In which I bug my old boss about comics he sold in 1986.
Okay, I’ve been dealing with bit of a stomach bug the last couple of days, so I’m going to keep this short. I had planned to look at the second page of distributor tips (first page here), but that’ll have to wait until next week.
I will address a couple of items from Monday’s post, however. I spoke to my former boss Ralph in regards to the Champions comic (based on the superhero role playing game, not Marvel’s weirdo team from the ’70s). Turns out, yes, the comic did sell very well initially, and, shockingly, did sell primarily to gamers versus your usual comic book fans. However, sales petered out pretty quickly.
And in regards to Watchmen #1, my assumptions as to his order numbers were correct…Ralph did order a lot, but not as many as, in retrospect, he should have because despite Alan Moore being red-hot in comics at the time, this was still an untested concept with new characters. As it turned out, he ordered pretty close to what he needed for the initial month or so, not quite selling out on the rack. But yes, he wished he’d ordered more, given how things worked out!
Also as an aside I asked him about Howard Chaykin’s Shadow mini and how that did for him, since that was offered in the tips page as the title to base your Watchmen numbers on . Yes, it sold very well, thank you (I know I bought a set!). I’m pretty sure I’ll find his specific orders in the stack of Bud Plant catalogs I have here, so when I track it down, I’ll provide an update.
And on Wednesday’s post, Daniel T asked if I have any plans for my comics after I go to the great comic convention in the sky? (Or, since I’m presuming a comic convention, more likely the other place.)
Well, given how I’m been feeling the last couple of days, not quite sure I want to dwell overlong on my presumed-eventual death. To be completely honest…I’m not sure. If comic book stores are still around, I’m presuming my collection will be taken to one of those, much like I’ve seen more than my fair share of collections of the recently passed make it into my store. At the very least, my collection may be better organized, theoretically, once I finally get everything sorted.
Ideally, if I live long enough, I’d like to get my personal collection winnowed down to a fraction of where it is now. My recent attempts at making passes through what I’ve got to sacrifice to the store have been relatively unsuccessful, however, so I may need to develop stronger willpower.
The whole “donate to the university” thing could be a possibility, at least for the fanzines. I’d hate to see that collection broken up, but hey, I’ll be pushing up daisies by then, chances are slim that I’d be in a position to really care.
And, you know, it’s possible I’ll have a family member who’d want to keep it all. That’d be fine with me.
At the very least, if, as I said, I live long enough, I could have one heck of a dollar sale and just move everything out. Come to the “Mike’s About to Croak” Sale, the first weekend in March 2056 at Sterling Silver Comics!
This is an interesting link to information about the comic book collection at The Library of Congress, perhaps donating any issues it doesn’t already have to its collection could b a good idea.
Then again, you could go for a Viking-type bonfire on a longboat and you and your comic collection could ascend to Valhalla together…
Or you could be buried in a crypt with all of your EC Comics…
Keep it creative!
https://www.loc.gov/rr//news/comics.html?loclr=blogmss#:~:text=The%20largest%20publicly%20available%20collection,totaling%20more%20than%20140%2C000%20issues.
Another comics blogger’s recently written about the fate of the Collection:
http://tearoomofdespair.blogspot.com/2019/04/baby-boomers-die-we-get-all-their-stuff.html
And I admit it’s occurred to me, sitting in my tiny office overshadowed by a wall of comics. Where do they go? Who will want them, given my children have less than no interest? And will they even have any value, given that statistically everyone who, like me, has treasured their signed copy of Watchmen will die within a decade of each other?
Buying some comics from a collection that ended up in a second-hand shop last week, there was also a folder containing full sets of cigarette cards. They were collected once, and widely. Now they’re curios and markers of an era. Will comics be different, or will the fact they have a use – you can read them – mean they still retain value?
I’m amazed that all of you are willing to give up your collections so easily! My plan was always to have mine sealed in with me in a giant pyramid so I could enjoy them for eternity. Of course, that plan disappeared when I sold the collection to finance my divorce….
The three main superhero RPGs of the 80s — Champions, Golden Heroes and Villains & Vigilantes — included illustrations by George Perez, Brian Bolland and Bill Willingham respectively.
I had to deal with getting rid of a 30+ years collection recently. After dealing with 3 existing stores who couldn’t get off their lazy asses to even check it out, my niece’s husband gave me the number of a guy who was just starting out and needed stock to fill his new store. He ended up buying around 75 boxes of comics and books and even bought the dvds and old vhs tapes I still had. I didn’t get rich but I was glad to know they had an opportunity to find new homes.
And none of the comics were in slabs, never to be seen again.
The last two HeroesCons (2023 and 2024) have had panels discussing “estate planning w/r/t your comic book collection.” It’s like the poet said, “the years start coming and they don’t stop coming.”
Saturday March 4th or Sunday 5th?
When the Canadian cartoonist and illustrator Taral Wayne passed away in July, it necessitated a sad scramble by his sister and friends to find storage for his considerable collections. (Taral had been living in a Toronto-subsidised apartment, the terms of which demanded it be vacated quickly.)
Fortunately, according to his longtime friend Marc Schirmeister, “His friends pitched in and moved everything out asap. His life did not end up piled on the sidewalk awaiting the garbage truck. It was saved. All of it.”
I’ve downsized my comic collection a couple of times over the years, so now it’s just the good stuff. I made a provision in my will that it goes to a friend/fellow collector who will know what to sell, what to donate, etc. I don’t want it to be a weird burden for my husband who wouldn’t know what to do with it.
Of course, my friend is only a few years younger than I am, so maybe I should just sell what remains and spend the proceeds (certain to be 10s of dollars!) before we both get to old to lift a longbox.
Sean, I gotta say the Viking longboat sounds very appealing to me.
@ ExistentialMan
For the full effect, you should have Led Zep’s “Immigrant Song” playing on full blast, pointed in the general direction of your Viking longboat pyre while you and your comic collection ascend to Valhalla…
“before we both get to old to lift a longbox.”
There’s good reason I have mine in shortboxes! easier to move, easier to store.
@ Snark Shark
Totally agree–short boxes are the way to go! Also easier to avoid hernias…
Ugh—I have something like fifteen longboxes of comics that were donated to our library stacked up in my office; hopefully I’ll find the time to sort through them before I retire…
Seriously though, those ‘free’ items that you donate to a library or archive take a lot of time (= $$$) to be processed. So please contact the library and make advance arrangements if you plan to leave your collection to them.
(Most libraries will not even want to deal with individual comic issues at all.)