retailing

Next time, it’ll just be a picture of me doing fingerguns.

filed under Categories retailing 6 Comments

1. Thanks to everyone who helped support us in the wake of this really quite annoying act of vandalism…it means quite a lot to us. And our new window should be installed today!

2. I’m beginning to get inquiries for our Retailer Edition of Valiant’s Armor Hunters…it seems only about 45 retailers reached the order plateau to receive the personalized covers, and some folks are trying to get all of them. …After looking at the others, I suppose I should have put a wee bit more effort into ours, but it has Seth’s name and Ralph’s cool logo by pal Tom, along with the website address and the all-important “since 1980” so I guess it’s okay. But it was literally like “hey, we need the art in a day or two” and I was all “(gulp) oh, yeah, art” and I had nuthin’. Next time, I’ll have something fancier ready to go!

3. So I finally got to the Steve Ditko “Killjoy” back-ups in my E-Man reading. Those comics may be the best thing I’ve read all year.

The Shattered Ponies of Sethergarde.

filed under Categories retailing 5 Comments


So these were the windows in the left side of our storefront, prior to the events of Saturday evening/Sunday morning. Tristan, one of our customers, painted this silly mash-up illustration for us, quite possibly with the sole instruction of “make it as amazingly nerdy as possible,” and lo, he did succeed.

That window painting had been up there for a while, and granted, it was about time for a change, but “having someone smash out half of it” wasn’t really the impetus we were looking for.

For the most part, reaction was positive to it; most of our customers were amused, or bemused, by it, and there was even a mostly-positive Reddit thread about it, of all things. But there were those people who just plain objected to having My Little Ponies in the shop windows. One person even told us “sorry about the windows, but I’m glad that My Little Pony mural is gone,” and, well, that’s tact for you.

Here’s a very good reason for having My Little Pony characters in the window: it got a lot of attention, and attracted a lot of new customers. Parents coming in with their children who specifically cited that painting as the reason they stopped by. Folks who saw pics of the window online and wanted to come by and see the shop in person. That painting Got People Into The Store, and you know I think that’s important because I even capitalized the preposition.

And besides, it’s not like we’re any stranger to weird window paintings, like these examples by our pal Randy Martinez:


Anyway, right now we’ve got big ol’ wooden boards where our window used to be, and hopefully by Tuesday or Wednesday we’ll have our new and (gulp) expensive window in place, and then it’ll be time for a new mural! I thinking something everyone will be sure to love, something action-packed, like Sluggo and Swamp Thing arm-wrestling. That’ll bring in the crowds.

I also wanted to say thanks to the folks who generously responded to my request to pick up some goodies from our listings on eBay and Amazon, and even the few folks who called me up at the store (805-653-2732) to have me track down some items. Please feel free to continue to do so…every little bit helps! (I won’t be in Monday, hopefully, barring any more surprises, but I’ll be back in the shop on Tuesday.)

Again, thank you for the sympathetic response to this completely pointless inconvenience visited upon us. I’ll be back soon to talk about comics instead of just picking at this scab, I promise.

So much for a relaxing Easter.

filed under Categories idiots, retailing 7 Comments

windowbust

Well, someone overnight decided to bust one of our big windows in the front of the store, which is going to set us back a pretty penny…on top of some recent big Diamond invoices and other large expenses, this is almost a bridge too far, here.

So now would be a good time to take a look at our eBay listings, our Amazon listings, or just straight up call me at 805-XXX-XXXX [EDIT: links and phone number removed — the old store is closed] after noon today and order something.

I’m not terribly happy at the moment.

revised 1/2025

Gang of street toughs closely stalking the Black Cat, or promo image for a new wave band?

filed under Categories collecting, retailing 6 Comments

…or, possibly, both:


Anyway, that’s not what I originally planned this post to be about. This image was taken from Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man #90, cover-dated May 1984, and is notable primarily for being one of the first appearances of Spidey’s then-new black costume.

The subject came to mind when, on our store’s Facebook page, a customer questioned an assertion I made on our regular website that Amazing Spider-Man #252 was the black costume’s first appearance. “Isn’t it Secret Wars #8?” he wondered, and I explained that even though Spider-Man is shown first receiving the costume in SW #8, that is actually a good seven months or so after the costume made its debut in ASM.

However, even that’s apparently not cut ‘n’ dried, since in Overstreet it’s noted that ASM #252, the aforementioned Peter Parker #90, and Marvel Team-Up #141 are “tied” (Overstreet’s terminology) for the costume’s first appearance.

Today’s Marvel is more than happy to crank out four or five or six Avengers or X-Men titles the same week, but it was my memory that wasn’t Marvel’s habit way back when, when all these comics were hitting the stands. So it had me wondering, even though they’re all cover-dated May 1984, did they all come out the same week, or on succeeding weeks, and which one was first?

Alas, though our store was open then, those invoices/cycle sheets/what-have-yous were discarded long ago. A little Googling finds some discussion (like this example), based mostly on “I-was-there” memories, plus additional blurring of the costume’s history with the inclusion of prior promo pieces from Marvel’s news/interviews comic Marvel Age and elsewhere.

A mention of Amazing Heroes #39 as a possible “first appearance” of the costume (speaking of blurring the lines) reminded me of a feature of Amazing Heroes, the “Coming Distractions” section, which would list all the new releases for that month, including specific release dates. Thus, I pulled out #40, the issue with the relevant information, out of the Vast Mikester Comic Archives, and here is what it says:

Amazing Spider-Man – “ships 1/10, newsstand o/s 1/31”

Marvel Team-Up #141 – “ships 1/24, newsstand o/s 1/14” [typo – supposed to be 2/14…see below]

Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man #90 – “ships 1/24, newsstand o/s 2/14”

And, yes, of course there’s that typo in the Marvel Team-Up listing, confusing things. But it’s certainly a typo: every other comic with a ship date of 1/24 is listed as being on sale on newsstands February 14th. (Both December 24, 1983 and January 14, 1984 would have been Saturdays, whereas every other date listed is on a Tuesday. In addition, no other book with a December shipping date is noted, so the 1/24 date doesn’t seem to be a typo.)

According to the information provided by Marvel, Amazing Spider-Man #252 was at least planned to ship out at least two weeks before the other books, making this the first in-story appearance of the black costume. This is of course assuming things worked out the way they should have. Shipments could have been delayed, books might have been late, etc. etc., so it is within the realm of possibility that some of the books may have been released, at least in some locales, simultaneously.

And then there’s the fact comic shops in the direct sales market received their books weeks prior to newsstands. I wasn’t on the business side of the counter in those days, but my memory is that direct shipping of new books wasn’t quite the exact science it is today, he said half-sarcastically, so again, it’s possible that even if the books stuck to Marvel’s schedule, who knows what order they showed up in which comic book stores.

On top of that, there was the usual speculation/hoarding shenanigans that turn up whenever something in the comic market smells like it could be “hot,” so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if some people remember seeing Marvel Team-Up #141 before Amazing #252, since all the 252s were immediately scooped up, bagged, boarded, and thrown in boxes marked “DO NOT OPEN ‘TIL EBAY.” And even beyond that, the disparity between new arrivals in comic shops and new arrivals on newsstands could have meant people spotting the latter Spidey books at their comic shops before seeing #252 pop up at the local 7-11.

Anyway, I wish I knew back then I’d be writing this blog today, so that I’d have taken better notes. As it is, at the time I did buy Amazing Spider-Man #252, from a newsstand no less, because I was semi-collecting that series anyway. I don’t recall when those other Spider-Man comics in question came out in relation to 252, since I wasn’t reading those at the time and didn’t pay any attention.

I was also going to discuss whether or not Web of Spider-Man #18 should be considered the actual first appearance of Venom, but I think we’ve all had quite enough of this sort of talk today. (And if you say ASM #252 is his first appearance, I’m gonna pop you in the nose.)
 
 

image from Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man #90 (May 1984) by Al Milgrom and Jim Mooney

Oddly, not all that much demand for Deathlok.

filed under Categories collecting, retailing 4 Comments

So I recently acquired a few of these Whitman comic book three-packs (still sealed!), and this particular one has something I’ve never seen before:


…two copies of the same comic! That’s Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids #25 (from June 1978) on the front there, there’s a copy of Woody Woodpecker #168 on the other, and, in the middle, another copy of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids #25, espied by me by carefully separating the comics while still inside the polybag. Well, I don’t know about you, but if I shilled out my 99 cents and got two of the same funnybook for my troubles, I would have been a tad miffed.

I don’t know how common an error this was, as at the time these were in stores, I wasn’t going around from toy store to department store carefully examining each three-pack and doing a little amateur quality control. It was more like “MOM! Can I have this pack of Star Wars comics?” and the depth of my examination was mostly restricted to “do I already own the outer two comics visible in this package?”

Anyway, none of the comics in any of these pre-packed bags are in particularly high demand…I mean, there’s some demand for cartoon comics like Fat Albert, but the packs themselves as is will sell more quickly for us as novelty items than waiting for collectors to request the specific issues therein.

Of course, that’s not always the case. There are a handful of issues from various series that were only distributed via the Whitman three-packs and not as a racked single issue, most famously (and expensively) Uncle Scrooge #179. A copy we had about — oh, ten years ago, maybe? — sold in the $300 range on eBay, and it was around a Very Good to Fine copy, if I remember correctly.

Speaking of collectability and also awkward transitions, I’ve started to have some inquiries into the first issue of Preacher, a comic that long ago stopped having any back issue demand since the primary way anyone wants this series now is via the trade paperback/hardcover editions. Which is fine, I sell plenty of Preacher books, which has more than made up for any dead Preacher backstock we’ve had sittin’ around, but now that people are getting wind of a television adaptation, I’d better dust off that section of the back issue bins for the brief period of time that they’ll be sought after again.

Plus, the return of Doomsday is resulting in multiple requests for Superman: The Man of Steel #17 (Doomsday’s first appearance) and #18 (the start of the “Death of Superman” story). I assume that’s what’s causing it, and not some spontaneous uprising of Doomsday nostalgia. Or maybe he’s in that Batman/Superman movie and I haven’t heard about it? I mean, everyone else is, so why not.

I’m also looking forward to the eventual revival of interest in Heroes comics and merchandise. I mean, all you folks loved Heroes, right?

I have never spoken of Conan sales before. I have no tongue for it.

filed under Categories conan, retailing 12 Comments

Señor Editor (who will always be “Professor Booty” in my heart of hearts) asks:

“Mike, how do Conan comics sell at your shop? That might be a weird thing to wonder about but I’ve been re-purchasing old Marvel Conan’s I used to own, as well as getting the new Dark Horse stuff. I like a lot of it, and I liked the recent ‘…and the People of the Dark Circle’ Conan miniseries a lot. Seems like Conan will be one of the more popular franchises Dark Horse has the rights to, once Star Wars is out of their hands. Do Conan comics sell well?”

Conan has always done fairly well at our shop, even during that weird period in the ’90s after Marvel ended their long-running Conan the Barbarian series and had like a dozen Conan minis and short-run series. They weren’t top sellers by any means, but they were solid sellers off the racks.

The Dark Horse Conan comics have also been regular, if not spectacular, sellers, with a dependable sales record that hasn’t seemed to fluctuate much over the years. That sounds like I’m damning with faint praise, but believe you me, in the current comics market I’ll take “consistent low-to-mid-range seller” over “spiraling into nothingness” (cough) iron man (cough).

As for taking over as Dark Horse’s Premiere Franchise after Star Wars is in the grips of Marvel/Disney’s tender mercies, well…maybe. I’m not certain. Star Wars has had its success at Dark Horse mostly because, despite the large number of SW books, not every fan felt obligated to buy every series. The franchise was wide enough to include a variety of titles with different settings and characters and timelines and so on, appealing to different levels of SW commitment. The people who are buying the current Darth Vader mini aren’t necessarily the same people who are buying the Legacy series set a century or so later after Return of the Jedi. Even the folks that have “ALL STAR WARS” on their comic saver lists at our shop usually have a list of exceptions after that notation.

Conan, on the other hand, doesn’t quite have that wide a range of readership that I’ve noticed. Whereas you can publish a bunch of SW books at once and not burn out their followers, since they’re not going to buy every series anyway, pretty much every Conan series will be bought and read by the same people. Conan doesn’t appear to have the same range of settings and characters that the SW comics do…I mean, by definition, they all star Conan. Sometimes Young-ish Barbarian Conan, sometimes older King Conan, maybe other Conans I don’t know about. But the readership mostly overlaps on all the Conan titles…you put out one Conan a month, they all buy it. Two Conans, they’ll buy both. Three Conans, they’ll probably buy all three.

And that’s probably pushing the limit right there. If you keep pulling more and more money out of the fans’ pockets every month by basically making them dish out to keep up with their franchise of choice, they’re either just going to cut back to just the main “flagship” title or just give up altogether out of frustration and economic necessity (Cf. The Avengers). There is a ceiling on Conan franchise expansion that is much lower than on the Star Wars franchise, so unless there’s suddenly an upswing in Conan popularity in culture at large (and there have been a handful of mostly failed attempts at it over the last few years), that ceiling isn’t going up any time soon.

This is all based on our local market conditions, of course, Maybe Conan is the biggest thing ever in, I don’t know, Fairfax, VA, and their incredibly high demand for Conan product is balancing out our mostly moribund demand.

Of course, new comic sales aren’t the extent of it. I do good business in Dark Horse’s trade paperbacks, primarily the books that reprint Marvel’s old material (the Chronicles of Conan volumes, and those big ol’ Savage Sword phone books reprinting the magazines). The actual original Marvel comics do well, too…not just the early Barry Windsor-Smith issues, which are sought out not just by Conan fans but by “Bronze Age” comic collectors seeking “keys,” but the later ’70s/early ’80s runs as well. Savage Sword of Conan mags move regularly, even the Conan Sagas reprinting old SSoC sell. This isn’t so much from new readers to Conan (though there are some!) but from older nostalgic fans buying up old Conans to enjoy again (or read for the first time, if they missed an issue or three back in the old days).

There doesn’t seem to be much overlap between the two audiences…the Venn diagram of “folks what are buying the new Dark Horse stuff” and “folks buying the Marvel stuff, via either back issues or reprints” would be a slim area connecting the two circles (and would include Señor Editor, whose question kicked off all this yakkity-yakking of mine). But at least there is still a market for our barbarian friend, even after all these years.

I want to believe…in secondary market values on comics from the 1990s.

filed under Categories market crash, pal plugging, retailing 3 Comments


So when Topps Comics released The X-Files #1 in the mid-1990s, about a year or so after the TV show’s debut, the demand for the comic caught us a bit by surprise. We ordered what we thought was a good number, considering the industry was well into its market crash at this point, but this was one of those comics that caught folks by surprise by managing to bring non-comic readers into shops. We sold out in short order, and proceeded to field requests the rest of the week from people looking for copies of that first issue, while thinking the whole time “if only we knew” which you can never really know for certain, really.

The upshot of all this is that X-Files became a “hot” item in a business where “hot” items were a pretty significant factor in almost destroying said business just a year or two earlier. And you can see a good example of just how “hot” it was if you cast your peepers back to the scan above and the price sticker visible therein.

That issue was among the many, many comics that came with this collection, and was one of the books that survived the sorting process as I worked through the boxes, throwing some into the bargain boxes and keeping some aside for potential use in the regular stock, or on the eBay. I haven’t dealt much with the old Topps run of X-Files…people poke through its slot in the back issue boxes once in a while, but it’s not like I’ve had a lot of demand of the series lately, even with a new series being released from IDW. At any rate, I’ve not really thought about the prices on this series in some time, and spotting the #1 in this collection, I pulled it aside thinking it was, if no longer at the $55 price it had been marked, surely it was probably still worth something.

Well, nope, not really.

A quick search of the eBay shows lots of the first three, four or five issues (including the first printing of #1, like the one I have from that collection) usually only sell for about five to ten bucks. The #1 by itself sold for as cheaply as $2, and I found one that sold for nearly eight bucks, which is more the exception than the rule, it seems. (A “slabbed” copy of #1, signed the stars of the TV series, sold for about $400, so I guess there’s that.) There are copies currently listed in the $10 – $15 range, but unless someone’s desperate to get a copy, they’re probably not going anywhere fast.

And I didn’t go back to double-check, because I’ve looked at eBay enough today, but my impression was that there were many attempts to sell the serial-numbered second printings as some kind of special big-deal thing, but no one cares too much about those, either.

The “too long, didn’t read” version: some formerly-hot comics don’t sell for what they used to anymore, which I’m sure comes as a surprise to everyone. And yet, even with this knowledge, I still don’t want to just dump this comic in the bargain bin. The days of getting $55 for this comic are long gone, but I might be able to get $5, maybe, if I’m lucky.

• • •

In other news:

  • The other day, when I mentioned how I thought a new Legion of Super-Heroes series would be best served by making the focus one character, with the rest of the cast as occasional supporting characters? Jer asked which one, and Casey in the comments suggested “Brainiac 5,” which actually was my suggestion, too, when I previously brought up the topic.

    Still think that’s a good idea. The team book version of Legion is not one people seem to want anymore, or at least no one’s hit on a version of the Legion that really does anything for anybody. There’s going to be another Legion book sooner or later, and it can’t hurt to try something different…I mean, what, you might end up with another dead Legion book if the idea doesn’t pan out? Or maybe you might have something that has a little staying power? What’s to lose, really? Other than money, creative efforts, market value of a DC property which has been adversely affected by yet another cancellation, so on?

  • Back to that collection: Wayne asks if we have to inventory all the toys that came with this collection. In this case…no, not really. Our perusal of the toys, an informal inventory, revealed a handful of figures sans accessories that we might be able to sell for a couple of bucks each. Haven’t really made the time or space to price these things up and put ’em out for sale…they’re low cost, low priority items, which we got essentially for free, and we haven’t really dealt with them yet because there are always other things occupying our time at the shop. The investment in this collection, aside from employee costs in processing and space taken up by storing the boxes, is minimal.

    Having looked more closely at the toys, we’ll probably keep a handful of the usable stuff and dump the rest, either in the trash or in an eBay auction titled “BIG BOX OF CRAP – cheap! L@@K H@T” just to get it all out of my hair. Even the box of little accessories probably isn’t worth the trouble or mess, and may go on the eBay too. Someday. When I have the time.

  • Pal Dave is starting a new feature on his site: “I Had That!” Nostalgia ahoy from one of the best comic/pop culture bloggers out there.

“Ebon-Isz and Ivor-Isz / Live together in perfect harmon-Isz”

filed under Categories misfit toys, retailing 9 Comments

So let’s gaze long into this abyss:


…which is just one of the boxes recently donated to our shop last week…the remnants of what was once another comic book store’s stock. The previous owners tired of these multiple boxes of comics and toys occupying space in their storage, and thus they now occupy space in our storage.

Well, okay, not all of the boxes. The acquisition of any large collection usually results in a small percentage of the received items being desirable, usable items, and the greater portion mostly being stuff like this. The jury is still out on how much of this collection will be of use to us, since we’re still going through it. My first pass through resulted in about half of the comics going straight to the bargain bins — so long, Brigade! — while we’re still going through the other half which is just on the threshold of possibly being sellable items. It’s mostly late ’80s – mid ’90s material, but there are plenty of Valiant titles, Amazing Spider-Man issues, some Deadpool, and other goodies that are in enough demand to warrant some double-checking prior to consigning them to bargain-box purgatory.

That’s just the comics. The toys, on the other hand, were packed haphazardly into a handful of beaten-up cardboard boxes, and if they were intended for sale before, the condition they’re in now make most of them pretty much useless. I half-suspect some rough playing with the toys occurred after the removal from the store, because there sure are a lot of limbless and otherwise busted figures in there.

But then again, that particular box pictured above was marked “ACTION FIGURE ACCESSORIES – $0.25 EACH” so maybe they just had a bunch of used toys they were trying to unload for anything, and now I guess it’s my turn. I briefly though about trying to match up some of the bits ‘n’ pieces in that cardboard box with the action figures in the other boxes, but I’m too close to death to use up my precious remaining minutes doing that.

The box did contain a few of these fellas:


…the Iszs or Iszes or Iszeseses or whatever from The Maxx, presented here in 1 1/4-inch tall bendable-arms form. These had originally been packaged with Maxx action figures, but I didn’t see any of those in the boxes. Apparently there was a bag of Isz figurines once available from the McFarlane Toys fan club, so maybe that’s where they all came from.

Also in the box was a canister of this stuff:


…and since the picture is a bit blurry, thanks to my fantastic camera skills, I shall read the label to you, which says “ALIENS OOZE PLAY GEL – slimy ooze traps unsuspecting prey!” Sadly, this item dates from 1994, and a perusal of the gel within:


…shows us that its slimy days of trapping unsuspecting prey are long behind it. Maybe you can bean your prey upside the head by tossing that hard-rubbery lump at it.

As long as I’ve got your attention, it occurs to me that it’s been a long time since I’ve trolled any of you. So…


…there you go.

Like I said, we’re still digging through these boxes, so I may yet find more goodies of interest to show you. Like this Image Comics editorial preview package from 1995:


…which should prove to be equal parts nostalgic, hilarious, and depressing, so let’s all look forward (or backward!) to that.

You can probably tell that my monthly comic distributor orders are due tomorrow.

filed under Categories retailing 9 Comments

So a few years back I wrote this little piece about the Flash series publishing shenanigans, in which what appeared to be a relaunched Flash ongoing series ended up secretly being a mini-series, which was supplanted by a continuation of the previous Flash series that this new “ongoing” series supposedly replaced. The upshot of all that was, had I known it was going to be a mini-series, I would have ordered it as such, rather than ordering it as a supposed ongoing series with the potential for a longer back issue sales life.

Boy, times have changed. The announcement that Superman Unchained is ending — another huge launch that maybe I would have ordered lower numbers on had I realized it was going to be a nine-issue mini-series — reminded me that for most of my new comics orders, I’m ordering with the assumption that (in DC’s case) the title will probably be cancelled soon, or (in Marvel’s case) the series will be relaunched with a new #1. I’m not ordering with the assumption that there will be a long-standing interest in back issue sales on most titles.

That’s the really super-cynical way of looking at it, I realize, and I’m exaggerating to some extent. But a lot of these relaunches and re-relaunches and ridiculous numbering schemes aren’t helping any. That recent Avengers comic that was actually #24 but tried to kick off a soft-relaunch by emphasizing the beginning of a brand new storyline with big ol’ “#1” on the cover? I actually sold less of those than I did of previous issues. But I did bump my orders up slightly because I thought maybe sales would go up a bit, so Marvel got more money out of me, therefore this was a success for them, I guess.

But for a lot of these new Marvel relaunches I’m not ordering much more than what I’m already selling. Judging by Marvel’s…enthusiastic sales plateaus for the multiple variants they’re offering, it looks like they want me to order a lot more than what I have been, but I don’t see how a new Secret Avengers #1 is going to sell any more than the current Secret Avengers series which just debuted a few months ago. I did sell more of the recent Thunderbolts issue that brought in Ghost Rider, because people like Ghost Rider, but I don’t know if this new Ghost Rider series is going to sell. I can already hear the complaints: “This doesn’t look like Ghost Rider!” “Who’s this new guy? Where’s Johnny Blaze/Danny Ketch?”

I’ve said before we do good business in back issue sales. Even early issues of most of DC’s New 52 titles still move, so long as those titles are still producing new installments. So long as any of the titles on the stands are producing new installments, I can usually move the back issues for that series. But the likelihood of any title maintaining a continuity of issue-numbering, thus also maintaining that stretch of increased back issue demand, is rapidly decreasing, and I am ordering accordingly. A few comics I still order with the expectation that they’ll sell in the back issue bins, but those are increasingly the exception.

Anyway, I don’t have any terribly deep insights here…just letting my mind wander about on how the industry has changed so much. Not that pursuing short-term profits over long-term growth is anything new for comics, but I don’t recall it ever being so obvious. Well, maybe during the ’90s boom, but there was actual money to be made then, and not the pennies everyone’s chasing after now.

So we’ve pretty much cornered the local market on San Francisco Comic Book #5.

filed under Categories retailing, undergrounds 1 Comment

A few days back, a gentleman popped by the shop with a small handful of undergrounds…a couple copies each of Zap #9 and #10, three San Francisco Comic Book #5s, one or two other items. Some of them weren’t in great shape, but I always have demand for undergrounds, Zaps in particular, so I was willing to dole out a small bit of money even for the somewhat water-damaged copies. …Some of which, by the way, I was able to turn around and sell later that afternoon.

Anyway, after purchasing the comics from this person, he tells us that he has a few hundred more comics of similar vintage back home if we were interested. “Why sure!” we replied, and a day or two later the rest of his collection was in our possession.

And when he said he had a few hundred more, we didn’t realize that a couple hundred of those would be more copies of San Francisco Comic Book #5:


Well, okay, I exaggerate slightly, but that was a pretty sizable pile of SFCB, as I’m going to call it instead of typing that out again. There was also a nice stack of Zaps, such as these #9s:


…which, as you can probably see, are a little worse for wear, but I’m sure we can sell them. As Ralph (remember Ralph? This is a song about Ralph), owner of the Old Comics part of our business, put it, “everyone looking for undergrounds asks for Zaps. And almost everyone asks for Freak Brothers,” which, alas, this collection did not contain. But, yes, Zaps are the single most requested underground at the shop. For a while there, we had some very nice copies of assorted Zap issues going for some premium prices, but the vast majority of people asking for these aren’t looking for collectibility‎ or investment…they just want to read the darn things, and a bunch of “affordable” copies are exactly what we can use.

There were other Zaps in the collection…again, multiple copies of them, in varying conditions, mostly from the middle of the run. There were various other undergrounds, plus a bunch of more mainstream comics from the ’80s and very early ’90s that filled out the boxes, generally fairly common stuff in worn condition, thrown into the deal after we paid actual money for the stuff we could use. Nothing terribly exciting, save for a beat copy of an issue of Infinity Gauntlet that we gave to a customer gratis so he could complete his run and read the series.

Not quite on the scale of the immense collection of undergrounds we acquired a few years back (that we’re still going through, when we find the time), but it’s always nice to recover books like these from wherever they were being hidden, and getting them into the hands of more people who can appreciate them.