Shelf Bound Auction: Day 29 – IMAGE HEROES!

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 5 PM EST on June 7, 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.

NOTE: This auction’s proceeds will go to one of the organizations supported by Black Lives Matter listed here (winner’s choice).

I send out the bind.

Everyone wins.

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

I IS FOR IMAGE VOL. 3 – IMAGE HEROICS

Written by: Sam Kieth, Bill Messner-Loebs, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Dave Sim, Grant Morrison, Kurt Busiek, Mark Waid
Drawn by: Sam Kieth, Todd McFarlane, Greg Capullo, Barry Kitson, Brent Anderson, Steve Bissette, Rick Veitch
Inked by: Sam Kieth, Todd McFarlane, Greg Capullo, Barry Kitson, Brent Anderson, Dave Gibbons
Colored by: Steve Oliff, Chris Sotomayor, Alex Sinclair, Chester Brown, Marvin Kilroy
Lettered by: Tom Orzechowski, Richard Starkings, Dave Gibbons, John Workman, Don Simpson

Published by: Image Comics

Collecting:

• The Maxx #1-6 (Mar 1993 – Oct 1993)
• Spawn #8,10,16-18 (Feb 1993 – Feb 1994)
• Spawn/Batman OS (Jul 1994)
• Empire #1-2 (Aug 2003 – Feb 2004)
• Kurt Busiek’s Astro City #1,4,6,1/2 (Aug 1995 – Dec 1996)
• 1963 #1-6 (Apr 1993 – Oct 1993)

Additional Material: 1963 Backmatter:

• Series annotations
• “interviews” by “Tom Field” (aka THE ORIGINAL WRITER)
• Interview by Stephen R. Bissette detailing the complete 1963 saga, including why it can never be reprinted.

Bind Details:

• Oversewn binding
• Gray Arrestox cover material
• Black/white headbands
• White endpapers
• Page edges trimmed

Signatures: Waid, Busiek

Sketches: None

The second-to-last auction is for the last of the “I Is For Image” anthology binds. As you can tell from the post title, this one takes a look at superheroes, early Image-style. This is not meant to be an exhaustive or definitive collection, if for no other reason than I’m kinda shocked I didn’t put anything Savage Dragon-related in here, but I think what’s here really works.

We start off with Sam Kieth’s The Maxx, truly one of the weirder ‘superhero’ books if you can even call it that . . .

. . . roll right on to three different types of Spawn comics: his ‘Todd Can’t Write’ team-ups with Alan Moore and Dave Sim . . .

(And in case you don’t know, this Dave Sim issue is from before he became DAVE SIM. The story rails against WFH, not women, and is definitely worth checking out if you haven’t already read it.)

. . . the Batman crossover . . .

. . . and the Grant Morrison/Greg Capullo ‘Todd Can’t Count’ era.

Including Waid & Kitson’s Empire here is only slightly cheating. Even though it’s the complete DC TPB bound in the book, the series originally began as part of the Gorilla imprint of Image Comics. Plus its supervillain protagonist POV is a nice change-up from the other comics included.

Astro City has been published by just about every company under the sun, but it started at Image.

These issues include one of my all-time favorite comics ever published: issue 1/2 – “The Nearness of You”. Have a hankie handy, folks.

And then we get to 1963.

You know, the Alan Moore/Stephen Bissette/Rick Veitch comic that not only never finished but can legally NEVER be reprinted? The one that got so close to collection at Dynamite that Alex Ross painted a cover for it? That 1963? Yep.

And that’s not all! I went all out for the 1963 backmatter section, as you can see in the listing above. Annotations, faux interviews written by Moore, and an extensive Bissette interview from CBR giving a recap on the whole fiasco.

Even THAT’S not all! The book is also signed by Kurt Busiek AND Mark Waid!

So you COULD take the time & effort to track down all these original issues, compile the backmatter, turn them into your own book via a binder using the techniques & approaches we cover every month in Shelf Bound, and get it signed by (at least some) of the creators if and when we ever get back to having conventions or the like . . .

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: $25
Auction Ends: June 7, 2020 at 5 pm
Proceeds Benefit: One of the organizations supported by Black Lives Matter listed here (winner’s choice).

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!