SACHES & VIOLENS #1

STANDARD CATALOG OF COMIC BOOKS
written by John Jackson Miller, Maggie Thompson, Peter Bickford, Brent Frankenhoff

(excerpt)

Juanita Jean Saches ("J.J." to her friends) is a fiery Latina who makes her living as a model for adult magazines. Ernie "Violens" Schultz is her photographer, a former photojournalists from the jungle wars.

J.J.'s friend Wendy was also involved in the adult entertainment industry and thought she was onto a promising job in a softcore movie. Instead, she became the victim of a "snuff film" - a movie where people are actually killed at the end. Those responsible for dumping her body got involved in an auto accident, exposing Wendy's mutilated body and pictures of the slaying. The police unable to come up with leads, J.J. decides to investigate using her own unique industry connections. Ernie, like an aging Rambo, has no choice but to aid her using his cache of heavy weaponry (which he kept for just such emergencies)!

THE NEW TEEN TITANS: THE JUDAS CONTRACT

The book is called THE STANDARD CATALOG OF COMIC BOOKS (ISBN 0-87341-916-2), and is written by the same people who edits and publishes COMIC BUYERS GUIDE. It is a little expensive at $34.95, but it's worth it if you're a collector as it is a good price guide and checklist, and for the fact that it's 1237 pages long.

Although, in most guides, they do tend to miss certain variant comics and/or just plain inaccurate. I just checked the 31st Edition to OVERSTREET'S COMIC BOOK PRICE GUIDE, which is the latest version, and it still lists DARK HORSE #50 as having a Pérez story (see "Settlements").

Anyway, in addition to a summary of some titles, SCCB also list, in some cases, Diamond Preorder numbers and Capital City's order numbers. What I found very interesting is that THE NEW TEEN TITANS: THE JUDAS CONTRACT TP is quite rare! According to this book, Capital City only received and shipped 2,500 copies (note this number does not include Diamond Distribution).

Compare this number to some other, like ACTION COMICS #643 (Capital City: 35,100), BATMAN #400 (Capital City: 27,650), THE NEW TITANS #50 (Capital City: 18,750), PRIME #15 (Capital City: 14,450), CRISIS #3 (Capital City: 42,050), CRIMSON PLAGUE #2 (Diamond Preorders: 23,680), and. WONDER WOMAN #168 (Diamond Preorders: 27,185).

I am saving the last bit for AVENGERS #1 (vol 3), which they listed the following:

AVENGERS #1 (vol 3)

AVENGERS #1 (vol 3) Circulation Statement: 166,903 Diamond Preorders: 194,439 Statement, filed 10/1/97,; avg print run 209,391; avg sales 163,342; avg subs 2,704; avg total paid 166,046; samples 270; office use 125; max existent 166,441; 21% of run returned

INHUMANS #1

The book was actually designed as a price guide, but I mostly find the circulation statements more interesting than the actual list value. Personally, I always think a value of a comic book is based on the buyer's wants and needs (not dictated by a book). I disagree with some of the prices on the catalogue - just like you'd find WIZARD's pricing ridiculous.

The induction of Comics Guaranty LLC (CGC) in the price guide, I find a little annoying. I don't believe in CGC and I find the people buying them at extraordinary prices a little crazy. For about $600 for a perfect "10" SPAWN #1, you can get a pretty cool three figures unique George Pérez artwork, or heck, get yourself a new digital camera. Basically, the guide lists how many comics were CGC'ed and what the highest number it got. For instance, INHUMANS #1 there were 32 sent in to be graded and the best of the lot is a grade of 9.6. According to this guide, we're supposed to multiply 7 to its worth (which is valued at $8), so a CGC 9.6 INHUMANS #1 should fetch about $56.

As always, opinions expressed here are strictly my own. Buy this book, it's worth it!