n2wdw

The Mother of Dragons Okay, this is cool. I just won this on eBay. The Funko Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons. And signed by Emilia Clarke! New season starts July 16, can't wait.

I'll take it Rick

I got my tickets Actually my 2 daughters were faster on the trigger finger to get into the virtual waiting room. My one daughter got tickets for all 3 of us. I'm actually still in the virtual waiting room. I want to see how long it takes to get in.

Hey Robot - Thanks for visiting my journal, hope you come back often. Big news for me today. Just moments ago, I got tickets for the NYCC. This will be my first visit to that con. To make it more special, 2 of my daughters are going too. They're even more excited than me. It was a group effort getting the tickets. We were all on our computers refreshing our screens seconds up to 8am, to get into the virtual waiting room. My daughters are going for cosplay rather than comics, but it's fun to have this in common with them.

By the way, Betty's pose in B&V Annual 7 reminds me of the classic cover of Betty & Veronica 41.

Comic Shopping After the Local Con As I mentioned, I barely bought any comics at the local con I went to this past Sunday. I picked up a couple Wonder Woman's (1st series) for $5 each, as I'm working on completing the run from #178 (1st new look WW) to #329 (the end of the series). With these 2 comics, I just need 12 more. I also picked up a few comics from the 75 cent and dollar boxes, but just to read; I won't be adding them to my collection. So when I got home I had an itch for comics. I didn't spend my total budget at the con, so after getting home I went on a small online shopping spree. First I won this auction on eBay for Amazing Spider-Man Annual 1. This completes my ASM Annual run. I also picked up 2 of my favorite Betty & Veronica covers. The B&V Annual #7 has writing on the cover but fortunately doesn't interfere with the art. I'm probably in the market for an upgrade though.

That's a nice looking 2.5. I love binder holes. They bring the cost way down but don't detract from the cover art. I bought my Cindy already slabbed, but I think the cover was attached -- that's what the seller told me, and I assume the grade would have been lower if not.

Seriously! I'm glad I got my copy already else Rick is buying all of them

Sure, I'll take the pretty girl fighting the scary robot

sure, I'll take the pretty girl with the ray gun

Another Sunday, Another Annandale Fire Station Con, and my Mid-Life Crisis I went to another local con today. This is the most cons I've gone to in many years. I think it's a function of my kids growing up. Both my wife and I have more time for ourselves. As I mentioned before, I don't go to this con with any specific goals. I find the internet much better for selection, condition and price as far as comics go. If I was collecting runs I'd be all over the $1 and $5 boxes. That's how I used to be. But I've pretty much finished all the titles I want to collect, and I find myself less and less interested with starting any new titles. Part of it is space -- my new comic room in our someday-to-be retirement beach cottage is small. Nowadays, making the decision to expand my collection by even one more long box is a big decision. But also, I don't have the energy or patience to chase after new runs anymore. I'm having fun finishing off collections I've been working on for years (like my Legion of Super-Heroes and Wonder Woman collections), but I don't want to start anything new. I'm no longer a title collector. I collect covers. For some men, their mid-life crisis is a Camaro. For me, its good girl art. At this con, I picked up this poster of the Betty Pages Annual, signed and numbered by the artist Greg Theakston. I also got this Frazetta print. I got the pair for $40. From the same dealer I got this Ann-Margret movie poster (for $25). I'm not a big movie memorabilia collector, but at cons I just go with the flow and pick up what grabs my interest. At the last con, I bought a ton of statues at 50% off from Patriot Comics, and they were displaying toys again at this con. Here's their setup: I bought a few statues (not nearly as much as last time), although my major pick-up was a Space 1999 LP signed by Martin Landau. Also, I got this vintage Easy Bake Oven. I'm really excited about the Easy Bake Oven. I got it for about $35 (with my repeat customer discount) and it's in great shape (it works!). You can buy Easy Bake cake and cookie mixes on Amazon. My wife and kids are excited to play with it. It'll be a fun family thing to do in the summer. Maybe after grilling burgers we'll get together around the table and make Easy Bake cakes for dessert. It might not sound exciting to you, but when your kids get older, you look for anything to get them to spend time with you.

Congrats, what a great book! Sun Girl is on my want list but I have yet to pick any up. I remember a Chicago Comicon a few years ago when I could have picked up nice copies but I thought they were too expensive. Now they'd be cheap at that price.

A pulp and a comic by the same name

Ha!

You take yours, I'll be happy with the under-copy

The Bittersweet Story Of A Grail - Matt Baker's Giant Comics Edition 12 This happened at the ACC Tournament. Not the basketball tourney, or even football, but the ACC swimming tournament. My daughter swims for Georgia Tech and she made finals in the tourney (as a freshman no less!). As my wife and I waited for her event, this auction closed on eBay. It was for Giant Comics Edition 12. For me, THE Matt Baker grail. I entered my max bid before getting to the venue, but because things got behind I was able to watch the seconds tick down on my phone. I was very aggressive with my max bid, because I'd lost on too many GCE 12s before. And, at the end, I ended up winning it. So why is this a bittersweet story? Because within a few weeks, another GCE 12 (this one CGC 3.0) appeared on eBay. Really?! It made me wonder if my aggressive bidding prompted the seller to put his (her?) copy up on eBay. (I might be paranoid, but that doesn't mean everyone's not out to get me!) The 3.0 sold for 16% higher than mine (about $370 more). So, who got the better deal, me or the other guy? Well, it all depends on the grade of my comic, right? So I sent my GCE 12 to CGC. I really liked the bright colors on the cover of my comic, and it had great page quality. Problem was, my comic had a big chunk out of the back cover. And Gloria had written her name on the cover. Could I possible get 3.0, or even just 2.5, with these flaws? Well ... no. As I suspected (and feared), I ended up getting only 1.8. At least it came out blue. So I feel some buyer's remorse over this comic. In time I know that will go away. The only comic buys I've regretted long term are the ones I didn't make. And, even though the grade is only 1.8, I'm happy with this particular comic. The colors are bright and the main focus of the cover -- the girl -- is not marred by the other flaws of the cover. Also, the inside pages are all in good shape. That means I have no urge to upgrade, so I can permanently check this one off my want list.

May the Fourth Be With You So the May 4 joke is getting old. It used to be my kids raced each other to be the first to text "May the 4th be with you" in our family chat, but now they think it's uncool. But still the day is an occasion to display some Star Wars stuff. Here are a few from my collection, and because of recent events I'll focus on Princess Leia. I never thought Carrie Fisher would die so young. What a tragedy. Hopefully everyone else will be with us for a long time.

I don't think you did anything wrong. It's the seller's responsibility to know the value of what she's selling, not the buyers. On the other hand, here's what happened to me one time. This was over 25 years ago. I was dating a girl long distance so driving to her college. Along the way I stopped at a comic store. It was one of those stores that's not well organized, there were piles of comics everywhere, but everything was on sale. On top of 1 pile was Cerebus #1. Even back then Cerebus 1 was worth 100s. I asked the price. The teenage kid minding the store said he didn't know, but he shrugged and said $5. The kid was clearly not the owner, and I was sure the owner knew the value of the comic. I could have walked out of the store with Cerebus #1 for $5, but I knew I couldn't do that so I left the store without the comic. Since then I've managed to get a Cerebus #1, but for way more than $5. The difference between my story and yours, was you were dealing directly with the owner, and I wasn't.

AF15 is also on my want list, but also out of my price range. What kind of condition was the one you were going for?

"Arched Back" GGA - Jungle Comics 75 In his thread, @Robot Man recently posted books in his collection that fit the "girl chained to a wheel" theme. I got a kick out of that because I have that same folder on my computer. I drop scans of all my comics in the "My Comics" folder. But, I also have folders covering different themes I collect, and "Bondage Tied to Wheel" is one of them. I find that having these folders help me focus my collecting. If I'm thinking about buying a comic, I ask myself "which theme will this comic fit into?" It's a strike against the book if it doesn't fit into any of the themes. It doesn't mean I won't buy it, but it's less likely. Some of the themes I collect are pretty standard for GGA collectors, like "headlights" and "humor." Books often fit into more than one theme, like both "girl chained to a wheel" and "damsel in distress." Two of my other themes are "hands tied above head" and "arched back." You might be thinking "Is this guy serious? Does he really collect around these themes?" But you don't have to collect comics for too long before you see these poses cropping up on covers again and again. And many of them are considered classic GGA covers. Recently I picked up Jungle Comics 75 that fits the "arched back" theme. Another one is Planet Comics 30. (Planet 30 also goes into my "classic GGA" folder). As I mentioned before, I really enjoy looking at the house ads of Fiction House books. Below is the house ad for Jungle 75. It shows 2 of my favorite Fictions, Fight 43 and Rangers 28. Both go in the "damsels in distress" theme, which catches a big part of my GA GGA collection, along with "GGA humor."

Here are the books I won:

Comic-Link and Cerebus As I watched the Caps win, then lose, then win their playoff game with the Penguins last night, I was also monitoring my bids on C-Link. This month included a number of early high grade Cerebus. I have the entire series in raw, and I'm trying to put together a somewhat high grade collection of 2-20. My #1 is CGC 8.5 and I have no plans to upgrade. For 2-20 I'd like to target at least 9.4. I had hopes of picking up some 9.8s in the auction. I especially wanted to win #6, as that's the first appearance of Jaka and the first CGC 9.8 I've ever seen. But bidding was stronger than I expected. #6, the Jaka issue, closed at $351 -- my max bid was $250 so I wasn't even close. In fact I didn't win any 9.8s, with the closing bids twice my max bids for most of them. I did manage to pick up two 9.6s (#14 and 18). I bowed out of the bidding for #9 CGC 9.8 (it closed at -- egad! -- $245) and switched my attention to the CGC 9.4, which I won for $16 (!). In fact, I won the #18 CGC 9.6 for only $21. So other than the 9.8s the bidding was soft. Still, I'm happy to pick up other people's undercopies.