Greg,

I want to thank you for the wonderful job you did on this website.
I like to think that the time of Valiant was a highpoint in comic 
storytelling in the last thirty years.

I bought them all, two copies of each from the first until 1998 when I
just coundn't take what was happening anymore. I bought all the Gold Key
issues in the best condition possible. Clipped coupons, sent off for
special issues. I even bought the cards. I hung out at the Valiant booth
at the San Diego comic covention and my son entered the trivia contest
and won special prizes. There was a time when I even thought I could
bridge the gap between Shooter and the company and wanted to volunteer
my services (I am a psychiatrist).

I miss those days. The fall of Valiant was also the fall of my
collecting of modern comics. I still have all those books sitting in
boxes and I think that they will be worth quite a bit in a few years.
The work you have done will help that to occur and once again I thank
you.

Jon Tatomer - 58 year old psychiatrist from Carpinteria, CA
Major comic book collector for over 50 years
July 2, 2001

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Greg,

Thanks for the response.
I will have to look at my collection and see if I can contribute in some
way. I have many copies of the Valiant Reader, and I remember at the
time thinking would be the item missing in most collections.

My perception at the time was that three things brought Valiant down. 

1) Speculation. Especially Turok number 1. 

2) Image comics with muscles and sexy woman. 
This included the instant cult following of good but not great artists. 
Let's face it, a Barry Smith type artist comes along only once a generation. 
Valiant sunk fast as soon as they tried to play the same game.

3) The Shooter incident. He may be full of himself but I never developed
much interest after he left.

In the first two years they did essentially everything right. After that
they never did anything right. They could be a case study on how to kill a
company in the shortest period of time.

I remember finding a copy of Rai 4 for fifty cents a couple of years ago. 
I left it because I already had four copies. It was not until I read your web
page a few days ago that I have even thought about this at all.

I will make this prediction, however. 
Early Valiant comics will take off like a rocket 
again in the next five to ten years. 
They will be the EC story all over again.
Most copies will be over $100. 
The ones with print runs under 50,000 copies, I mean.

They are beautiful, have good stories, they are scarce, and it will be a
real achievement to try and collect them all. But I don't need to tell you
this, you probably know this better than I do.

Thanks for listening,

Jon
July 4, 2001