Primer #2 Value: An Independent Comic With a Thin Record

Almost every comic in this program came from Marvel or DC and sold in the hundreds of thousands. This one came from Comico, an independent almost nobody remembers, and it is where Grendel first appeared. A hundred and sixty-three sales exist in the whole record. Primer 2 value has to be argued rather than looked up, and this page sets out what the argument rests on.

Matt Wagner’s Grendel appears in 1982, in the second issue of a black-and-white anthology that ran eight issues.

Why an independent key prices differently

Comico printed small. An independent black-and-white anthology in 1982 had no newsstand distribution to speak of and sold through the young direct market to people who were buying deliberately.

That cuts both ways for a seller. The surviving population is genuinely small, which supports the price. But so is the buying population, which means the book trades rarely and a single motivated bidder can set a number nobody can repeat.

The record shows exactly that. Four sales at 9.8 in twenty-three years, and this year the 9.6 lane has none at all.

To identify it: $1.50, 1982, a Comico cover with Grendel in black and white on the right and Victor on the left. There is no month printed on it, and there is only one printing.

What the record can and cannot support

No sale of this comic appears in CGC’s auction reporting, so no price below carries a link. Every row is a Heritage Auctions result or a completed eBay listing.

Read that table as two columns of history rather than one price list. Every grade peaked in 2021 or 2022 and every grade is now at roughly a third to a half of that.

The 9.8 lane has four sales in total: $6,600 at the peak in March 2022 and $4,889 this March, with two others between. That is the entire top of this book.

The 9.6 has eleven sales and none of them this year, so its most recent figure is $1,250 from July 2025. A seller with a 9.6 is negotiating against a year-old comparable.

The lanes that are actually trading are 9.2 and 8.5. Four 9.2 sales this year running $395 to $648, and five 8.5 sales running $290 to $445. Those are the numbers I would build an expectation around.

Those figures are Heritage results and completed eBay sales. GoCollect and PriceCharting track Primer #2 independently, and if their numbers disagree with mine it is worth finding out which of us is wrong.

Primer #2 value in every grade

163 sales tracked back to 2003; here are the three freshest in every grade.

Heritage rows are verifiable in Heritage’s public Primer issue index; the rest are completed eBay listings. A hundred and sixty-three sales going back to 2003, and the deepest lanes sit between 8.5 and 9.4.

The mid grades, and what raw copies do

The middle of this ladder is where a seller has something solid to work from, thin as the record is elsewhere.

Across 2026: 9.0 brought $437, 8.5 copies $290 to $445 across five sales, and a single 8.0 at $275.

Raw copies ran $300 to $500 this year across six sales. That is a narrow band and a high one relative to the graded lanes, which is unusual and tells you something.

What it tells you is that buyers of this book know what they are looking at. On a Marvel key a raw copy is discounted for uncertainty; on an independent with a small, informed audience, a raw copy in obviously nice shape gets bid close to slabbed money.

The other thing worth knowing is that below 9.0 this ladder does not behave like a ladder at all. Over the full record a 6.0 has brought $454 to $800 and a 5.5 $405 to $800, both above what several 8.0 copies have sold for. On a book with a hundred and sixty-three sales spread over twenty-three years there are simply not enough results in any one grade to hold a line.

So do not read a low grade as a low number here, and do not assume a high one guarantees a high number either. What decides the price on this comic is who happens to be looking on the day, which is why the freshest sale in your grade is worth more to you than any average.

Selling a book the market prices rarely

Two pieces of advice follow from a hundred and sixty-three sales, and the first runs against my own interest.

If your copy is genuinely high grade, consign it. With four documented 9.8 sales behind it there is no going rate to negotiate against, so the only way to learn what a top copy is worth here is to let two people who want it bid. That applies to any offer I would make as much as to anybody else’s.

If your copy is mid grade, the opposite holds. The 8.5 and 9.2 lanes have current sales, the raw band is narrow, and a straightforward sale is easy to price fairly without anybody waiting for an auction.

One condition note specific to the format. This is a black-and-white magazine-style comic on lighter stock than a Marvel of the period, and the covers scuff rather than crease. Scuffing photographs badly and grades worse than owners expect, so shoot it in flat light before deciding what you have.

Selling a Primer #2

1. A dollar fifty, 1982, Comico. One printing, and no month on the cover.
2. Four 9.8 sales exist in total. Nobody can quote you a current top-grade price.
3. The 8.5 and 9.2 lanes are trading. $290 to $648 across nine sales this year.
4. Consign a high-grade copy. A thin market needs bidders, not one buyer.

Send the cover in flat light and the spine. On a black-and-white independent the scuffing decides the grade, and it does not show under a lamp.

Send photographs and I will place your copy in its grade lane against the same recent sales you can read above. Where you take it next is your call, and the options for selling in Southern California are worth knowing either way.

Related

• Selling slabbed comics. The right route for a sharp copy of a thinly traded book.
• How comic price guides work. Useful where guide figures outrun the sales record.
• The 100 most valuable Bronze Age comics. Where this issue ranks against the era.

Cover images on this page are shown small, for identification, with the publisher credited in the caption. If you are a rights holder and want an image removed, contact me and it comes down.