A group shot of some of LSComics huge foreign collection
Countries or regions represented here: French Canada, Mexico, Australia, Italy, Philippines, Brazil, UK
them were really able to tell me anything about it however as their focuses centered more on collecting specific issues from all the various countries that had reprinted them. It didn't really matter, I was happy with the book I got and the price I paid. I continued to search and eventually started finding more books. House of Secrets #92 and Batman #227 from Mexico, Batman #251 and Green Lantern #76 from Germany. Then I ran across a thread on the message boards titled Comic Collecting With a Foreign Variant Focus. It was full of interesting and useful information. By this time I'd acquired somewhere in the range of 75 to 100 books and really wanted to know more than even this article revealed about the foreign enigmas that were constantly increasing in numbers in my collection so I sent a message to the board member who wrote the article. We messaged back and forth, me asking questions, him answering them with what he knew and eventually agreed it was time for a phone conversation. It was around 9:00 AM on a Saturday morning when Define999 (Matt) first called me. I'm sure it had to be a little bit overwhelming with the barrage of question I hit him with. It didn't take long before we were talking about the various books we had. He was surprised to learn I had been able to get a hold of the previously mentioned Mexican edition of Batman #227 as you just don't see many of them but even more so by the House of Secrets #92. As of this writing I've still only seen three copies turn up. After that initial call we stayed in contact on the boards and over time the calls became more regular. Not too much later a Private Message thread was created which included
seven or eight board members all of whom collect foreign editions. August 2012 is when things got really crazy. By this time I had my search methods refined to find books I wanted on ebay. If they showed up in a listing, I'd see them. A seller out of Mexico City started listing books published by Editorial Novaro in just amazing condition. Keep in mind that these books had large print runs but were distributed throughout South and Central America. Not exactly locals with climates conducive to preserving paper products or staples for that matter. In the majority of cases the best grade you'll find Novaro books in is in the VG range, Fine if you're really lucky. Anyway, this seller is listing books, some of which appear to easily be in the Very Fine range and some possibly higher. This was it, I was in the right place at the right time when these books came to light. A large portion of my collection is Novaro books solely because they printed an unbelievable amount of Silver and Bronze Age DC comics, many of which contain covers and/or interior art by Adams and Wrightson. It gave me the opportunity to really begin building runs of the books I wanted to find i.e. House of Secrets, House of Mystery, Batman , Detective Comics, Strange Adventures, Green Lantern, Spectre, Swamp Thing, Phantom Stranger, All-Star Western, Weird Western Tales and more. I've completed two runs and am within one or two books of completing about four others. The next step will be trying to decide what to submit to CGC for Signature Series. Based on not only the quantity but the quality of many of the books I now have there is no doub