Actually, only ’til 1 in the morning this time.

§ October 26th, 2020 § Filed under archie, question time § 5 Comments

Once again, getting a late start on the ol’ question thingie, plus I have plans for a Tuesday post here (WHAT!?!? GASP!) so let’s take a look at a couple of easier (i.e. “Mike won’t be typing ’til 2 in the morning”) inquiries here:

William Burns is on fire with the following

“Now that Big Bang Theory is receding into the mist of yesteryear, do people still do that “Where’s Sheldon” routine in your store?”

Come to think of it…it has been a while. And it’s not like 1) it’s been all that long since the series wrapped, and 2) it’s not like there’s not some cable channel that seems to be Big Bang 24/7, so it shouldn’t be out of our collective memory (no matter how hard some of you are trying to forget it, I know). I suppose it can at least be partially attributed to fewer casual passerby dropping in just to say their BBT remark that I’ve never, ever heard before and move on without, you know, buying anything, due to the whole Captain Trips bug currently ravaging the globe.

You might be inclined to believe that this is something of a relief to me, and to a certain extent, it is, as part of me was getting a little tired of hearing it. But on the other hand, as I’d said before and probably bears repeating, these folks weren’t coming in to say these things in a disparaging manner…they were actually amused, or happy, to see that such a thing as “a comic book store” actually existed, like the one on the television show they enjoyed so much. And as far as I’m concerned, anything that makes The General Public associate “comic book store” with positive feelings is just fine and dandy with me. Believe me, I spent plenty of years dealing with people who’d rather be doing the backstroke through the sewers than crossing the threshold of a comic shop, so I welcomed this shift in perception.

• • •

Daniel T tees up this one

“What back issue would you most like to own but know you never will? (And I don’t mean, like, a 9.0 Action #1. Something that is theoretically attainable but unlikely due to JUST being out of your price range or because it’s just hard to find one.)”

Please, a 10.0 Action #1! DREAM BIG, MY FRIEND.

Okay, seriously…I wrote on this site a long time ago (and frankly, I’ve been doing this site long enough that it’d probably be easier to note things I haven’t written about) about how lucky I was that I started reading comics when I did, which meant I got in on things on the ground floor that would later be harder to piece together (like Eclipse’s Miracleman. Or, something that occurred to me just the other day in fact, how lucky I was that I got into comics before the current wave of rebooting and relaunching beginning with Crisis on Infinite Earths, that I had a better sense of what had come before, and what changed after, as it was happening rather than trying to figure out what the hell happened decades after the fact.

As such, pretty much anything I was interested in reading over, say, the last thirty years, I bought new off the shelf. Anything earlier than that I was interested in, I was able to pick up at generally reasonable prices. For example, I’m glad I completed my run of all the original issues of Doom Patrol when I did, back in the early ’90s, paying what was probably only a fraction of the price I’d have to dole out today. Or getting most of Turok Son of Stone, including the earliest Four Color issues. Or buying all those Comic Reader fanzines at a dime a dozen.

So, a lot of the back issues I was seriously interested in picking up, I picked up. Which isn’t to say there aren’t a few white whales out there I wouldn’t mind getting my mitts on. Now, luckily, being in a comic shop most of my time, there is a non-zero chance something I’m actively interested in obtaining will float on in…for example, this Showcase issue introducing Dolphin. I’d been wanting one of those for years, and, whaddaya know, there it is. And stuff like that has happened then and again…an issue of Yummy Fur I’d been missing forever finally turned up, and that Virginian one-shot from 1963 came into my store not all that long ago. Oh, and I was gifted a new-conditioned copy of the original “black and white” Love and Rockets #1 as a store-warming present from Jaime Hernandez his own self, so I was able to scratch that off the list!

But there’s the stuff I would like, but expect will never make it into my hands. I mean, it’s not impossible, but not terribly likely. I’d sure like an authentic Cerebus #1 for my run of that series, but I’m going to have to be satisfied with this recent reissue, I imagine.

I actually had a chance at Four Color #178, the first appearance of Uncle Scrooge McDuck, when my former boss had one at my former place of employment, waaaay early on in my comics retailing “career.” I just couldn’t spring the, what, $175 or whatever it was at the time, and I’m sure I couldn’t spring the thousands of dollars that same copy would bring now. Well, not spending that kind of money and expecting to keep it, at any rate.

But I think the big one I would like to have, which, unlike those other two, I don’t think has ever been reprinted, is Jughead’s Folly, a single issue released in 1957:


I’ve actually read a copy of this that someone brought into the other shop long ago, but it’s been such a while that I don’t recall that much of it. But it’s basically Jughead (perhaps my favorite Archie character) as Elvis Style Rock Star, and it’s pretty amazing. And hard to find. If one came into the shop, I would totally throw money at the person selling it until it was mine, all mine, yes, my precious.

Though I wouldn’t thumb my nose at a run of Jughead’s Fantasy, either.

5 Responses to “Actually, only ’til 1 in the morning this time.”

  • Brad says:

    At least the stories in Fantasy have been reprinted, and recently too — I got two of ’em in The World of Jughead (Archie Giant Series Magazine #136).

  • Brad says:

    According to Grand Comics Database, Jughead’s Folly has been reprinted twice: in The Best of Archie Comics (Archie, 2011 series) #3 ([August] 2013)
    and in Archie Spotlight Digest: Archie 75th Anniversary Digest (Archie, 2016 series) #6 (March 2017).

  • John Lancaster says:

    Next time I dig into my Archie boxes and reread my copy of Jughead’s Folly, I’ll remember how much you wanted this and then but it back into my box foiling your ongoing desires. I “think” I got this in the late 70’s and I don’t remember paying more than about $10 for it at the time (that’s $40 in today’s money!). I only have #3 for Fantasy and have never bothered filling the others.

  • That Dolphin issue is such a pain. I almost bought it in 1995 for around $5, but the dealer had a habit of checking Overstreet and switching prices at check out. Suddenly he was asking $13, and I walked out without it. That was the breaking point with him, and I never went back. OK, I moved from Louisville to Texas a month or 2 later, but still. He’d been doing that stuff for years! I can’t justify the money it’s going for now. Technically, I could afford it, but but justify? That’s a whole other thing.

  • Snark Shark says:

    Would Jughead’s Folly not also be Jugheads Fantasy, and vice versa?

    Patrick Joseph: “the dealer had a habit of checking Overstreet and switching prices at check out”

    WHATTA jerk!