cheetah's Bio
2014 Recap: I've been an avid comic collector since 1972, give or take a few extended absences. My first incarnation as a collector was Silver, Bronze and Modern Age Marvels. I had always been a huge fan of the Avengers and most other Bronze Age Marvel titles. I spent four years fighting tooth and nail to complete my Avengers run from 1-503, Volume II and Volume III. 573 books in all with nothing lower than a 9.4 and over 470 books graded 9.8. I also had top registry sets of X-men and Amazing Spider-man. When I sold the Avengers, X-men and ASM sets, the total shipping weight was one ton!
Somewhere along the way, I discovered the Golden Age of Comics, entirely due to the airbrush covers of Alex Schomburg. When I looked at auction listings for Golden books, my extended runs of Marvels didn’t seem anywhere near as cool. So after upgrading to an Avengers 1 CGC 9.6, I sold the entire run in one lot to a mystery seller through Metro. I soon followed up with selling my ASM and X-men runs. I took the proceeds and started buying golden age books. Fiction House and Nedor were my first loves, then came some of the less popular Fawcett titles, a number of Sunday reprint titles, EC Gaines File Copies, and many miscellaneous titles. Cool stuff! You should look into it if you haven’t already. I really like the high grade GA books. There is something special about holding a 70-year old book that looks like it was just printed. Every day I go through my collection, I am thankful for people like Edgar Church, Tom Reilly, Billy Wright, Wendell Crowley and William Gaines.
I'm a completist at heart and like to collect entire runs of a title. After doing the Avengers and X-men, long titles don’t scare me. So far I have completed the following slabbed runs in the highest grades I can find:
Aurora Comics Scenes (1974) - 9.8+
Avengers V1 1-503 (1963) - 9.4+ (sold)
Avengers V2 (1996) - 9.8 (sold)
Avengers V3 (1998) - 9.8 (sold)
Avengers Forever (1999) - 9.8
Avengers Next (2007) - 9.8
Avengers Two: Wonder Man and Beast (2000) - 9.8
Avengers/JLA (2003) - 9.8+
Avengers/Thunderbolts (2004) - 9.8
Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes II (2007) - 9.8
Avengers: Infinity - 9.8
Avengers: Terminatrix Objective (1993) - 9.8
Black Cat Comics 1-29 (1946)
Brick Bradford (1948)
Captain Midnight (1942)
Claire Voyant (1946)
Clue Comics (1943)
Defenders (1972) - 9.6+
Dark Avengers (2009) - 9.8
Doc Savage (1972) - 9.8 (sold)
Doctor Strange (1974) - 9.6+
Domination Factor: Avengers (1999) - 9.8
Double Life of Private Strong (1959) - 9.2+
Etta Kett (1948)
Exciting Comics (1940)
Extra! (1955)
F-Troop (1966) - 9.2+
Fantastic Voyage (1967)
Firehair Comics (1948)
Ghost Breakers (1948)
Impact (1955) - Gaines File Copies
Johnny Hazard (1948) - 9.2+
Jughead's Fantasy (1960) - 9.2+
Jumbo Comics (1940) - tough run!
Jungle Comics (1940)
Last Avengers Story (1995) - 9.8
Long Bow (1951)
Marvel Contest of Champions (1982) - 9.8
Marvel Super-heroes Secret Wars (1984) - 9.8 (sold)
Marvel Team-up (1972) - 9.6+
Mighty Avengers (2007) - 9.8+
Monster (Fiction House 1953)
Ms. Marvel (1977) - 9.6+
New Avengers (2005) - 9.8+
New Avengers V2 (2010-ongoing) - 9.8+
New Avengers AAFES (2005) - 9.8
New Avengers: Illuminati (2007) - 9.8
Nova (1976) - 9.8 (sold)
Piracy (1954) - All Gaines File Copies
Red Sonja (1977) - 9.8 (sold)
Secret Invasion (2008) - 9.8+
Secret Invasion: Amazing Spider-man (2008) - 9.8
Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers (2008) - 9.8
Secret Invasion: X-men (2008) - 9.8
Strange Worlds (Marvel 1958)
Tales From the Crypt (1949)
Torchy (1949)
Tru 3-D (1953)
Ultimate Avengers (2009) - 9.8
Ultimate Avengers 2 (2010) - 9.8
Ultimate Avengers 3 (2010) - 9.8
West Coast Avengers Limited Series (1983) - 9.8
Whirlwind Comics (1940)
Wings Comics (1940)
Wolverine/Captain America (2004) - 9.8
X-men/Alpha Flight (1985) - 9.8
X-men vs. the Avengers (1987) - 9.8
Zago (1948)
Zip-Jet (1953)
I’ve completed 69 titles in decades stretching from 1940 to 2010. I’ve found that being a GA completist is a lot more work than doing Marvels! My best completed GA runs so far are Exciting Comics from Nedor, Captain Midnight from Fawcett, Tales From the Crypt from EC and three of the Big 6 from Fiction House: Jumbo, Jungle and Wings Comics. I hope to finish up Planet Comics, in the next year with only a single issue left to get.