MCBR gains new shelf space and acquires valuable autographs
Sean Welch, Dean of Acquisitions
The MCBR is proud to announce the acquisition of some new shelves. Saint Vinnie's on Williamson St. was selling some of their old display furniture and my wife Beth bought a tall metal bookcase for our living room, like you might find at a library; and a two-tier magazine rack for the Vault Office. It's a very addition to the room and the MCBR now has a display area. Beth has more than earned her tenure here at the Rep'. We are planning another round of preservation work as we continue to bag and back the one-third of the collection either unbacked or in need of a new bag. The damage done by not having backers is evident in comics from the mid-nineties that had been moved around a lot. Some spine rolling or slouching, but still most issues are flat. When we get all the comics backed and sorted we will begin our first comprehensive inventory since 1994. Stay tuned.
I've been downloading scanned comics for Reference . I am not further sharing the downloads because they are for educational purposes only. The MCBR has in the digital collection almost every Spider-Man comic from Amazing Fantasy#15 through the issues of about Dec. 2006. That includes Amazing, Spectacular (The Rep' already owns the original magazine size issues), Marvel Team-Up, Web of, the Todd Mc Farland Spider-Man, and even the Spidey Super Stories. We have the commercial release cd-rom of the Avengers. We have the complete runs of Defenders, ROM, Tales to Astonish, Strange Tales, Tomb of Dracula, Marvel Comics Presents, and Secret Wars.
Since Christmas the MCBR has acquired almost 100 old comics, most pre-1985. Ebay provided our most exciting find. Three Marvel Treasury Editions, Doctor Strange, Howard the Duck, and Thor were purchased from a book seller of rare volumes and first editions. Comics books were not their business. Except for a tear to the Doctor Strange issue in shipping, these huge comic books look great. In the Strange issue we found a John Brunner autographed poster for his Seven Samuroid graphic novel (http://www.majorspoilers.com/archives/3898.htm/). A freebie! I decided to look for other autographs and on the splash page of Thor we discovered JACK KIRBY's autograph! The faculty were wowed. Then we found that the Brunner stories in the other two comics were also autographed by Mr. Brunner. These comics cost only $7 in total. The four autographs were unknown to the sellers. The Brunner poster was framed by Beth and hangs in the Vault Office.
The MCBR received two Captain America action figures and one Bucky from the most recent Marvel Legends series. This series has received some potent criticism from collectors on both low pose ability and a lack of the great mold detail compared to the previous offerings, my brother Rory Welch reports. I concur but still think they are worth having. The best Captain America from Marvel Legends is still Series One.