[SOLD] Valiant Comics 1994 Hong Kong Edition Books (RARE)

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gaga1227
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[SOLD] Valiant Comics 1994 Hong Kong Edition Books (RARE)

Post by gaga1227 »

Fellow Valiant collectors, I am selling my raw Valiant Hong Kong Chinese Edition books:
  • Bloodshot
  • Shadowman
  • Dr.Mirage
  • Solar
There were only 4 books when I sourced these from China, so not a full set of 6 books.

Conditions are around mid grade but still presents relatively well. Detailed pictures here to help your own judgement:
https://gaga-graphics.com/hobby/vh1-hk-raw.html

Earlier this year, a full set of 6 books were sold over $1900 (viewtopic.php?f=2&t=53739). Given how rare these books are in the Valiant collecting circle and on the open market. I assume there would still be collectors here who are seeking these special books into their own collections.

# LISTING
- eBay listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/304179924554
- Can also make deal with the winner off eBay via PayPal G&S with savings, please message for details;

# SHIPPING & HANDLING
- FREE Shipping in the US;
- Will also post to some international destinations, please ask in advance and I will try my best to also do FREE shipping;

Any questions, please leave comments, message here or via eBay. I am in Australia so my responses might be delayed due to different timezone but will try my best.

Thanks for viewing and your interest, all the best!
Last edited by gaga1227 on Fri Oct 22, 2021 6:13:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: [Selling] Valiant Comics 1994 Hong Kong Edition Books (RARE)

Post by nycjadie »

Awesome books!

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Re: [Selling] Valiant Comics 1994 Hong Kong Edition Books (RARE)

Post by aj583 »

As an owner of the Hong Kong Six, I agree! Somewhat of a unicorn status on these. :-) Good luck with the sale! Super cool books.


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gaga1227
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Re: [Selling] Valiant Comics 1994 Hong Kong Edition Books (RARE)

Post by gaga1227 »

Thank you both nycjadie and aj583, it's not a full set but still hard to come by. Hope they'll go to someone here on the forum.

aj583, I love how you call it "the Hong Kong Six", great name for a club, might steal it :clap:

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Re: [Selling] Valiant Comics 1994 Hong Kong Edition Books (RARE)

Post by magnus20009 »

I really don't understand all the fuss the past couple years about these Hong Kong books. I spent more than a decade living in Hong Kong and no one there cared about these and none of the local comic book shops in Hong Kong would have sold them initially or kept them in their back issue bins. I never bothered to even look for them. Perhaps Dino can give his opinion since he spent a long time living in Hong Kong too.

I view them no differently then the Valiant issues printed in the Philippines. The "local" Philippine issues were all poor quality and similar to Hong Kong the local comic book shops in Manila stocked regular Valiant issues not the cheap local issues.

I just don't see people in Asia having any interest in the local Valiant issues. The Hong Kong books are all in traditional Chinese so outside of Hong Kong or Taiwan they would not be readable in the other Chinese markets like China or Singapore, which use simplified Chinese. To me they are about as interesting as the Mexican Gold Key issues.

Somewhere I have a list of all the foreign Gold Key/Valiant issues. Not sure if I shared it on the boards before but I'll see if I can dig it out. There are a lot more of them than people would expect.

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Re: [Selling] Valiant Comics 1994 Hong Kong Edition Books (RARE)

Post by gaga1227 »

magnus20009 wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:46:04 pm I really don't understand all the fuss the past couple years about these Hong Kong books. I spent more than a decade living in Hong Kong and no one there cared about these and none of the local comic book shops in Hong Kong would have sold them initially or kept them in their back issue bins. I never bothered to even look for them. Perhaps Dino can give his opinion since he spent a long time living in Hong Kong too.

I view them no differently then the Valiant issues printed in the Philippines. The "local" Philippine issues were all poor quality and similar to Hong Kong the local comic book shops in Manila stocked regular Valiant issues not the cheap local issues.

I just don't see people in Asia having any interest in the local Valiant issues. The Hong Kong books are all in traditional Chinese so outside of Hong Kong or Taiwan they would not be readable in the other Chinese markets like China or Singapore, which use simplified Chinese. To me they are about as interesting as the Mexican Gold Key issues.

Somewhere I have a list of all the foreign Gold Key/Valiant issues. Not sure if I shared it on the boards before but I'll see if I can dig it out. There are a lot more of them than people would expect.
I had the same questions on these books while going through some of the threads here on the forum. If you ask whether these books are special, it is subjective to individuals. But from my own long research and hands-on experience with them, I can see at least couple traits worth noting for these books:

1. Quality
The quality and editorial efforts went into these books are high, especially considering being produced for Asian market in the 90s, where most things were aiming for low cost. Unlike other Asian reprints, the cover and paper stock used on these books are actually even better than the US editions, it was the first time I ever saw glossy magazine paper stock used on comic books back then, and made a noticeable improvement on their colours and clarity on details. To mimic the US edition chromium covers, foil printing was used with embossment on textured covers. The titular logos were all re-designed in Chinese and looking quite decent from a graphic design perspective, again not often in Asian markets. From its content, despite being reprint issues, they actually contain articles and extra contents aiming for wanna-be comic collectors in Hong Kong. All of the above clearly shows whoever published these wanted to do much more than just reprint issues. However, they did fail badly in the market, which leads into my next point.

2. Double Rarity
These books were published as limited edition to start with. Only 6 origin story issues were published and no further, and I wouldn't imagine a big print run on them. On top of that, as from your own personal experience, these books were not popular back then and failed badly on the market. I personally enquired some renowned comic book shops in Hong Kong and none of them are aware of these books. One local comic historian from YouTube remembers them but he no longer have his set. To recoup the financial cost, most of these books were sold to mainland China as 'rubbish', and that's why most of these books are now found in China, not Hong Kong. The fact that these books were not popular back then in Hong Kong makes them even rarer now. They are not key books but, after 27 years, they do represent a small part of history for Voyager, Valiant Comics, and to some extent, the pre-97 Hong Kong.

FYI, Regarding the written language, people from China can read both traditional and simplified because they look very similar as character glyphs. They are not being used in school textbooks but still extensively used in daily life. Hence why travellers from these Chinese regions don't have issues on anything written but often won't understand different dialects.

Last but not least, looking forward to seeing you share your foreign gold key issues :thumb:

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Re: [Selling] Valiant Comics 1994 Hong Kong Edition Books (RARE)

Post by magnus20009 »

Sorry double post
Last edited by magnus20009 on Tue Oct 12, 2021 6:04:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: [Selling] Valiant Comics 1994 Hong Kong Edition Books (RARE)

Post by magnus20009 »

gaga1227 wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:16:38 am
I had the same questions on these books while going through some of the threads here on the forum. If you ask whether these books are special, it is subjective to individuals. But from my own long research and hands-on experience with them, I can see at least couple traits worth noting for these books:

1. Quality
The quality and editorial efforts went into these books are high, especially considering being produced for Asian market in the 90s, where most things were aiming for low cost. Unlike other Asian reprints, the cover and paper stock used on these books are actually even better than the US editions, it was the first time I ever saw glossy magazine paper stock used on comic books back then, and made a noticeable improvement on their colours and clarity on details. To mimic the US edition chromium covers, foil printing was used with embossment on textured covers. The titular logos were all re-designed in Chinese and looking quite decent from a graphic design perspective, again not often in Asian markets. From its content, despite being reprint issues, they actually contain articles and extra contents aiming for wanna-be comic collectors in Hong Kong. All of the above clearly shows whoever published these wanted to do much more than just reprint issues. However, they did fail badly in the market, which leads into my next point.
Compared to the Philippine versions of Valiant comics they are high quality compared to other comics produced for the Hong Kong market place I would say they are average quality - totally admit the covers are neat. There are some reasonable quality manga books and 20 years ago a few guys tried to launch an English line of very high quality comic books but while the books were very well made the content wasn't as good. I bought a bunch of them to try and show support to a local business but they didn't last too long.

I think Valiant failed because those interested in American comic books in Hong Kong want to read them in English while the comics being consumed in Chinese are manga and local comics. Good on Valiant and/or their partners for trying to localize in different markets but they didn't need to.
gaga1227 wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:16:38 am 2. Double Rarity
These books were published as limited edition to start with. Only 6 origin story issues were published and no further, and I wouldn't imagine a big print run on them. On top of that, as from your own personal experience, these books were not popular back then and failed badly on the market. I personally enquired some renowned comic book shops in Hong Kong and none of them are aware of these books. One local comic historian from YouTube remembers them but he no longer have his set. To recoup the financial cost, most of these books were sold to mainland China as 'rubbish', and that's why most of these books are now found in China, not Hong Kong. The fact that these books were not popular back then in Hong Kong makes them even rarer now. They are not key books but, after 27 years, they do represent a small part of history for Voyager, Valiant Comics, and to some extent, the pre-97 Hong Kong.
I could have saved you the trouble and told you that none of the comic shops in HK would have had them. Not sure there are any renowned shops in Hong Kong. I had pull lists at a couple over the years but wouldn't say any are renowned. Better American comic book shops can be found in Tokyo (the one that used to be in the 109 building in Sibuya Tokyo over multiple floors was renowned and one of the best shops in the world imho), Singapore and Manila. Pre-Covid I was fortunate enough to be able to hit the shops in all of them a few times a year. Singapore likely has the most active American comic community of the 4 cities I think. For baseball and non-sport cards I'd give it to Tokyo hands down.
gaga1227 wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:16:38 am FYI, Regarding the written language, people from China can read both traditional and simplified because they look very similar as character glyphs. They are not being used in school textbooks but still extensively used in daily life. Hence why travellers from these Chinese regions don't have issues on anything written but often won't understand different dialects.
You and I are going to have to agree to disagree on this point based upon my 20 years of living over here. Going from traditional to simplified is much easier than simplified to traditional. I truly wish that was the case that everyone understood both well. It would have saved me so much aggravation in life - for a decade I was an executive in a company HQed in HK with a 100 employees in HK and thousands in mainland China and language written and spoken was a bigger issue than you would think. Multiple forms of Chinese is still an issue for me but not nearly as much of one as now I run a hedge fund in Asia and China/HK is only part of our book (although adding in Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Malay, Thai, Hindi, etc more than makes up for it - thankfully my office is quite diverse with people fluent in many languages).

gaga1227 wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:16:38 am Last but not least, looking forward to seeing you share your foreign gold key issues :thumb:
I'm leaving the office soon so I will see if I can find the list of foreign issues at home tonight. Unsurprisingly I think a large portion of the list was complied by Iggy101us who I believe is the ultimate keeper of all Valiant lore. I have learnt so much from him over the years.

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Re: [Selling] Valiant Comics 1994 Hong Kong Edition Books (RARE)

Post by gaga1227 »

Thank you magnus20009, that was some really great insights you have on the topic. I totally agree with you that, in China and Hong Kong, US comics culture were hugely overshadowed by Japanese manga, local kids don't collect comics or manga, they just read manga over and over. Most comics and manga I have seen there were really low cost and poorly made due to kids and students cannot afford much in the 90s. I remember I was the only one going for the Valiant books in Shanghai, other kids had no idea what those were and couldn't care less, let along spending 30RMB on them. People in Hong Kong should be able to afford them but I think you are spot on, those in Hong Kong reading US comics would for sure go for the US editions like real Americans, similarly they would go watch a Hollywood movie without dubbing and subtitles. I have never been to Singapore but yes, from what I heard, US comics are popular and being collected there.

For the language issue, I can imagine it would be disastrous to manage at workplaces. China is such a big country, it has hug literacy and educational gaps across regions. Every emperor in history had to manage this same exact issue :lol:. I spent some time in Shanghai and most people I know understands Cantonese thanks to pop culture export from Hong Kong, and surprisingly, lots of local people can speak limited English. Nowadays, most white collar office workers can speak English quite well, except for I often got questions on why Australian English is so different facepalm.

For the compiled foreign Valiant list, I only have this one saved from the forum: viewtopic.php?p=1111150

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Re: [Selling] Valiant Comics 1994 Hong Kong Edition Books (RARE)

Post by magnus20009 »

gaga1227 wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 8:05:28 am
For the compiled foreign Valiant list, I only have this one saved from the forum: viewtopic.php?p=1111150
I was just going to post what I had dug out but that link and all the posts there have everything I had (and a few more) except the Philippine Valiant issues which I don't have a complete list for and the Goldkey foreign issues, whose checklist I can't seem to find.

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Re: [Selling] Valiant Comics 1994 Hong Kong Edition Books (RARE)

Post by gaga1227 »

Thanks to everyone and also to the winner if he/she is from here on the forum.

If the winner is here, please let me know if want to proceed as normal on eBay? or off eBay via PayPal.
(preferred contact method is via FB messenger, please find Johnny Xu in the Valiant Fans group)
Cheers :thumb:


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