DEFIANT Comics Holy Grail

[StarBrand]

This is the comic I believe to be the DEFIANT Comics Holy Grail. It's the Splatterball no foil variant. It's extremely difficult to find. It's possible less than ten exist. If anyone has one, I'd love to see a pic posted here. Thanks.

[Elveen]

Where is the foil usually?

[StarBrand]

If you go to mycomicshop.com and search for Splatterball you can see examples of the other two covers. The foil is pretty big. I'll try to remember to post pics of the foil covers here tomorrow.

[StarBrand]

Regarding what I suspect may be the origin of the no foil Splatterball, I got a batch of DEFIANT rareties awhile back that had Warriors of Plasm proofs in it. The proofs were clearly made for editorial reasons as they had editorial notes on a few and even had two examples of the same page with one panel different than the other page had on it. I've never seen anything like that before relative to DEFIANT production work.
In that batch was also a Plasm 0 one-staple variant, which is said to have been given only to DEFIANT employees. In addition, that batch had two Splatterball no foil variants. It all ties together. That batch of DEFIANT rareties was likely put together by a former DEFIANT employee in my opinion, and the stuff in it may have been only available to DEFIANT employees.

[magnusr]

I have this uncut one (also from an employee):



/Magnus

[StarBrand]

Wow! Nice item, Magnusr!

[nycjadie]

Super interesting thread Thx!

[StarBrand]

[StarBrand]

Here's what the second edition of this book looks like. Note the foil, or seal if you prefer, which reads second Plasm edition.

[greg]

I have this uncut one (also from an employee):



/Magnus

Wow!

[greg]

I thought I had the DEFIANT holy grail.

[StarBrand]

Maybe you're right! That's certainly the single best DEFIANT book in existence in terms of value and I believe the only 9.9 slabbed to date. Getting a 9.9 of a book with a print run of 1,000 that is such an important book is going to be tough to beat. I think the one I'm talking about is the rarest book known to exist as far as raw copies of a DEFIANT comic go.

[greg]

Maybe you're right! That's certainly the single best DEFIANT book in existence in terms of value and I believe the only 9.9 slabbed to date. Getting a 9.9 of a book with a print run of 1,000 that is such an important book is going to be tough to beat. I think the one I'm talking about is the rarest book known to exist as far as raw copies of a DEFIANT comic go.

Well, that's part of my thought, too. There are 1,000 copies of Birth of the DEFIANT Universe... all signed.

The number of unsigned copies is... very, very low. A bit like unstamped Splatterball.

[OhioValiantNut]

In my view it is all about price and demand. Who is demanding Splatter Ball misprints? I have seen the copies on 'bay for hundreds of dollars and my response is "I hope your grandchildren enjoy these books".

As for The Birth of the Defiant Universe ... that is the ultimate Defiant Comics grail. It has historical significance adjacent to Shooter's experiences at VH1, making it the must have key for ShooterHeads in the Defiant subset of his creative universe.

And Greg, sir, that is a fantastic copy you have there. I wonder if it was signed would it have come back as a 9.8? Its nice to see it without the idiotic green label (which is why I will never send my copy to cgc).

[StarBrand]

I think it is more likely the Splatterball (one word) no foil cover is a proof run by the printer intentionally rather than a misprint. We'll probably never know for certain. You repeated some of what I said in my post that preceded yours, but I wrongly omitted calling Greg sir in it. My bad.

[greg]

... but I wrongly omitted calling Greg sir in it. My bad.

To my knowledge, I have not been knighted.
If I get knighted, I'll add "Sir" to my username.
Or not... since I never added "Dr.".

[greg]

I wonder if it was signed would it have come back as a 9.8? Its nice to see it without the idiotic green label (which is why I will never send my copy to cgc).

Most copies of Birth of the DEFIANT Universe were signed back in 1993, limited to 1,000... and they receive a Green (Qualified) Label from CGC when they're submitted because of the unwitnessed signature.
CGC does have CGC 9.9 and CGC 10 books in the Green Label, so there's at least a chance that it could be CGC 9.9 Green Label.

CGC allows blue (Universal) labels for books which are signed on the inside, but uses green (Qualified) labels for books signed on the cover.
(Unless the signature on the cover doesn't count as a potential downgrade, like a CGC 3.5 or something, the label would likely be blue.)

If CGC witnesses the signature, you can get the Yellow label, even for a book like Birth of the DEFIANT Universe.

To do that, you'd have to obtain an unsigned Birth of the DEFIANT Universe, which is already a tough task, then you'd have to get it signed in the presence of a CGC witness.

The result would look like this:

[OhioValiantNut]

I wonder if it was signed would it have come back as a 9.8? Its nice to see it without the idiotic green label (which is why I will never send my copy to cgc).

Most copies of Birth of the DEFIANT Universe were signed back in 1993, limited to 1,000... and they receive a Green (Qualified) Label from CGC when they're submitted because of the unwitnessed signature.
CGC does have CGC 9.9 and CGC 10 books in the Green Label, so there's at least a chance that it could be CGC 9.9 Green Label.

CGC allows blue (Universal) labels for books which are signed on the inside, but uses green (Qualified) labels for books signed on the cover.
(Unless the signature on the cover doesn't count as a potential downgrade, like a CGC 3.5 or something, the label would likely be blue.)

If CGC witnesses the signature, you can get the Yellow label, even for a book like Birth of the DEFIANT Universe.

To do that, you'd have to obtain an unsigned Birth of the DEFIANT Universe, which is already a tough task, then you'd have to get it signed in the presence of a CGC witness.

The result would look like this:

I bow to you sir!!!

[greg]

I am not the originator/submitter of either book. Our own chainnball was my source for both of them.

[myron]

I wonder if it was signed would it have come back as a 9.8? Its nice to see it without the idiotic green label (which is why I will never send my copy to cgc).

Most copies of Birth of the DEFIANT Universe were signed back in 1993, limited to 1,000... and they receive a Green (Qualified) Label from CGC when they're submitted because of the unwitnessed signature.
CGC does have CGC 9.9 and CGC 10 books in the Green Label, so there's at least a chance that it could be CGC 9.9 Green Label.

CGC allows blue (Universal) labels for books which are signed on the inside, but uses green (Qualified) labels for books signed on the cover.
(Unless the signature on the cover doesn't count as a potential downgrade, like a CGC 3.5 or something, the label would likely be blue.)

If CGC witnesses the signature, you can get the Yellow label, even for a book like Birth of the DEFIANT Universe.

To do that, you'd have to obtain an unsigned Birth of the DEFIANT Universe, which is already a tough task, then you'd have to get it signed in the presence of a CGC witness.

The result would look like this:

<sigh> Brother J beat me to a copy of this in the raw out of a quarter bin at a shop in Milwaukee many years ago...didn't have the gloves but who cares...

did the unsigned version have the gloves also?

[greg]

I wonder if it was signed would it have come back as a 9.8? Its nice to see it without the idiotic green label (which is why I will never send my copy to cgc).

Most copies of Birth of the DEFIANT Universe were signed back in 1993, limited to 1,000... and they receive a Green (Qualified) Label from CGC when they're submitted because of the unwitnessed signature.
CGC does have CGC 9.9 and CGC 10 books in the Green Label, so there's at least a chance that it could be CGC 9.9 Green Label.

CGC allows blue (Universal) labels for books which are signed on the inside, but uses green (Qualified) labels for books signed on the cover.
(Unless the signature on the cover doesn't count as a potential downgrade, like a CGC 3.5 or something, the label would likely be blue.)

If CGC witnesses the signature, you can get the Yellow label, even for a book like Birth of the DEFIANT Universe.

To do that, you'd have to obtain an unsigned Birth of the DEFIANT Universe, which is already a tough task, then you'd have to get it signed in the presence of a CGC witness.

The result would look like this:

<sigh> Brother J beat me to a copy of this in the raw out of a quarter bin at a shop in Milwaukee many years ago...didn't have the gloves but who cares...

did the unsigned version have the gloves also?

Doubtful. I believe the unsigned versions were just raw in a stack in the archives of a creator.
It's probably fair to call them publisher proofs... for checking before packaging the 1,000 with numbering, signatures, and gloves.

[StarBrand]

A raw copy of this book just sold for $135.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Splatterball-19 ... Sw4CFYuZWE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Brother J]

<sigh> Brother J beat me to a copy of this in the raw out of a quarter bin at a shop in Milwaukee many years ago...didn't have the gloves but who cares...

did the unsigned version have the gloves also?

I wish I still had it, sold it at some point and it's back on my want list...

Wisconsin was a great place to find stuff like this. I picked up at least two CEAR's for under a buck each at different locations. Philly area where I live now, nada.

[Brother J]

I dunno, I don't think I would have had Shooter sign an unsigned copy of Birth, just seems like a waste. I know he did it because he wanted to have the only yellow label slabbed copy of this book, but Shooter's autograph is so common, it feels similar to those people who have Stan Lee sign key Silver Age books. Just destroys them, IMO.

What would happen if you took a signed copy of Birth and had Shooter sign it in front of a CGC witness? Would it get a combined yellow/green label or something like that?

[Chiclo]

I dunno, I don't think I would have had Shooter sign an unsigned copy of Birth, just seems like a waste. I know he did it because he wanted to have the only yellow label slabbed copy of this book, but Shooter's autograph is so common, it feels similar to those people who have Stan Lee sign key Silver Age books. Just destroys them, IMO.

What would happen if you took a signed copy of Birth and had Shooter sign it in front of a CGC witness? Would it get a combined yellow/green label or something like that?

I couldn't agree more. I was baffled when I first read about this - I would think it would be more valuable to the hobby unsigned than with a yellow label.