RCheli

They were at the Embassy Suites, just off Michigan, but on the way to Navy Pier. I actually had $10 parking at the lot across from the hotel, but it was still a tough draw. I lost a lot of money on those shows...

People need to stop blaming Leroy -- or any victim -- for what happened. A bad person stole something from him. I wasn't there but I'm sure that Leroy had many helpers and others looking out for his stuff. The thief -- as thieves are wont to do -- found a way around these things, and quickly ran off with a comic during a likely busy and hectic time. He doesn't need to hear how to sell or display his books. He's been doing shows for decades. (Heck, I met him when he did 3 of my shows in Chicago in 2004 and 2005 and he had been setting up all over for a while before that.) He knows what he's doing. What would help the most is that people -- especially those in the Midwest -- be on the lookout for an AF #15 with a bit of a wrap issue and some stress around the top staple.

She was a hoot. I met her several times in the 90s when she and Ramona Fradon did the convention circuit. Severin was a great colorist, a really good cartoonist and caraciturist (that is spelled terribly), and seemed to be a real cut up in the offices of Marvel for many years.

I'm sorry. After the death of my imaginary friend when I was 7, I've never joked or smiled again. It's a curse.

And I just saw Marie Severin passed away as well.

I mean, think about it. Look at most people's collections from the past 30 years. There are a handful of keys and then some semi-keys. And then... How much do you think you could get for some Spectacular Spider-Man issues from the 90s? Other than the Maximum Carnage issues where, maybe, you get $3 each, it's all $1 books. Or X-Man. Or Blue Beetle. Or Justice League. Or whatever. And it's a long process to sell those books. Hot issues sell right away. It's the common ones that just sit there. And you have to bag them. Maybe put boards on them. That's time and money.

HA! You're right! My bad. But I stand by my 50-cent-a-book price as being too high.

There is no way any dealer is going to pay 50 cents a book for a collection of nearly 70,000 non-key comics. Common bronze and copper books sell at shows, but it's a long slog. For a collection of that size, as others have said, you'd be lucky to get $100 a long box and you'll probably be closer to $30. There is just too much unsellable stock out there for anyone to plop $35k on a collection. And even if there is decent stuff in there, the amount of time and work involved is likely overwhelming to most every dealer in the country for it to be worth that price.

I suspect that Ditko was getting decent royalty checks for his work that was being reprinted by Marvel, DC, and other companies. I don't believe he has refused payment for that. His Spider-Man and Dr. Strange stories have been constantly in print over the past few decades, and while it's not huge money and not anywhere near the rate one would get for new pages, it was something.

I dunno. I kind of like it. I'm not going to buy it, but times change, and so does art. I like this a lot more than the art of the mid-90s, that's for sure. And Kirby would not be rolling around in his grave. He was a great supporter of comic artists and their styles. He had his own distinct style, sure, but he certainly didn't think that everyone had to draw like him or draw the characters he helped create the same way.

A lot of my sales to other dealers are them saying, "I have a guy who is looking for this," and he pays you $100 and sells it to his buyer for $100. If you have a long-time customer, you do well by them, and many times that dealer-to-dealer sale has no extra profit involved.

I love the series Dalgoda. Published by Fantagraphics in the late 80s, it had a story by Jan Strnad and art by Dennis Fujitake. It lasted just 8 issues but then came back with a 4-issue mini-series a few years later with an Alan Moore co-feature. It was a futuristic space opera starring an anthropomorphic dog-alien, a son older than his father, romance, you name it. The story holds up pretty well, all things considered, and the art is crisp. I always wanted the artist to do more comics, but after some series here and there, he sort of disappeared. (Strnad wrote, among other things, the very cool Sword of the Atom series with Gil Kane.)

Well, I know very few dealers who only sets up at shows. They have stores, they sell online, etc. But even then, by expanding your client base to anyone with an internet connection, you're still not guaranteed to sell a lot of what you have, even if it's priced well. And it's not always easy to match up, because you don't know who is going to be walking through the door at any one time. I used to have a long-box and a half of romance books that sat unsold for months and months until the one day when two guys walked in and one bought about 30 comics and the other bought the rest. (It was a good show.) So dealers tend to bring some of that stuff time after time, because eventually there will be those customers. Same goes for some books that are good enough to put up on your wall. You paid a good price for the book, and you know it's going to sell. It just may take a while -- regardless if it's at a con or online.

That's true, but you tend to sell a lot more of those books than you do the big ones. Look at your standard one-day comic show -- not these 3/4-day behemoths. In those one-day shows, you may sell only one big book ($250+), a couple between $100 and $250, and a handful between $30 and $100. I can sell a couple of long boxes of $1, $3, and $5 comics. Plus, I'm not carrying around a lot of money in wall books.

Well, I am by no means a big-time dealer, but I'll tell you this. The money is not in the big books, at least as far as profit margin is concerned. For a book you have at $1000 on your wall, you may have paid $800 and will take $900. So while $100 is great and all, you make 12% on that book. (There are exceptions, of course.) The stuff in the boxes, however, is your cash cow. Those books that cost anywhere from $1 to $30 (or whatever) may have cost you a fraction of that. So those $1 and $3 books are all profit. And if you leave a show selling a long-box or two per table of that stuff, you're doing pretty well. And that $1000 book you sold for $900? Well, the next dealer will probably have $1050 on it and happily sell it for $975 (or see that his price point is too high and end up selling it for $900 or $850).

Thanks for the reply. I have numerous pages of OA, but they're all 50s/60s romance art. Some are nice, but they are much more niche than superhero/sci-fi/action stuff that tends to sell well and quickly on eBay. I have some things that I suspect would sell better in Heritage than eBay, but I have no real facts to back that up. (Just middle-age-guy intuition.)

The only time I went to the shop was in 1998. I had been yard sale-ing and I picked up a box of 1960s porn paperback novels. A lot of them had pretty awesome covers. I really wasn't interested in collecting them, so I drove up to the PBC (I was living just outside of Flemington at the time) and traded him the box (which I paid $5 for) for like $100 worth of mid-grade Silver Age Fantastic Fours. Twenty years ago, it bought be me a lot (before everyone was chasing first appearances). The store was on its last legs, but they still had plenty of good stuff.

I'll take the Metamorpho, GI Combat, and DC War lots.

What is everyone's recommendation for online auction for their pieces among the different companies? Between Heritage, ComicLink, Comic Connect, Ebay and others, I just want to know if anyone has had good/bad experience selling (not buying).

Never mind...

Getting to Navy Pier is such a pain in the . The closet El stop is the Red Line Grand stop, which is a 20 minute walk. The Metra station is even further away. There isn't enough parking nearby (and it's expensive). But what the hell do I know?

It is literally 10 minutes from the airport. (Not figuratively... literally.) So you can pop in and out in no time flat. Basement Comics usually sets up as well as a good range of dealers selling loads of 50-cent boxes to high-end silver and (some) gold.

It's a decent show. I set up last time and did well.

I will be there with my one table.

Now $150!