Celebrating 600 page views
...and a word on selling comics
This has been a great week not just for buying comics, but for selling them. Ask anyone if there's any money to be made in the comic book hobby, and you have about a 99.99% chance of getting an incorrect answer. I know this because I've spent considerable amounts of time pondering the question, I've sold comics, I've heard lots of advice on selling comics, I've seen people fail miserably at selling comics, and I still couldn't give a straight answer. Before I sold my first comic, I made a promise to myself that I would never buy a comic book with the sole intention of reselling it. Buying a comic I want, realizing I don't like it, and then selling it? That's fine. What I don't want to do is get myself tangled in the complexities of buying to sell. I don't want my hobby to ever start feeling like a job. Unless you're planning on opening a comic book shop of your own, it's just not a logical. Comics are unpredictable. Since then I've decided to keep track of a number that represents my Net gain/loss in comic sales. When I buy a new comic at regular price with the intention of reading it and enjoying it, I don't count that against my net gain. The same goes for trade paperbacks. However, if I buy a big fancy collected edition, or a rare back issue from the '60s that costs way more than it's oriinal cover price, that's a luxury purpose and it counts against my net gain, wich I can only gain back by selling items I don't need
My first experience with comic book selling was just a few years ago. I'm going to tell a story. I'm leaving out the identity of the subject of my tale, but trust me.. the story is true. A friend of mine was down and out with no cash, in need of a 6-pack of 'Gansetts. His frustration with his financial situation must have been significant, because it was then that he realized how angry he was that his older brother had left his family years ago, leaving his stuff behind, but no longer contributing to the famil financially. My friend felt that the only way to make things right would be to sell the big box of old comics his brother left behind and use the money he made to buy himself a 30 rack and buy his mom a car. He spent the afternoon on my computer looking at comic websites and writing down the book value of each comic, paying no attention to condition and how that effects the value. As far as he was concerned, he was owed the maximum retail mint condition value of every single issue he had.
He invited me to go along with him, and I did because I had never been to my local Comic shop at that point. This was before Comics and I had had our glorious reunion. He spoke proudly about how pleased his mother would be with him when he brought home her new car. He spoke with contempt about how his brother had abandoned the family, along with his responsibility to provide support in times of need. This was how he justified making a fortune off of his old comic collection. I listened, and I knew he wouldn't get that kind of money for his comics, but how could I be the one to tell a gu who's so excited about something that he's wrong? I had heard several times that there was no money to be made selling old comics unless you had some really special stuff. In my own defense, I was assuming (with my limited knowledge) that he would probably at least make $100.
When the moment of truth came I started to worry about what his reaction would be. Guys like him don't react well to embarrassment, or to being wrong about things. I'll do you the favor of cutting through the tension straight to the end. He marched into the store proudly lugging his cardboard box that may as well have been a treasure chest full of gold in his mind. He plopped it on the counter and stood back, because obviously the nerds behind the counter were about to swarm that thing. How could they resist getting their hands on his moldy old beat up 1980s comics?
Apparently, very easily. One of the employees walked up to the box and quickly flipped through, saying nothing as he looked at each issue. This took about 30 seconds. When he finished, he said "nothing". Hiding his shock, my friend explained to him that some of the issues in that box were worth up to $10 and that they were all very old. The gentleman behind the counter told him he was sorry, and with that, we left. There was a lot of complaining on the way home. After that, I assumed there was just no money in comics. I quickly learned that only comics from before 1970 were worth any decent money, but every once in a while, a modern comic comes out that, either due to a small first print run, or extreme unexpected popularity for a series, goes up in value and becomes an exception to the rule. One of these comics was Ultimate Spider-Man #1, the comic that I acquired for about $300 less that it's value that lead me to start this blog.
Notice Daredevil's yellow costume? He stopped wearing that and switched to red in Daredevil #7. This Amazing Spider-Man issue came out in September 1964, between Daredevil #3 and #4.
Ultimate Spider-Man
This past weekend my little brother came home, and despite the disgusting weather, he took me out, helped me rent a wheel chair, and went along with me on a comic hunting journey. I picked up a solid chunk of the USM issues I needed for my collection. I honestly can't say exactly which issues I got this time because it's been a few days and I needed to put them in the box with the rest of the collection to keep them safe, but I did get about 30 new issues all for around $3.25, all in excellent condition, and strangely enough, all from the first store we went to. Also, I've finally managed to put a list of all the issues I've collected in the right pane of this blog. Check out the list, now you can see what's missing! The two stores were polar opposites. One was kind of dark, run down, messy with boxes everywhere, narrow spaces to get through, and some really creepy mannequins.
This was Wild Time Comics and Stories.
Wild Time Comics and Stories
So the place didn't look nice, but it had a great selection of back issues.. and the one guy working there was really friendly and helped us move boxes out of the way so I could get my wheelchair through. Still, it was inconvenient, and at times I needed to stand up from the chair and lean on things, which got tiring and I needed to leave without fully checking out what they had to offer. I bought what I had and it was on to the next store.
The next store we hit was Friendly Neighborhood Comics in Bellingham, MA.
Friendly Neighborhood Comics
This store I had been to before with a group of friends in the past, but that time I wasn't in a wheelchair. Now that I've experienced this store in a wheelchair, I can't say enough good things about it. Wide open areas, plenty of room between racks. Long walls of comics that I can explore by riding slowly past, and never feeling like I'm in anyone's way. I recommend this comic book store to any handicapped person looking to get their comic fix. They had a very complete new release wall, and another very complete recent but not brand new release wall. The only thing lacking was their back issues. They only had Marvel and DC back issues, no Indy comics, and what they did have was very small. There was an assortment of old silver age comics, and an assortment of comics from 2000 until now, but not really anything in between. Worse, there were NO Ultimate Spider-Man issues, and that's what my current comic hunt is for. 80s comics and indy comics are the comics I usually spend a lot of time browsing when I'm at the comic store and this place just didn't have it. I still have to say they more than made up for it with their really nice hardwood floors, great lighting, friendly staff, and of course, great accessiblity for the handicapped.
I do want to mention before closing yet another way too long post, that they did have a copy of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #160, in a variant cover that I had been looking for for a while. UCSM was the first series that I collected in it's entirety, but there are still some good variant covers from the collection that I don't have. And now I have this one, known as the "Spoiler Cover" because it shows Mary Jane cradling her dead boyfriend, Peter Parker, after he died saving her life.
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