Jay Jay's Solar 5 gold test book prototype for sale!

[nycjadie]

700

[Zero]

$750

[nycjadie]

850

[Zero]

$900

[nycjadie]

1000

[Zero]

$1,050

[DirtbagSailor]

$1,100?

[Zero]

Bids will be posted here until Sunday, April 5th at 10:15 PM est, or until 2 minutes have passed after 10:15 PM EST without a bid.

[DirtbagSailor]

Bids will be posted here until Sunday, April 5th at 10:15 PM est, or until 2 minutes have passed after 10:15 PM EST without a bid.

Noted on the 10:15.

[nycjadie]

All is fair in love and bidding! I'm off to shop for a consolation prize.

[chainnball]

Sorry guys, got hung up with family stuff. Looks like Zero got this one too. Thanks for all the interest and I will pass on JayJay's reaction when I give her $1150!!! She is gonna CRY!!!

[Zero]

Sorry guys, got hung up with family stuff. Looks like Zero got this one too. Thanks for all the interest and I will pass on JayJay's reaction when I give her $1150!!! She is gonna CRY!!!

[sonicdan]

Well done, Fellas!

[betterthanezra]

Wow these are legacy items not doubt...

-Brian

[sonicdan]

If anyone feels the need to spend some more money feel free to hit me up

[FormerReader]

Sorry guys, got hung up with family stuff. Looks like Zero got this one too. Thanks for all the interest and I will pass on JayJay's reaction when I give her $1150!!! She is gonna CRY!!!

This was fun to watch. Chainnball I've got to give you a ton of credit for doing this for JayJay. You didn't have to. You are a really cool person.

[Escaflown4]

Battle of the deep pockets. Congrats again Zero!

[nycjadie]

If anyone feels the need to spend some more money feel free to hit me up

[chainnball]

Sorry guys, got hung up with family stuff. Looks like Zero got this one too. Thanks for all the interest and I will pass on JayJay's reaction when I give her $1150!!! She is gonna CRY!!!

This was fun to watch. Chainnball I've got to give you a ton of credit for doing this for JayJay. You didn't have to. You are a really cool person.

It was an easy choice. Thanks!

[slym2none]

Holy crap!





-slym

[JayJayJackson]

I'm not sure how many people know, but I've been writing books for a while now and last year I was hired to write a novel. After many changes, I'm still working on it but I also have a couple more novels of my own that I intend to finish and either self-publish or offer to a publisher, though I'm tending toward self-publishing. I just think it's much cooler. I've been writing for most of my life, though I'm known primarily as an artist. Writing for a living is something I've wanted to try since I was 12 years old and I'm taking my shot at it before it's too late. This helps me toward that goal. It's just fantastic.

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

[nycjadie]

That awesome JJ. Thanks for sharing. They will certainly be cherished by the new owner.

[greg]

JayJay - thank you again for putting this info here and in the Solar 3 discussion. Let us know when your novels are done - there are lots of fans who will follow the original VALIANT creators in whatever they do.

[geocarr]

Awesome sauce! Good luck JayJay!

[Dr Noel]