ComicCollx Weekly — Week of October 19–24, 2026

We Found Baltimore's MOST UNIQUE Comic Shop! Comics, Coffee & $1 Bins! — Collectors Confessions (@collectorsconfessions)

You looked it up. The shop offered a third of that.

Both numbers are real, and the gap isn't a trick. Part 4 is how a dealer prices a buy, and how to get to a better number.

Our Milwaukee guide rounds up the local comic shops, and 1 comic con or show is on the calendar in town. Next up: Milwaukee Anime-Fest, Sat, Nov 7 at Royle Hotel Milwaukee Airport.

Read the Milwaukee shop guide → · See Milwaukee comic cons and shows →

MON · 2026-10-19

01. A collector found a first-appearance Fantomex key issue at Entertainmart in Waco and chose to leave it for another collector to discover.

The find was posted to the r/comicbookcollecting subreddit on Monday, where the collector shared that they had located a key issue featuring the first appearance of Fantomex at a local shop in Waco, Texas. Rather than purchasing the book themselves, the collector decided to leave it on the shelf for another enthusiast to find. The post did not specify the issue number, grade, or price, but the decision to walk away from a known key underscores a particular ethos within parts of the collecting community.

Entertainmart is a regional chain with locations across Texas, known for carrying a mix of media including comics, video games, and collectibles. The decision to leave a key issue in place is relatively uncommon in an era where first appearances and character debuts are routinely pulled and flipped within hours of discovery. Whether the book was still there by the time other collectors saw the Reddit post remains unknown, but the gesture reflects a collector mindset focused on the thrill of the hunt rather than immediate profit.

Reddit - r/comicbookcollecting →

TUE · 2026-10-20

02. D'Orc #1 prices surged on eBay within 20 hours of a Sony film-rights announcement, with sales ranging from $300 raw to $1,320 for a CGC 9.8 blank-cover edition with an original Brett Bean sketch.

Sony Pictures secured the live-action film rights to Brett Bean's D'Orc from Image Comics on Monday, with Bean attached to adapt the screenplay. By Tuesday evening, eBay sales had already spiked across multiple printings and variants of the first issue. The highest confirmed transaction was a CGC 9.8 blank-cover first print with an original sketch by Bean, which sold for $1,320. A signed and sketched first-print CGC 9.8 went for $700, a signed-only 9.8 for $500, an unsigned 9.8 for $350, and a raw first print in decent condition for $300. The first-print 1:25 variant, signed and slabbed at 9.8, sold for $680.

Second and third printings also saw movement, though at lower price points. A signed second print sold for $25, a signed slabbed copy for $140, and a slabbed foil second print for $135. Black-and-white second prints moved for $55, and slabbed copies for $115. A Brett Bean store exclusive sold for $45. Third-print sales ranged from $4 raw to $50 slabbed, with a slabbed foil edition reaching $150 and an Akira homage cover selling for $30. The series had already sold out its first issue before reaching shops and has since reached an eighth printing, indicating supply constraints that likely fueled the rapid price appreciation.

D'Orc follows a half-dwarf, half-orc protagonist fated by prophecy to end the world, armed with a magical shield and caught in a fantasy war between Light and Dark. The character is hunted by humans, elves, goblins, dwarves, witches, timelords, ice giants, three-headed dogs, and various other creatures. The film announcement arrived less than a week after the latest printing sold out, and the eBay activity suggests that collectors and speculators were monitoring the book closely even before the Hollywood deal broke. Whether prices stabilize or continue climbing will depend on how quickly Sony moves the project into production and whether additional supply hits the market.

Bleeding Cool →

WED · 2026-10-21

03. CNN correspondent Jake Tapper is making his graphic novel debut with The Butcher, a 264-page historical work about Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, releasing in June 2027 from Top Shelf Productions.

Top Shelf Productions, an imprint of IDW, announced on Wednesday that it will publish The Butcher: The Decades-Long Hunt for Klaus Barbie, One of the World's Most Notorious Killers, written and illustrated by Jake Tapper. The book chronicles how Klaus Barbie, head of the Gestapo in Lyon, France, evaded justice for decades after World War II, the Nazi hunters and journalists who tracked him down, and the investigation that revealed who helped him escape. Tapper used German, English, Spanish, and French sources for his research. The paperback edition will retail for $19.99 on June 1, 2027, with a limited signed and numbered hardcover exclusive to IDW's online store priced at $49.99.

Tapper, 57, has a longer comics background than his broadcasting career might suggest. He ran a weekly comic strip as an eighth grader in a local newspaper and later contributed cartoons to several publications, including a strip called Capitol Hell that ran in the Washington D.C. paper Roll Call from 1994 to 2003. He has frequently shared drawings on television. His first novel, the political thriller The Hellfire Club, was published by Little, Brown in 2018. Tapper described the graphic novel project as one of the most difficult and rewarding he has undertaken, citing both the research into Barbie's life and the work required to illustrate the entire book himself.

Top Shelf editor-in-chief Chris Staros emphasized that the book's power lies in its revelation of those who assisted Barbie in evading justice, contrasted with the relentless efforts of those who pursued accountability. The announcement may surprise readers familiar only with Tapper's television work, but it represents a significant crossover moment for a mainstream journalist entering the graphic novel space as both writer and artist. Full preview pages and a reveal interview were published at Variety alongside the announcement. The book's June release will position it as a summer 2027 release in the book market, arriving in comic shops a month earlier.

The Comics Beat →

THU · 2026-10-22

04. Skybound and Act 4 announced Bissette and Totleben's Swamp Thing Artist's Edition, a 12-by-17-inch prestige hardcover collecting over 170 pieces of original art from their acclaimed run with Alan Moore, releasing in July 2027 for $150.

The Artist's Edition line from Skybound and Act 4 will release a new volume on July 7, 2027, in comic shops and August 3 in the book market, featuring the work of Stephen Bissette and John Totleben on The Saga of the Swamp Thing. The oversized book measures 12 inches by 17 inches and retails for $150. It collects more than 170 pieces of original art from the duo's collaboration with writer Alan Moore, including interior pages and covers. The artwork is scanned in color before publication to preserve details such as ink gradients, blue pencil, and other nuances visible in the original pages, even though the pre-color art appears primarily black and white. Bissette and Totleben joined the series with issue #16, and Moore came aboard with #20, creating what has become a landmark run in horror comics.

The contents include pages from storylines such as Anatomy Lesson and American Gothic, as well as the complete Jack in the Green story, which was the last collaborative work between Totleben and Bissette at DC. The book also features covers, sketches, and introductions by both Bissette and former DC editor Karen Berger. Bissette remarked that he never expected to see the volume exist, noting that he and Totleben had subsidized their ongoing Swamp Thing work in the mid-1980s by selling original art at what were then affordable prices. He described the Artist's Edition as putting some of that artwork back into their hands, and into readers' hands as well.

Totleben emphasized that the reproductions come closer than anything else to representing the look and feel of the actual physical pages, including imperfections and all the unique details that make original art special, without the usual pre-printing clean-ups required for publication. He compared owning the book to having a collection of original pages without needing to be a billionaire. The Swamp Thing volume joins other releases in the Skybound/Act 4 Artist's Editions line, including Doctor Strange by Paul Smith, George Pérez's The New Teen Titans, and José Luis García-López's DC Classics Artist's Edition. The format is designed for collectors who want archival-quality reproductions of classic comic art at original size.

The Comics Beat →

FRI · 2026-10-23

05. A collector discovered 71 Mark Jewelers variant comics in an unbagged, unboarded box from a relative's collection.

The find was shared on the r/comicbookcollecting subreddit on Friday, where a collector reported discovering a stack of 71 Mark Jewelers insert variant comics. The books were found in a box that had not been bagged or boarded, stored in a relative's collection. Mark Jewelers variants are editions of mainstream comics distributed through military base exchanges and other outlets during the 1970s and 1980s, identifiable by the presence of a Mark Jewelers jewelry advertisement insert. These variants are considered scarce because the inserts were often discarded, and the books themselves were not originally marketed as collectibles.

The post did not specify which titles or issues were included in the stack, nor the condition of the books after years of unprotected storage. The discovery of 71 such variants in one location is noteworthy given their relative scarcity in the current market and the fact that they were not intentionally preserved. Whether the collector plans to grade, sell, or archive the books was not disclosed, but the find represents a significant addition to the Mark Jewelers variant population that has been documented by collectors in recent years.

Reddit - r/comicbookcollecting →

SAT · 2026-10-24

06. CBR marked the 50th anniversary of Jean Grey's first transformation into Phoenix in X-Men #101, published in July 1976, as part of its ongoing Look Back series.

The anniversary article, posted on Saturday, examined X-Men #101 by writer Chris Claremont, artist Dave Cockrum, and inker Frank Chiaramonte, which was published in July 1976. The issue followed the kidnapping of Jean Grey, Wolverine, and Banshee by Sentinels in issue #98, and their escape in issue #100. During the escape, the team's spacecraft was damaged, and Jean volunteered to pilot it despite knowing she would be exposed to deadly radiation. She used her powers to learn how to fly the ship, then locked herself in the cabin to save the others, fully expecting to die.

Instead, Jean emerged from the crash in Jamaica Bay in a new costume designed by Dave Cockrum, declaring herself Phoenix in a half-page splash panel that has since become iconic. The costume featured a sash, which Cockrum made work in a way few other artists have managed. Cockrum based Jean's look on model Farrah Fawcett, who was relatively unknown at the time but soon became a superstar on Charlie's Angels, prompting Cockrum to stop using her as a reference because she became too recognizable. The sequence itself was described in the article as about as perfect as one could get, with Claremont and Cockrum transforming a character who had been mostly written out of the series into a triumphant return.

The backstory to Jean's transformation included the fact that she and Cyclops had not actually become a couple until something happened off-panel before X-Men #60, and did not share a kiss until issue #94, at which point Jean was leaving the X-Men but not Cyclops. Original X-Men co-creator Len Wein had planned to bring Jean back with new powers and the new costume designed by Cockrum, but it was Claremont and Cockrum who executed the plan after Wein stepped away from the book. The Phoenix persona would go on to become one of the most enduring and complex character arcs in X-Men history, making the 50th anniversary of the character's debut a significant marker for the franchise.

CBR →

Retired Woking decorator's attic Pokémon cards sell for £1.56 million at auction - Rayo — Google News - Pokemon Sales

X-Men Card Collection Signed by Jim Lee! COMPLETE CGC GRADED SET!

Wolverines Comic Shop · @wolverines_comicshop · 10.4K subscribers

Complete CGC graded 1992 Impel X-Men card set signed by Jim Lee showing all nine mosaic cards.

We Found Baltimore's MOST UNIQUE Comic Shop! Comics, Coffee & $1 Bins!

Collectors Confessions · @collectorsconfessions · 117K subscribers

Tour of unique Baltimore comic shop with coffee and dollar bins.

The Man Who Changed Manga FOREVER! Jason Cohn Reveals TEZUKA! God of Manga

Collectors Confessions · @collectorsconfessions · 117K subscribers

Interview with documentary director about Osamu Tezuka and his impact on manga.

Collectors Confessions

@collectorsconfessions · 117K YouTube subscribers

Most active creator in our comic video feed this week: 10 new videos.

In their words: “Collectors Confessions Channel is three long time collectors who love collecting and have been collecting many things for many years.”

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