mysterio

Thanks for stopping by the booth and saying hello, glad to see you and @comicquant (and @Batmanderson as well?). I was also glad to meet @spideyfan68 and get to chat for a bit. As usual, @ComicBooksDallas put on a tremendous show, and the guest list was the best I can remember in Dallas (YMMV, but for a copper guy like me it gathered a lot of creators that I either hadn't seen, hadn't seen in a long while, or really wanted to see again). The charges for autographs did limit what I got signed by some of the creators (generally everyone was $5 an autograph, save for Hama [first two free], Erwin, and Shooter). I don't mind paying, and I know they need to make money for their time, but even one freebie would have been nice. Their lines were quite long most of Saturday, but thinned out considerably towards the end of the show Saturday and were pretty short Sunday. All the creators were great! The biggest "complaint" that I had was Jim Shooter's line, and it only moved slowly because he was taking a lot of time with each fan to tell stories and share anecdotes. All that time and he was constantly at his table and signing for free. Just tremendous! There were a variety of comic dealers at the show and plenty of good books in the room. I always forget to take wall pics, but I do have one below of our own wall (shameless plug). Aside from what we had available, just about every major SA key was in the room (@Dork Buzz certainly brought the heat in his booth) and a pair of guys who were down from Tulsa (I'm sorry I forgot their names) had books like Showcase #8, Jimmy Olsen #1, Lois Lane #1, and other heavy hitters. I picked up some really nice stuff from them at a good deal. I hadn't planned to spend much money at this show, but quickly threw that idea out the window. My favorite pickup from the show was the pre-done sketch of the Black Cat done by Milgrom pictured below. I had really hoped to get a piece of art from him for my growing sketch collection and that was perfect (he had an amazing Dr. Doom head sketch I almost bought too). Randy Emberlin did a quick Spidey head sketch on a reproduction ASM #363 cover that I've had, he's a great guy you should definitely hit up if you ever see him at a show. The one issue that needed to be raised about the show was the size of the booths. They were 8 x 8, rather than the pretty standard 10 x 10, which made booth setup and navigation behind the table a fair bit more difficult than it needed to be. Hopefully that will be reconsidered for the next show. It didn't ruin the weekend by any stretch, but it did cramp our logistics (and I doubt that we are the only ones). Overall this show was a great warmup for Planet coming up this weekend! I'm very glad I caved and flew down for it.

Just to put this to rest, Starlin signed a bunch of books for CGC SS this weekend. I am sure @Dork Buzz can weigh in on just how slammed they were this weekend, with a significant chunk of that business including Starlin.

+1 on all of this edited post.

Weather is back to looking good...

Great, hope to see you guys at the show! Make sure he brings his Spawn list, we’ll have plenty.

That sucks. Hopefully you hadn’t already moved the “undercopy”. I did that once, never again. Rule 1 of upgrading books is now to make sure I’ve actually done so.

It was great meeting you too! Excellent report, I’ll add my own after I get home so I don’t have to peck it out on my phone.

How in the world does a 9.8 drop to a 9.0??

Just landed, really excited for tomorrow!

Weather is not changing for the better. Saturday’s looking sketchy

Run, don't walk.

This room looks like it smells like cigarettes, cats, dirty hair, and desperation. I really don't know how you guys do this stuff. After seeing the memefest I had to pan back to see what photo this quote referred to. Compared to some of the places I have looked at collections in, this room looks like a surgical suite.

Me Too seems to be 1 in every other collection I buy . Davidking623 Yeah, but try to find the last issue.

Yeah, the CGC label claims Annual #6 as his first appearance but it is just a pinup in the back of the book. It's an early pinup of X-Force pre #99-100, so that may have some value to some. At this point I don't care too much between the Annual #6/#99 debate except for the fact that I had two copies of the former to sell. It is probably a "cameo/first full" debate, yet again, but to my mind a pinup is pretty weak as it is non-story. YMMV.

New Mutants Annual #6 is seeing some interest due to the speculation about Shatterstar in the Deadpool 2 trailer. I've sold two copies in the last 12 hours, VF for $8.50 and NM- for $10.50. Not huge money, but I'll take it for books I couldn't sell for $1 last week.

At least Friday snow would miss load in, and hopefully that Sunday rain chance will disappear.

I agree. IMO, the first one should NOT be a 9.8 and I would NOT be happy owning it. Make it three. I have won 9.8s in auctions that looked like the first book and have either sold them off or been bitter about them ever since. For a while I was working on a SS collection of ASM, and often bought cheap 9.8s of non-key books to crack and get signed. I would never have cracked the first book since I would be 100% certain it would drop upon a resub. I also doubt that the spine stress is a matter of paper memory reestablishing itself in the slab. Color breaking stress aren't affected by a press, and color breaks should not emerge as a product of paper memory. Color breaking stress were either there, or happened during handling in Sarasota.

Checked in for tomorrow's flight! Hope to see a bunch of people at the show Saturday!

Saturday is showing up on my 10 day forecast now, still looking good.

Generally everything I win is for my collection, so I’d rather save the 3%. It can really add up!

I would second this, they have great customer service. If you call them they can tell you when you should be able to expect your package to ship.

I'm curious whether they are booked at another show Saturday only, but I am too lazy to check.

On the weather front, it’s looking like highs in the 40s and no precip on Thur-Fri at least. Let’s hope that’s the case all weekend.

I'll say up front that I don't know what his individual signing rates are, but I would suggest that you plan to pay at least something any time you get a book signed for CGC. Generally pros are charging between $5-20 a book that is getting witnessed these days, and if you have that assumption going in you won't be caught off guard. If he is free then that is a bonus. I'd also urge everyone to be honest if you are having a book witnessed. This is not a shot at you or anyone in particular, but attempting a stealth witnessing has the potential to alienate pros from the program and hurt the long-term ability to get some of these guys. Don't risk angering someone over $10.