mysterio

This. The dealer rooms are practically superfluous to many mega shows these days. They're definitely superfluous to many of the autograph hounds.

There is a trickle down effect. We're selling a ton to people who've seen the movie and are curious about the source material. 10 years ago I don't think we had a female customer, now a good 1/3 are. We've getting tons of kids and people in their 20s. Most are buying $1 books or cheap sets but there are exceptions. We're also selling to guys who collected in the past and got inspired by the movies and started collecting again. Sure, most of these new buyers will buy a few books and then disappear but some will continue. I started collecting because I found a Fantastic Four 50 in a second hand book store and loved it. That random purchase has influenced my life for 40 years. Getting comics into the hands of curious buyers has and will result in more collectors and I consider these movies and Pop Culture events to be a godsend to the hobby. How long do we wait for the trickle down? The "movie effect" may be working for individual shops, which is indeed fantastic, but if it were working at shows we'd expect to see comic buying expanding. We don't appear to be seeing that. Those occasional purchases of a dollar book aren't flooding Wizard shows with more comic dealers.

Superheroes have gone mainstream, not the hobby of collecting comics. Attendance is up at baseball games too, but that hasn't turned into a glut of card collectors. If the majority of people attending shows, including cosplayers, were there for books then the megashows would be chock full of dealers. The fact that these shows don't typically have many comic dealers reflects the fact that most people attending shows these days aren't there for buying books. They most certainly aren't going to shows to buy books that cost $25 or over. If comic collecting had actually gone mainstream then we might actually see dealer numbers growing instead of shrinking.

Yep, I was also here for the DD #1331.

Five months away!

take it.

Great find!

It is a side effect of the switch to the new board. I've run into this in event threads that I maintain. Even when the post should still be editable it is not.

He may have bought them a little breathing room. Temporary stay. If Dallas is staying in early April then Chicago could move to first weekend in June. I'm not picky.

Ideally in the first or second week of August. Space will open up after Wizard finally goes bankrupt.

Two months away!

Four months away!

Two months away!

Two months away.

Certainly not. Of the WB stars he's the only one I'd want to meet. Hopefully he'll head to Texas or KC soon.

Silicon Valley Comic Con -- April 21-23, 2017 Grant Gustin's first con appearance! Story on Screenrant.

October 21-22 is the weekend. It conflicts with two other shows I'm more likely to attend, so 2017 won't be my lucky year either.

X-Men #150 and Birds of Prey #1 sold via PM.

Thanks for the comments! Regarding the signatures, the pricing was $15 per signature on a comic book, or 25$ (or $35?) if you wanted the signature to be CGC-certified. (I declined that offer.) There were a bunch of large-sized posters which I think cost a bit more per signature. Anyhow, when Steranko finally got around to the signatures, he asked, "Can I sign this to a specific person?" or something like that. I said, "Nah." He said, "Okay." I probably would have paid extra to avoid the personalized touch, if it had come to that. My experience was a few years ago, and at a smaller show, so his prices have likely just gone up. He was free for personalized autos (but I think those were limited), $5 for unpersonalized, and $15 for CGC books. Thanks for the more recent pricing info.

My sample size is limited, as I have only had the pleasure of seeing him at one show, but for $5 he would leave the auto unpersonalized. If you went with the free option then he personalized the book. Seemed fair to me.

Hellblazer lot (25 books between #172-217) -- asking $25 + shipping All generally NM, some better and a few are a touch worse. One book has light moisture rippling at the bottom of the back cover but is perfectly readable. You'll get #172, 184, 192-197, 199-203, 205-211, 213-217.

Sooner or later one of these northern cons during winter is going to bite Wizard in the @ss.

Just saw a prediction of 6-10" of snow for Cleveland through Wednesday, with more rain/snow predicted for Fri/Sat. Definitely not ideal conditions.

X-Men #423 newsstand variant VF/VF+ -- asking $85 + shipping Very nice copy with a bit of spine stress (mainly visible on back cover) and non-color breaking bending. A press may help the eye appeal a bit, but likely wouldn't bump the technical grade significantly. I'll throw in part 2 of the story in #424 as well.