I visited Worlds Apart, Liverpool’s comic book store, at the weekend not having put my hand in my pocket for a comic for around 15-20 years! Little has changed, DC and Marvel are still going head-to-head, releasing multiple version/issues/printings and covers as ever to tempt the collector to buy just one more copy.

I’d looked over these same shelves earlier in the year, picked up a few issues of Batman and Detective Comics and quietly put them back on the shelf but this time was different. I picked up 5 issues in The New 52 range (Batman: #1-3 and Detective Comics: #1 & #3, sadly issue #2 is on back order, don’t ask which printing) and reading around the DC reboot – soft or otherwise – there are already 3 and in some cases 4 re-prints for some issues, e.g. JLI #1; so that introduces the conundrum “how do you discover which printing you have?” and you can bet 1st and earlier printings are more valuable can’t you? At least they only cost £2.30 per issue which isn’t bad, although with the parallel release of digital copies of this new title range it’ll be interesting. I’m still a book and paper man and isn’t artwork best enjoyed in print?

They’ve killed-off The Comic Book Price Guide – several of which I have in the loft – the only UK/GBP based publication; so it appears it’s back to Overstreet and a trusty $/£ currency convertor. Now where did I leave those Mylar bags and acid-freee backing boards 🙂