Van Denby
The Animaniacs debuted in 1993 and ran for five years. The show built a following by using clever writing and slapstick humor and blending them with funny pop culture references. The series returned in 2020 to much fanfare and ran for another three seasons. DC Comics began publishing the Animaniacs comics series in 1995. This series ran for 59 issues, with a handful of collectible issues in the run that demand higher prices on the aftermarket. A few such books are the DCU logo variants for issues #9 and #10, as well as the much harder-to-find final issue #59. However, the first issue is undervalued for such an iconic brand. Issue #1 saw a new all-time high sale this week of $149 for a CGC 9.8 graded copy, but prior to this, the previous all-time high was $61. It is difficult to say if this sale is a sign that this issue is finally getting recognized by fans and collectors or if it is a one-off off, but the recent spike in many other animated adapted comics could mean fans are seeking out other animated comics to add to their collections.
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SHAKER: BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY #8 | WHITMAN | 1980
By Matthew Glover Esq.
For generations, the man-out-of-time concept has been used in literature, film, and popular culture. However, Buck Rogers may be one of the first sci-fi futurism stories to enter popular culture as we know it today. Buck Rogers is a fictional character and space adventurer who first appeared in the novella Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan, published in 1928. He became hugely popular in comic strips, radio shows, and television and film adaptations. Rogers is often portrayed as a pilot who awakens from suspended animation in the 25th century. What makes this particular comic interesting is how rare it is. According to the CGC census, only 33 copies of this book have been graded. Of those 33, only five are in a 9.6. There are no 9.8 on the census. Sales of this book are rare, but this is the highest sale on record at $508.
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SHAKER: CLIVE BARKER'S HELLRAISER #1 | BOOM! STUDIOS | 2011
The Hellraiser franchise comprises numerous 'cult classics.' From the Clive Barker original to the most recent reboot in 2022, it's grown into a massive franchise. It fits snuggly amongst good company consisting of Freddy, Michael, and Jason. Over the years, the lexicon of Hellraiser material has steadily expanded, adding works like this book to build out the story. Comprised of an all-new short story from Clive Barker himself and one of three outings he has put pen to paper for amongst the entire IP and was marketed as the 'end' of the Cenobites mascot Pinheads story. Despite being a massive franchise that has spanned nearly 40 years, raw copies for this tale routinely sell for under $10, and years prior, it was a regular in the $5 bin. But that's what makes the graded sales interesting. Recently, a CGC 9.8 sold for $130, matching its last high sale from 2023. It's one of 40 copies in the same grade on the census, of which there are only 43 total graded copies. It's one of the few books with over 92% of submissions returning with a 9.8 grade. A difficult grade to achieve for a cover that is a majority black, yet they comprise the majority of the market, but not sales. It shows once again that icons of the horror industry do quite well in high grades despite being readily available for under a 1/10th of the cost for a raw copy. It's a prime display piece that looks wonderful amongst other memorabilia for the franchise, and one collector recently was able to add it to theirs.
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SHAKER: FABLES #1 - JAMES JEAN - REGULAR | DC | 2002
How this hasn’t been adapted directly yet is a mystery, but this story would fit well on the screen. The characters from Fables are ones that nearly everyone has heard as they grew up are cast into the real world. It’s a story that numerous fans identify with, the fish out of water, the higher calling, etc, and has a healthy fanbase. That’s one reason fans are willing to shell out for high-grade copies. Recently, a CGC 9.8 hit the market and sold for $382, a new all-time high sale. It’s sniffed that height before, as the sales record for this book is all over the map. It can swing dramatically, but it has steadily risen since it debuted. Raw copies have experienced a similar trend but typically top out around $50 for NM copies and up to $100 for NM+. Although it hasn’t been adapted, it’s one of the highest-rated and most beloved Vertigo titles of all time. The series won 14 Eisner awards but typically flies under the radar for the majority of collectors. That is, until last year when series creator Bill Willingham got into a public dispute with DC regarding the status of the series and an issue with public domain classification. That came with a corresponding bump in value before coming back down, but recently, it has been experiencing a jump again. There hasn’t been any news on the suit between the creator and studio, but that hasn’t stopped collectors from reaching into their pockets to secure a copy!
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SHAKER: GHOSTBUSTERS #3 JONES 1:10 VARIANT | IDW | 2011
By Van Denby
One of the more prominent franchises from the 80s, the Ghostbusters, has thrived for nearly 40 years. The franchise has had renewed success recently, as the previous two films have been met with much praise and adoration from Ghostbusters fans. The Ghostbusters have also had various comic books featuring the characters since their first mini-series in 1987 and continue to this day. IDW began printing Ghostbusters comics in 2011, and that particular series ran for 16 issues. Many of these issues had ratio variant covers that have experienced various degrees of success with collectors on the aftermarket. Due to lower order numbers from comic shops, many of these 1:10 and 1:15 ratio variants have reached $100 plus. Issue #14 featured an incredible Taxi Driver movie homage, and issue #16 was part of the IDW Rock Tour variant set that has been an extremely tough set to complete for collectors and rare variant enthusiasts. The recent ratio variant to see high prices is issue #3, which is a 1:10 by Tristan Jones. This past week saw a new all-time high sale of $80 for a raw NM copy, which is $30 higher than the previous sale of $50 (February 2024). The ratio variants for this series are not easy to find normally, so keep an eye out for them when digging in back issue bins.
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SHAKER: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #25 - SKOTTIE YOUNG - IRON MAN BY DESIGN (1:15) | MARVEL | 2010
By Matthew Glover Esq.
There is no more unique style than Mr. Skottie Young. In the early 2000s and 2010s, variant comic collecting was different from what it is now. During this time frame, Marvel often relied on a theme for their variant covers, such as Thor Goes Hollywood. These ratio variants are now making a comeback in a big way, especially if that cover is by an artist who has seen an avalanche of notoriety. This book was actually mentioned in a previous Shaker report in July when we covered Dark Wolverine #85. Both of these Skottie Covers were a part of the Iron Man by Design theme, which featured several well-known and up-and-coming artists and boasted 26 different covers. It is fun to note how the all-time high is now the high price for a raw and the graded cost has doubled. Another factor to keep in mind is that this is a variant of Guardians of the Galaxy, which was late in its run and was still four long years before James Gunn’s film interpretation would redefine the characters. This means that there are probably only a few stores that were placing an order that would qualify for this cover. A recent copy of Young’s early Marvel work recently sold in a 9.8 for $656.
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SHAKER: MILK & CHEESE #1 | SLAVE LABOR | 1991
It's a rare and very welcomed opportunity for me to get the chance to talk about a key this big. I'm honestly flabbergasted. This book marks the honest-to-god first appearance of both Milk AND Cheese! You would be hard-pressed to find a singular key containing the first appearance of two household names as ubiquitously known as Milk and Cheese. Unless I'm simply unfamiliar with a book out there called Water & Bread #1, this has to take the (cheese)cake. I can literally feel my brain curdling as I try to analyze this book, but I promise I will get to the data. If you really know your stuff, you would have already recognized that this is actually an Eisner Award-winning series that is pretty well-known for being one of the subversively funniest independent comics of the 90s. Evan Dorkin, the author, aside from his own work, has worked on a ton of big IPs ranging all the way from Yo Gabba Gabba to Superman. Additionally, the publisher of this book, Slave Labor Graphics, has a very respectable catalog that includes the likes of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez. Additionally, their editor-in-chief, Jennifer de Guzman, went on to become the PR and Marketing Director at Image Comics. We already mentioned that this is an independent comic book from over three decades ago, so it should be abundantly clear that the number of copies of this book out in the wild is relatively minuscule. Earlier this month, a CGC 9.8 copy of this book sold for a whopping $950, which is over three times as much as the previous sale at this grade three years ago. It's tough to say exactly what market conditions led to this sale, but I wanted to show that there are still plenty of reasons to respect this book!
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SHAKER: PATSY WALKER #26 | MARVEL | 1950
The one thing for SURE to get comic book collectors excited about a comic book is the cover art, especially when it is from a famed artist! Louise Altson may not be as well known to the average comic book collector, but rest assured, she was an incredible talent, with her abilities as a painter reaching far beyond the realm of comic books. Well, before she entered the world of comic book art, she was a prolific and famous portrait artist.
Born in 1910 in Antwerp, Belgium, she began her artistic studies at age 12. In 1939, after a number of successful exhibits in Europe, she moved with her family to New York City and began in earnest her career illustrating children’s books, magazines, and, ultimately, comic books. One of her more prominent positions (1946) was working for the Women’s section of the Toronto Star Weekly newspaper, where she provided illustrations to accompany short stories. She did approximately 40 different installments and Christmas covers for the paper over the course of several years. She also did commercial art for Kellogg’s and painted covers for Little Golden Books. It was in 1944, however, when she first started working for Timely Comics, providing photo-realistic paintings to accompany fictional stories inside Miss America Magazine. She eventually branched out from interior art to provide the cover art for teen romance comic books such as Junior Miss, Cindy Smith, Mitzi’s Romances, and four consecutive issues of Patsy Walker (issues #25 - 28 in late 1949/early 1950).
These four issues of Patsy Walker are tough to find in high grade, so it was nice to see a CGC 7.0 of #26 sell for just shy of $850 this past week. The character Patsy Walker has an interesting history as she becomes Hellcat, first appearing in Avengers #144 (1976). Clearly, Louise Altson was revered by other comic book artists as an homage to her cover art for Patsy Walker #26 was used in 2016 for a 1:15 variant cover of Patsy Walker, A.K.A. Hellcat! #7 by famed artist Julian Totino Tedesco. Raw high-grade copies of this comic are listed in the $75-$100 range. Great to see this “tip of the hat” to such an important and prolific Golden-age artist. NOTE: Early on as a portrait artist, Altson was commissioned by the families of George and Barbara Bush, famed jazz musician Tommy Dorsey, the DuPonts, and the Woolworth family, among others.
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SHAKER: SAVAGE DRAGON #190 - LIMITED DIGEST EDITION | IMAGE | 2013
By Xavier
When it comes to Image Comics, two major titles debuted at launch… Spawn and Savage Dragon. Erik Larsen created The Dragon prior to the inception of Image Comics. However, his character redesign was so popular that The Dragon was moved from a limited series to an ongoing monthly release. The series continues to this day, making it one of the longest-running comic books featuring the same artist/writer throughout the series. This book features a phenomenal cover by Larsen, depicting Savage Dragon going blow-for-blow with Mako. Two versions of this book have been released. A standard comic book and a deluxe digest edition, running 64 pages. This deluxe edition has had a steadily growing FMV for an NM, averaging around $40-$50. This past week, an NM+ book went for an astounding $113, setting a new all-time sales record! This past April, a CGC 9.8 sold for $180. According to the CGC census, only two digest editions are graded at a 9.8. This book has all the signs of being undervalued, and you might see more listings with this latest sale.
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SHAKER: WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SANDIEGO? #1 - DIRECT SALES | DC | 1996
By Ron Reyes
We covered this book around three years ago, but for the infamous DC Logo variant edition. This time, we have the regular issue, fetching a record-high sale of $480 for a CGC 9.8! For those unfamiliar with Carmen Sandiego, it was initially conceived as a video game by the classic software company Brøderbund in 1985. Brøderbund was known for its educationally stylized content, and most of its earlier releases were popularized through classrooms and teaching environments. As you might expect, Carmen Sandiego’s premise revolved around geographic and cultural subject matter and thus evolved due to the informative stories children could learn from. Eventually, Brøderbund’s original concept expanded to numerous other forms of media, including film, television game shows, animation shows, comic books, and even a Musical! Returning to this week’s feature, we’re excited to see this book on our list! Currently, the census only holds four of these 9.8 grades on their site, and while this doubles our last recorded sale of $250, it’s great to see books like this resurfacing as it shows people are still interested in finding out where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?!!
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SHAKER: WITCHBLADE #170 - MARC SILVESTRI - SKETCH (1:5) | IMAGE | 2013
Artist Mark Silvestri was just about finished on his run of Uncanny X-Men in 1989 when he penciled the now-classic Wolverine “crucifixion cover” for issue #251. After featuring prominently at the start of Deadpool and Wolverine, Uncanny #251 has blown up on the secondary market, producing new homages while reflecting some shine on past ones. Produced in 1995, Witchblade #170 and its 1:5 sketch version have recently seen increased collector interest thanks to Deadpool 3’s success.
By 1995, Silvestri had since moved on with the crew of Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Rob Liefeld, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, and Jim Valentino to form Image Comics and the banner Top Cow. While it hasn’t seen as much of a jump compared to the sketch version, the A cover for Witchblade #170 has hovered around $20 for NM raws and $80 for graded 9.8 copies. Recently, a raw copy of the 1:5 Silvestri sketch variant sold for $125, a 25 percent jump past recent NM raw sales. As of now, the only recorded sale of a graded 9.8 copy came in 2020, when one sold for $180.
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KEY OF THE WEEK
KEY OF THE WEEK: SPIDER-MAN COLLECTIBLE SERIES #1 | MARVEL | 2006
Reprints and facsimiles have flooded the market over the last few years, and while they vary in value on the aftermarket, sometimes these reprints can find their way to lofty numbers. This week, a reprint of the first appearance of Spider-Man hit an all-time high for a 9.8 at $1,150; in 2006, a series of reprints of Spidey's biggest stories were released to the public as inserts within Sunday newspapers and sent out to subscribers across the country. While most of these famous issues were split into two volumes, Amazing Fantasy #15 was the only one of the lot that was sent in a single issue. One could assume many of these were probably tossed away, and with the book being given out as an insert in a newspaper, finding copies in NM condition can be extremely difficult. As such, this book has seen steady high sales in the few times it has changed hands, and this week was no different.
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WHAT THE WATCHER WATCHES
SCARLET WITCH #9 JEN BARTEL NEW CHAMPIONS VARIANT | MARVEL COMICS | 2023
By: Lefteros
Another week, another New Champions Variant to watch. Last week, we featured Fantasma, the Ghost Rider-themed New Champion. At the time, copies were readily available for cover price, but that did not last long, as news got out regarding her upcoming debut. Now, we have turned our attention to the Scarlet Witch-themed New Champion. According to an article that Marvel published earlier today, her name is Amaranth.
Jen Bartel created her and, according to Marvel, will be introduced as a former protégé of Agatha Harkness who now seeks Wanda's training in the upcoming Scarlet Witch #6. Copies of this book are still available for a reasonable price. According to our data, this variant has a raw high sale of only $5. There are a few copies available on eBay for that price, and I am pretty sure some shops may still have a copy or two available for cover price. As much as I love Fantasma's potential, I think this may be the New Champion with the highest ceiling of them all. We are watching!
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CONTENT:
CONTENT/RATING CONFIRMATION: KRAVEN is R-RATED
After Madame Web's debacle, Sony is hoping to copy Marvel's success with Deadpool and Wolverine, which will be rated R when it's released on December 13, 2024. Hopefully, someone told Sony that it was the great writing and not the R rating that made people love Deadpool and Wolverine.
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CONTENT/TRAILER: SATURDAY NIGHT
This isn’t the normal type of content we cover, but this was really just an excuse to give John Belushi’s Samurai some love. Sony Entertainment released the trailer for Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night with Reitman stating that this will be a “comedic thriller” as the movie will take place during the 90 minutes BEFORE the very first Saturday Night Live. The film comes out on October 11, 2024.
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