Journey in Mystery 626 by Stephanie Hans Columns 

Shelf Bound Auction: Day 3 – JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY!

By | April 29th, 2020
Posted in Columns | % Comments

This auction is now closed.

The bookcase purge for charity continues! You can see a complete list of all auctions here, in chronological order starting with the latest, here. Full auction details are included at the end of the article, but to bring the new folks up to speed real quick:

Every weekday until Friday, June 5th, we publish a new Shelf Bound article announcing a bind or bound set up for auction.

Each bind auction’s bidding starts when its article is published and ends 72 hours later, so today’s auction will close at 4 PM EST on May 2, 2020.  

Bids must be posted in an item’s comment section to be considered for that item; highest bid posted before close of auction wins.

Bids from outside the U.S. are welcome, although shipping outside the U.S. may incur additional fee.

The winning bidder emails me (greg at multiversity comics dot com) to verify donation particulars, then makes the donation and send me verification.

I send out the bind.

Everyone wins.

30 weekdays. 34 binds. All proceeds going to charity. Sound good? Let’s get to it!

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY BY KIERON GILLEN

Written by: Kieron Gillen, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Matt Fraction, J. M. DeMatteis
Drawn by: Doug Braithwaite, Richard Elson, Stephanie Hans, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Richard Elson, Alan Davis, Barry Kitson, Whilce Portacio, Mitch Breitweiser, Pascal Ferry
Inked by: Pascal Ferry, Richard Elson, Allen Martinez, Jeff Huet, Mitch Breitweiser, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Stephanie Hans
Colored by: Ulises Arreola, Frank D’Armata, Rachelle Rosenberg, IFS, Ifansyah Noor, Jessica Kholinne, Chris Sotomayor, Andy Troy, Bettie Breitweiser, Stephanie Hans
Lettered by: Clayton Cowles

Published by: Marvel Comics

Collecting:

  • Journey Into Mystery #622-645
  • New Mutants #42-43
  • The Mighty Thor #18-22
  • The Mighty Thor Annual #1
  • Exiled OS

Additional Material: Gillen interview with Colin Smith, 3/13/13, toobusythinkingaboutcomics.blogspot.com

Bind Details:

  • Oversewn binding
  • Eggplant Arrestox cover material
  • Black/white headbands
  • Black endpapers
  • MARVEL die stamp
  • Page edges trimmed

Signatures: Yes (Gillen / Hans)

Sketches: Yes (Hans)

Bound by: Herring & Robinson Bindery.

This book shouldn’t exist.

Journey Into Mystery, or this particular stretch of it anyway, was another example of Marvel resurrecting an older title to lend credence to a spinoff from a big summer event, in this case “Fear Itself”. But who needed a Kid Loki book? Yeah, Kieron Gillen had done yeoman’s work on Thor post-Straczynski, but some lead just couldn’t be turned into gold. And I don’t make binds out of comic book lead. It wasn’t until those trades had finished coming out that I had the first thrust in my hand with the entreaty to ‘just read it’ and realized this wasn’t lead, but gold.

In the interview I included as backmatter, journalist Colin Smith says JiM “works as top-notch entertainment as much as a source of literary fascination. It’s saturated with meta, and yet its primarily the pathos-drenched tale of a lonely boy struggling to manipulate events towards their best possible outcome.”

I agreed with Smith and enjoyed the series enough to not only make this bind, but made sure to have Gillen & artist Stephanie Hans sign it for me at NYCC some years back. As this image attests, I requested it be signed to me.

These personalized signatures you’ll see pop up a handful of times have been kind of a dilemma for me. As if in getting rid of these books I’m breaking some implicit promise those signatures should hold me to for a cash grab. Well, it IS a cash grab, but for a cause Gillen and Hans would be okay with. If it still bothers you, feel free to bid on the book anyway so when you see them at a show (eventually) you can have them scratch out my name and rededicate it to you.

But I digress . . .

Why You Should Bid

First, it’s a great story.

Second, this bind was made from TPBs and not single issues, so there are no ads and the cover images reprinted are used without trade dress. As much as I’m a fan of title logos and trade designs, it’s nice to see the covers clean.

Continued below

Third, Gillen described his interview with Smith afterwards as his “most candid ever.” It’s the type of interview you keep revisiting and the type available only as long as the Internet deems so. One glitch here, a host crash there and POOF! Gone forever. One of the benefits of making my own book is with some patience and a little printer ink, I could preserve that interview with the story it so nicely complements. Sure, there’s been both complete soft- and hardcover collections of this story . . . but did either have this in there? Nope!

So you COULD take the time & effort to track all those issues or trades down, format & print out the interview, ship it all off to a binder using the techniques & approaches we cover every month in Shelf Bound . . .

OR

you could bid on this book, benefit from me already doing that, AND do some good for the comics community we all love in the process!

Starting Bid: $25
Auction Ends: May 2 at 4pm EST
Proceeds Benefit: The Hero Initiative

AUCTION FINE PRINT

  • This auction ends 72 hours after the date & time of this article’s posting.
  • Bids MUST be placed as comments below to be valid.
  • Bids from outside the U.S. are welcome; shipping outside the U.S. may incur additional fee.
  • DO NOT TRY BIDDING FOR THE BOOK BY REPLYING TO THE ANNOUNCEMENT TWEET!!!!! BIDS SENT IN THIS MANNER WILL BE IGNORED!!!!!
  • Highest bid posted before the end of the auction wins. The winning bidder has 24 hours to contact me via twitter or email (see below) to set up payment. If contact is not made in this timeframe, the winning bid is invalidated and the next highest bid will be the winner.
  • Winning bidder will make the donation in the amount of the winning bid to the agreed-upon charity. Upon successful donation and receipt of receipt (hehe) by me, the bind will be mailed out via Media Mail on the following Saturday unless an alternate schedule is agreed upon by all parties.
  • Feel free to post any additional questions you may have prior to the end of the auction below; I will do my best to answer them ASAP. Additional and/or specific pictures of the bind are available on request.
  • Thanks in advance to anyone bidding on these binds. Good luck!

//TAGS | Shelf Bound

Greg Matiasevich

Greg Matiasevich has read enough author bios that he should be better at coming up with one for himself, yet surprisingly isn't. However, the years of comic reading his parents said would never pay off obviously have, so we'll cut him some slack on that. He lives in Baltimore, co-hosts (with Mike Romeo) the Robots From Tomorrow podcast, writes Multiversity's monthly Shelf Bound column dedicated to comics binding, and can be followed on Twitter at @GregMatiasevich.

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