JayJay's Solar 3 Gold Test Book prototype for sale!

[ilzuccone]

[lorddunlow]

$200!

[lorddunlow]

Did I win?

[geocarr]

Did I win?

Yes! I am sending you my paypal address now via pm. Congratulations!!

[comicsyte95]

Did I win?

Yes! I am sending you my paypal address now via pm. Congratulations!!

[nycjadie]

I think a good format is to add 5 minutes to the last bid, in case there are any issues with Internet access. I've been there and lost a few auctions due to bad connections, issues, etc.

Anyway, congrats to everyone. Great bidding, amazing items. I went empty handed, but I know they will be appreciated like the rare items they are.

[geocarr]

Did I win?

Yes! I am sending you my paypal address now via pm. Congratulations!!

Actually, in the interest of honesty and transparency, you should send all funds to Greg and then wait with breathless anticipation by the mailbox for your reward.

[lorddunlow]

Did I win?

Yes! I am sending you my paypal address now via pm. Congratulations!!

[lorddunlow]

Did I win?

Yes! I am sending you my paypal address now via pm. Congratulations!!

Actually, in the interest of honesty and transparency, you should send all funds to Greg and then wait with breathless anticipation by the mailbox for your reward.

Seems legit...

[Elveen]

Congrats Zero.

Zero = Valiant hoard #1?

[slym2none]

DOUBLE HOLY CRAP!!!





-slym

[JayJayJackson]

I'm amazed at the response for these books. I've kept them all these years because I thought they were cool, but I guess I figured I was the only one who would. I wrote a letter of provenance to go with the books that I will be sending to Zero and I thought I would share it with you.


There were some dark days at VALIANT. The prototype gold books date from one of the darkest. Jim Shooter had been focusing on creating the best stories we could possibly do but the books had not really taken off just yet. The venture capital people were not seeing the desired return on their investment and were pressuring us to bring in more income. They were threatening to pull the plug on us and cut their losses. That would have meant 3 years of our hard work down the drain. Unacceptable. We had to generate some revenue. We had to get some attention in the marketplace.

The creative people, and most of the sales people, sat in one large somewhat T-shaped room. In a massive brainstorming session Jon Hartz began suggesting some gimmicks. Jim and others recalled a few, like the flip books, that they had loved as a kid. Metallic or special ink logos were one of the ideas we considered. At the time, a few publishers had done special editions with tricky finishes or gold foil stamping on the covers. In fact, I designed a few when I worked for other companies! But VALIANT just couldn‘t afford gold foil. It was extremely expensive. And for a company as small as we were, already teetering on the edge...well.

If I remember correctly, Fred Pierce got on the phone with the printer and negotiated a test. He convinced the printer to take a sample of their gold ink and make a couple of special prototypes on our comics so that we could see how the ink looked. Those two Solar, Man of the Atom test books became the genesis of the successful limited edition Gold Logo program. And the program did its job. It helped get VALIANT noticed and once we got some attention people found out how good the stories were.

I hung on to these two comics for all these years, kept in a notebook with some of my reference issues. I’m quite sentimental and the idea that these two comics had such a significant effect always made them feel special to me. They are a part of VALIANT history as well as my own personal history. I’m glad to see them appreciated.

JayJay Jackson

[Elveen]

Love love reading that. Thanks so much.

[Ricomortis]

[Ramses818]

That is very cool JayJay. thanks so much for sharing!

[ilzuccone]

wow that's cool

[greg]

Awesome JayJay! Thank you for documenting these. VALIANT fans (especially Zero) will keep this info in our records... basically forever.

[DirtbagSailor]

Gold Article has been updated to reflect JayJay's information and history on these books.

http://valiantcentral.com/collectors-co ... c-valiant/

[hottbill]

Gold Article has been updated to reflect JayJay's information and history on these books.

http://valiantcentral.com/collectors-co ... c-valiant/

Very nice article!

[Escaflown4]

JayJay, thank you for providing that piece of history into the Valiant Gold program. I love reading things like this.

[Intrepidxc]

Very cool to know the history on these! They got out of my price range really quickly, but I loved reading the history behind them and getting a chance to see the pictures. Thanks again!