This auction is 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 30, 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. Bids posted in currencies other than US dollars will be valued at their USD equivalent.
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!
MATT WAGNER’S GRENDEL
Written by: Matt Wagner
Drawn by: Jacob Pander, Arnold Pander, Bernie Mireault, Hannibal King, Tim Sale, Jay Geldhof, John K. Snyder III, Matt Wagner
Inked by: Jay Geldhof, Bernie Mireault, Tim Sale, John K. Snyder III, Matt Wagner
Colored by: Joe Matt, Tom Vincent,
Lettered by: Steve Haynie, Bob PinahaPublished by: Comico Comics
Collecting:
- Grendel #1-40 (Oct 1986 – Feb 1990)
Additional Material: None
Bind Details:
- Oversewn binding
- Black Arrestox cover material
- Black/white headbands
- GRENDEL EYES stamp used
- White endpapers
- Page edges trimmed on top & bottom
- Issue covers set as foldouts
Signatures: Wagner
Sketches: Wagner
Most creators, comics or otherwise, go their entire career associated with one major work, if they’re lucky. Matt Wagner has not only had at least two, but they are works he created: the Mage trilogy and the Grendel saga. Both of these titles were among the best independent comics of the 1980s, and today’s auction lets you see what the fuss was all about for one of them (and giving you a hint of the other).
Although the Grendel story originally followed Hunter Rose (briefly in Comico Primer then the Grendel: Devil by the Deed backup stories in Mage: The Hero Discovered), when it came time to spin the character off into its own series, Wagner quickly made it about the IDEA of Grendel rather than Hunter Rose in particular. Choosing the make Grendel a generational saga gave him more room for different stories, different approaches, and even different artists.
A note about the covers: as you can tell from the pics, the series used wraparound covers for every issue. Instead of having them set as double-page spreads in the books, I thought it would be neat to have them fold out gatefold-style.
And as hinted at above, I kept the Mage backup story as a nice little bonus . . .
Yes, that IS Elvis carved into Mount Rushmore!
Wagner himself only drew four issues mid-way through the run, while writing the entire series. One of the strengths of these comics is the matching of different artists to different arcs per their particular styles. Sure, the Pander Brothers COULD have drawn the later post-apocalyptic issues, but their slick angular style fits the earlier urban tech-noir sci-fi arc better. And why make Bernie Mireault try and do Blade Runner-style sexy murder chic when he’s so much better at the slow decent into madness immediately following it? And so on . . .
I did mention these books were signed AND sketched, right?
DEVIL'S LEGACY
Ironically enough, neither character actually appear in either book, but I think it’s still kinda cool, don’t you?
WHY YOU SHOULD BID
The material here is still in print but not in these particular format. The nice Grendel Omnibus series from Dark Horse reprints these comics, but:
Continued below- The trim size is smaller (6″ x 9″ there vs 6.8″ x 10.25″ here)
- The art is recolored, and
- The covers included as chapter breaks are from the DH reprint minis, not these original wraparounds.
Even getting the Dark Horse reprint comics won’t let you get the story from Grendel 20-23. The original art for those issues had deteriorated past the point of clean reproduction until very recently, and they were included in the smaller Omnibus collection. So if you want them full-sized, this is the place to get them.
So you COULD take the time & effort to track down the original issues and turn them into your own book via a binder using the techniques & approaches we cover every month in Shelf Bound . . .
OR!
You could bid on the bind we’re auctioning today, get the benefit of someone else doing all that work for you, AND do some good for the comics community we all love in the process!
Starting Bid: $50
Auction Ends: May 30, 2020 at 4 pm
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 order is set by the timestamp given by Disqus. I subscribe to every comment section and receive an email notification simultaneous to the posting of every new comment. That email’s timestamp is what I use to determine bid order & the final bid cutoff time.
- Bids placed anywhere other than the auction article’s comment section (i.e. replying to the announcement tweet) will be ignored.
- Bids posted in currencies other than US dollars will be valued at their USD equivalent.
- 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!
