Good (Albeit Cardless) Flea Market Day!

Between heat, rain, travel and the one time that the parking lot was literally too full to get into, I haven’t managed to get out to my local flea market a lot this season, but I was there today, and there was some good stuff. Here’s some of the highlights!

The 2nd Naked Eyes album! I’m sure copies of it are around, but I don’t think I’d ever seen one in person. Happy to grab it for a buck.

I think this is like my 3rd or 4th copy of Metal Gear Solid. I may actually try keeping this one. Looking forward to playing it again.

This one, I’ve never played, but people have spoken very highly of it, and the price was right.

I just recently got the awesome hardcover of this entire series, and have been buying and enjoying the revival of the title (which, unfortunately, like most Dynamite titles, is due to last long enough for about 1 trade paperback), but I’m still picking away at originals of the first series, and as the graphic novel that launched it is just amazing, I had to.

Speaking of creator-owned Marvel/Epic titles, I’ve had the only other 2 issues of Void Indigo (created by Steve Gerber of Howard The Duck fame) since way before it was really proper for me to be reading that messed up stuff. I never had the GN that launched this, either, and now I do, so it should be interesting to 1. re-read this as an adult and see if it makes more sense to me than it did when I was a kid (I feel like starting with the regular series made it really hard to follow) and 2. see exactly how much of a mess it is by 2018 standards. For some perspective, this seems to have only really gotten published, as legend has it, because Standards and Practices weren’t paying attention, and it got canned 2 issues into the regular series, as Marvel/Epic (either Archie Goodwin or the higher-ups) weren’t happy with how seriously Gerber and Mayerik had taken the word  “graphic” in “graphic novel”.

Starting to very slowly pick away at this pretty long Silver Surfer run.

Kirby of any kind, in any condition, is a good idea!

Short mini-series that I’d sold, like a fool, once upon a time, but I’ve got it again. Love me some Paul Smith X-Men art.

Working toward rebuilding my Sienkiewicz New Mutants run, too, before it becomes very difficult to afford. The Legion appearances have gotten to be a little bit of a pain in the ass, but they’re not out of reach yet. Bill’s art on these books, covers and interiors, changed not only comics but art itself. As much as people say about this run, it’s still underrated.

Love the cover for this first issue! Carmine Infantino pencils with Alex Nino inks!

Over most of my life, when I’ve come across Red Circle/Archie hero books from the ’80s, I’ve picked them up. I’m gradually getting to where having all of them, without actually putting effort into getting them, is probably a pretty reachable goal. This Comet series (with, as mentioned, Infantino pencils, inked by Alex Nino on the main feature and Rudy Nebres on the Hangman backups) was supposed to go 6 issues, and it only ran for these 2 issues. Paging Michel Fiffe

An overlooked ’80s key in multiple regards. The origin of Red Tornado (or one version of it, anyway), and also the first appearance of the All-Star Squadron!

I got one more pretty solid key from that era…the issue of (not “Superboy and the”) Legion of Super-Heroes when Superboy leaves. I’ve actually made some nice progress on old Legion books lately. I feel like, while I’m definitely not going after the Adventure Comics originals (too expensive; maybe I’ll get trades at some point), it’d be really fun to build a full run and read from about #197, through to the Baxter series and eventually the Five Years Later run, and then stopping right before the reboot.

No cards worth buying at the market today, but I did get this fella, for free, no less!

“Get some cold cuts!”

“Get some cold cuts!”

Bless you, Ickey Woods.

Now, I do not collect trains as an adult, but as a kid, I had a lot of fun with HO Scale trains (the only one I’ve kept is my Shazam! box car, which I’ll have to show off here eventually…), and let me tell you, if you were at my local flea market today, you would’ve found a TON of HO Scale stuff. I took a picture of this piece, because I can remember it 1. being fun and 2. rarely working correctly, despite being pretty fun.

I didn’t buy this, either, but I had to get a picture of it, so it could haunt you, too.

How’d y’all do this weekend?