| First section lists various resources for more comics and related collectibles, publishers, storage supplies, free classified ad sites, etc..
Following that there's various links to search engines and services (for shopping, surfing, and info) that you may find useful. Offsite links will open in a new
window when you click on them (so just close those to return here), but my own site's page links will just replace this window. If you find a dead or outdated link, PLEASE
me!
Main comic book publishers: DC - Marvel - Image - Dark Horse
Diamond Comics Dist. The main wholesale comic book Distributor. Keep up with what's shipping when, news, Previews order book, etc. Good resource for dealers and fans.
Comic Shop Locator service - (NOT a website) Call toll free 1-888-266-4226 to find comic shops in your area, or where you may be traveling. Be aware it may not list ALL shops in an area, just the ones who have registered with this service, so check the yellow pages too.
ActionFigureCollectors.com, a.k.a. AFC World - Your online source for action figure news and collector interaction. Also links to The Action Figure Network, a social networking community.
Action Figure Times - ALL the info you could want about current action figures. News, rumors, message boards, photos, opinions, articles, toy show listings, and more. Great resource.
Animation Alley - Sells Animation Cels, Wee Forest Folk, Victorian ornaments, and some pop culture collectibles.
Bags Unlimited - Protect your comics, mags, photos, records and other collectibles with all kinds and
sizes of storage supplies at Bags Unlimited. Polyethylene and polypropylene sleeves, Mylar sleeves, archival storage, corrugated backing boards, archival supplies, collector storage boxes, mat board, shrink film machines, and much more.
Bill Cole Enterprises - For the best in Mylar storage supplies, from baseball card to comics to movie poster size, and acid free boxes, and more!
Bobby's Toys & Collectibles - They offer a huge selection of thousands of different collectibles from your childhood years from Alf to Wuzzles. They specialize in character toys, TV & Movie memorabilia, Disney toys,
advertising collectibles and related toys, cereal premiums, Non-Sports trading cards, fast food/Happy Meal toys, U.S. and worldwide stamps for collectors, older bird books (Ornithology) and Natural History books.
CGC a.k.a. Certified Guaranty Company (formerly called Comics Guaranty Company) - The oldest and largest professional 3rd party comic book grading company, which you may have heard about. Experienced graders certify a grade for your comics and comic magazines based on tight standards, check for restoration
on older comics, and encase them in a nice hard plastic holder (commonly called "slabbing"), for varying fees. You can also search their Census database to see how many of what issues have been graded in every grade. Their comic forums are a good resource for all kinds of knowledge, and to keep alerted to
scammers and bad sellers, of which there are many, mostly on auctions.
Collectors Gallery - Established since 1981, this online and brick & mortar store features the "cream of the collectibles crop" including Lladro,
Swarovski, Department 56, Waterford, Pandora Jewelry, Brighton, Vera Bradley and many other top collectible lines.
Comicbookconventions.com - Just what it says-- a listing of major comic book and other collectibles conventions around the country. Also has links to creator's websites. List your show here!
Comic Book Database.com - (cbdb.com) - The most detailed comic book resource on the net! Use this free, interactive site to look up your favorite characters, artists, writers, or comic book series. The database currently
comprises over 50,000 comic books and is growing daily. Many ways to search it too, so if you can't remember the exact issue number, but know the story title, or artist, writer etc., you can find the issue eventually, or simply find out all kinds of other info about the issue, like guest stars, creative talent etc.
Comic Book Resources - Comics News/Info/Chat/Store Links.
Comics2film.com - All the latest news about comic books that will or may become movies, so you don't have to search all over the net for it. Also has message boards, previews/reviews, interviews etc. . Handy place for you comic movie buffs.
Curioscape - Antique and Collecting Directory.
EobCards - Buy, sell, trade Non-sports trading cards sets, boxes, chase cards. Low prices!
Gemstone Publishing - Publishers of the oldest comics price guide, "Overstreet's Comic Book Price Guide," and other collectibles guides for toys, rings and more. See this page on Gemstone's site for Overstreet Grading Definitions.
Grand Comic Book Database (comics.org) - For all you people just searching for pics of comics, this is the place to go. With over 150,000 covers scanned, and other info about issues, this site's goal is to index all comics made! (NOT the same site as the Comic Book Database listed above.)
How to Spot a Reprint Action Comics #1 - This page on bipcomics.com shows you the original and various reprint editions of Action Comics #1 (1st Superman
for those who don't know), with a list of the differences, so you new collectors don't go bidding stupid money (or any money) on all the scam Action #1's on "that" auction site and elsewhere. I'm so tired of scammers listing reprints, and removing the outer cover on the Famous First Editions and trying to pass them off as originals! There are NO
known Near Mint copies of the original, no one inherited them from their grandfather or found them in an attic, and no one doesn't know how valuable the original is, whether they know anything about comics or not, and they wouldn't start it at .99 or $100, or not have it CGC
graded and certified, or at the very least run it by a comics shop or a well-known comics expert. If you see any on "that" auction site with any of these telltale claims (and from 0 or low feedback sellers) and they don't say it's a reprint, run, and report
it as a fraud auction, as 99.9% of them are fraudulent. (And if you don't know enough about what you're bidding on to know it's a reprint or fake of a multi-thousand to several hundred thousand dollar comic, don't bid, or you deserve to be ripped off!) Same goes for Superman #1, Batman #1, Detective Comics #27 (1st Batman)
and a few other major DC #1's which also had "Famous First Edition" oversize reprints (10"x13"), plus other smaller reprints. If it's 10x13.5" or so, it's a reprint, 100%, no question about it! Golden Age comics are a few inches smaller. Also beware of the reprints that came in the
1999 "Masterpiece Edition" book/comic/figure sets for Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, as they're close to Golden Age size, but I think have a newer copyright date on the inside or something. And the Masterpiece Editions are NOT rare, so don't fall for that 'rare reprint' or 'variant' garbage, and don't
pay more for the comic than you can get the whole set for! Report scammers! I urge other collectors and dealers to add this link to their sites somewhere too.
High Street Central - "The Huge Web and Book Directory! All the information you can handle! An extremely useful worldwide resource covering an extensive range of subjects as diverse as screen savers and singles, lingerie and literature, fashion and food, cars and children, free stuff and flights... Also links to millions of categorized books."
MJ's Star Trek Portal - One of the biggest and oldest Star Trek information sites. Tons of images, music files, fonts, video, TV series/movies/character info, news, and lots more. (Site updates stopped in 2006.)
Phil Sears Collectibles - One of the foremost Disney experts, Phil is one of the guys to go to for your questions about vintage Disney items. He's a Walt Disney autograph expert, and sells cels, art, posters, theme park memorabilia, even some movie props.
Scificonventions.com: Find a Sci-Fi Convention! - Just what it says. You can find conventions by month, theme, your state or region, plus info for first timers, a message board, and convention services.
Spidermancollector.com - Cool site! Has the web's largest searchable database of Spider-Man merchandise. Over 2400 items and counting. Pics and values, message board, news, multimedia stuff and more. Great resource for the Spider-Man fan. (Has flash animation on main/home pages, just so you know.)
Strekonline.com - Your source for Star Trek image snapshots/pictures. At Strekonline, you'll find thousands of original snapshots from every Star Trek TV series, from the original to Enterprise.
The Silver Age Marvel Comics Cover Index - For all you people who just want to look at pics of old Marvel Comics, this site is for you. Over 1500 scans of Marvels from the 1950's, '60's, and '70's, with more added all the time.
Time Line Studio - Original Star Trek and Star Wars art for sale by Sonia Hillios, acclaimed artist for Hamilton Plates, Star Trek paperback books, DC comics covers and other sci-fi projects. Beautiful stuff! To see the Star Trek paintings of hers that I have for sale, go to my Star Trek Paintings page.
ToonZone.net - Toon Zone is an animation news and information web site run by a group of devoted animation fans. Lots of coverage of cartoons and animated movies, plus forums, and hosted sites devoted to particular toons, characters, and cartoon networks. All toons, all the time!
Toyzine.com - "One of the busiest and best toy and collectibles websites,
provides a broad range of services in the antique and collectible toy industry around the world. These include: FREE For Sale and Wanted classifieds, informative and entertaining e-magazine (with regularly updated articles, covering all aspects of the Industry); an appraisal and valuation service, global links page, and much more...
Virtual Toy Chest - An online archive of toys from the '80s, '90s, and '00s. Check out dozens of toy lines and hundreds of pics!
World Collectors Net - World Collectors Net is another nice site that has a collectibles-of-all-kinds directory, lots of message boards, collectibles info, online mag and more!
Next section lists various search engines and services (for shopping, surfing, and info) that you may find useful:
Major search engines: Google - MSN/Live - Yahoo! - AOL - Alltheweb - Ask.com
AddFreeStats - Get a nice FREE stats program for your site, with lots of statistics! All kinds of info to track who and how people get to your site, and what they do when they get there. They provide a lot of stats free that most others charge for, so check it out.
AllExperts.com - Get your questions answered here, on a wide range of topics, from more than 5000 experts. Free!
CoolArchive.com Free Logo Generator - Make free .jpg or .gif simple text logos, in various sizes, fonts and colors. Good for making small text gifs that are still readable, as well as larger ones. Site has advertising pop-ups though.
CoolText.com Free Logo Generator - Make your own cool text logos, buttons and bullets here for free! Good for fancier website logos and page titles, with a variety of styles, and lots of font choices. It's where I made most of my page title gifs.
Copyscape.com - Copyscape.com finds sites that have copied your content without permission, as well as those that have quoted you. Simply type in the
address of your web page, and Copyscape does the rest. It's FREE too! Also offers a paid service with automatic e-mail notification.
mail2web.com - For all you people who travel and tell me "I was out of town and
couldn't get my e-mail," thereby making me wait for days for a reply about a sale, here's a site that will let you get your e-mail from any computer (which you can find at libraries, a mall, or computer store when on the road). It works with my broadband ISP too, which many other
similar services don't! Quoting from their site: "mail2web is an Internet based email client that allows you to pick up your email from almost any POP3 or IMAP4 email server...can be used on almost any connected device. You can pick up your email using a desktop PC, notebook computer, Internet TV, mobile phone, or PDA. You simply enter your
email address and password to access your inbox. You can then read, reply and forward your messages. You can even delete large attachments without downloading them first! All activities are private. None are recorded. mail2web is not a service but an application that is used anonymously. No registration is required to access this application."
I've used it when away from home, and it works fine. You can register and set up a personal mail homepage there too, to retrieve multiple e-mail accounts from one site if you want, but to use it for just one account at a time, no registration is necessary, and no login is required. And it's FREE! Link will go to their About Us page. You're welcome!
PayPalsucks.com/No PayPal, & AboutPayPal.org - People sometimes ask why
I don't take PayPal, and besides the numerous horror stories and news accounts I've read on my own, there's these sites and their users with all their complaints and info. While I know that you can't believe many things you read on the net on complaint sites (and I wouldn't bother
with their recommended merchant accounts they pimp either), I think these sites expose the many real problems with Paypal and their ever-changing terms of service and "interesting" business practices. And there's the class action lawsuit they
lost (but they used the term "settled" of course, but they knew they were guilty), and the
various State's Attorney Generals investigations/2006 "settlement" stuff can be verified. When you have to be dragged to court a FEW times and be ORDERED by judges to run your business ethically, provide
NORMAL customer service and contact info expected of any business (after you tell the court you DELIBERATELY HID SUCH INFO AND HAD TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE TO CUT DOWN ON CLAIMS, REFUNDS AND OVERHEAD), provide easy to find, clear links to important info in the user
agreement/website, provide the CORRECT info and stop misleading customers, "settle" for MILLIONS of dollars for restitution (for illegally keeping money and not telling the customers) and to pay many states investigation fees, and STILL have terrible customer service,
tens of thousands of complaints a month, side with scammers in disputes even when people prove the person is scamming/lying, etc. etc., well, that's not a company I want to pass my or your money through. I don't do business on the famous internet auction company site that owns them now either, for
many of the same reasons, so hope that answers your questions on that. In my opinion, PayPal is a horribly run company that's duped millions of people into using it who simply don't know better, and yes, millions of people CAN be wrong.
Toolhaus.org Negative/Neutral Feedback tool, and Ellen's Emporium Feedback tool - For you people who fool with "that" auction site, these are very handy online tools by Toolhaus.org and Ellen's Emporium that will cull out and list the negative and neutral feedbacks for buyers and sellers, their
feedback left for others, and other variations, so you can quickly read them without pawing through pages of positives, so you can learn more about who you're dealing with. (Toolhaus has intermittent glitches and outages, so try Ellen's when that happens.) Just enter the auction ID you
want to check out, and hit the appropriate button, and wait for the results. May save you some time, money, hate mail and retaliatory feedback, which is why it isn't offered on "that" auction site, although members have requested it. Can't have people figuring out how bad that "powerseller" really is, can we? ALWAYS check
out someone's feedback before you bid, especially if it's around/under 99% after several hundred deals, and don't deal with sellers under 99% feedback that have 1000 or more feedbacks, as a general rule, in my opinion.
Urban Legends Debunked at Snopes.com - One of several sites that debunk those annoying e-mail hoaxes we all get. Search by category or by specific terms. Then tell your friends/relatives who send you
those stupid forwards to bookmark the site and check things out before they waste time and electrons passing along garbage hoaxes made by losers and scammers. And tell them to use "Blind Carbon Copy" for all the e-mail addresses when they send legitimate forwards, so everyone
doesn't see everyone else's e-mail addresses, and to remove all the previous addresses in the message body from previous forwards!!!!
SpamCop - SpamCop helps you punish spammers for sending
you their junk mail. THIS SERVICE IS FREE! (You can also become a paid member, and get more options and benefits to reduce your spam intake.) By reporting spam, you can help to
turn the tide -- and hopefully cause spammers some pain in the process. SpamCop makes this otherwise slow and technical task easy. (This is a great service, use it! --C.R., the webmaster here.)
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