VintageComics

This is the only existing pic of Dave's old store. At the age of 18 he had 3 jobs AND went to school. Would you believe he delivered pizza and chicken while owning a comic book store? Yes, he delivered pizza for the Domino's next door. This is a shot from inside the Photo Viewer.

Who remembers these things?

To give you some insight into my buddy Dave, he used to own a comic book store with his Mother. The store opened in December 1988. It was a 1,000,000 Comix franchise that was run by Gerry Ross. Not going to go down that rabbit hole....you can do your own research as that is a story to itself. Dave is telling me he still has a story to finish about that in a 12 year old thread but he likes to build the suspense.

Nearly 20 years ago, I joined this forum during one of the darkest periods of my life as a release from the stresses of life. My dad passed away in early 2004, 2 weeks later I separated with my wife of 13 years (we were close friends before we got married and are still close friends to this day) and I had a sister pass away in the same year. For whatever reason, things happen and some people just inexplicably connect. I'm very particular who I let into my life but this was a no brainer. We went from being internet friends to being one of my closest confidants. My buddy @davidpg lives in Montreal and I paid him a visit for the 1st time in many years and this thread is a geekfest over the esoteric comics Dave loves to collect. Does anyone even care? ------------------------------ Disclosure: He is not a shill for @Microchip

My bestie @davidpg made a great point. A poor system may even work for a while but it will nEVER work indefinitely in much the same way, you can be a stern, authoritarian parent but as soon as your kids are old enough to escape your rule, you've lost them. Many people can't understand that, but that point is unassailable.

You and I have had great discussions for nearly 20 years, but as a general rule, on this topic I always disagree with you because you tend to take the human nature out of your discussions. Humans LOVE to work. They LOVE to create. They LOVE to produce. We're love to keep busy, be appreciated, be valued for our contributions. We love communities because we're wired that way. Our mental health, physical health, our success, our motivation and inspiration all depend on our human output. You take that way and you destroy society. Don't believe me? There is PLENTY of precedent for this. You've been a dad for years now. How do your children react when you force them to do things they don't want? As a general rule, when you have authoritarian parents, you create mental illness, bitterness, anger, hate, retribution, overless aggressive or overly agreeable behavior (depending on the traumas). There is LITERALLY no redeeming value to having authoritarian parents other than having them obey you by force. The reason top down institution of authority never works is because people don't see what you tell them. They see what you SHOW them, and when you have a society of hypocrites telling people how to act and what to do but don't do those things themselves, you create a very dangerous system that historically has always broken down into devastating consequences. That's what Maoism and Marxism were. They tried to give artificial, unnatural roles to members of society. Each person had their "part" to do, but NOBODY asked for those parts. The result was famine, war and murder and 100s of millions died because of it. And now, people who have no sense of history think it'll be good to try again. Dude, they may push it through and if they do it'll be "for our own benefit" but let's call a spade a spade. This sort of system has NOTHING to do with benefitting you or me. The solution to capitalism MUST be from the bottom up. The people have to be better. That means raising better children. If you raise corrupt or broken families no matter WHICH economic system you're using, it will be corrupt and broken, because IT'S THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE UP THE SYSTEM. Your turn.

I meant the people in the world and probably should have said that. Does that change your reply? I remember you discussing this in detail before. Part agree, part disagree but it depends on a lot of other factors as well. Capitalism will always be the final default, just like it is when communism, socialism and the rest of that stuff fails around the world. It will always be the final default system.

In Hollywood they took an old school, classic Hollywood Cantina on Sunset Blvd and converted it to a promo for this flick. It's been there a while now from what I understand. I'm assuming it's some sort of game like the Pokemon Go fad a few years ago people seem to be holding their cell phone up at the building. I just grabbed this shot from IG. It's absolutely INSANE how much these studios spend on their marketing. They do this sort of stuff all the time, renting out business and shutting them down to do their own events, so they need to pay for the closure of the business AS WELL as all of the marketing work like redesigning the building. They're in another world down there. Considering how much they've spent on this thing it doesn't seem to be too popular. They did the same for "Rise Of The Pink Ladies' earlier this year (The Grease Prequel - I did hear about that show). They literally 'took over' a diner, redecorated the entire thing top to bottom, inside and out (quite literally looked like a different place) and then they cancelled the show. Wonder how much they were out just for that marketing campaign at the Diner that took about 5 days to do? I'd guess $500K+ was thrown away from nothing on that one event. Imagine being able to throw away that much money and not care?

Now you are being silly. You know you have no friends. You wish you were my friend.

Yup. Many of my LA friends are part time actors and they love the work. Those studios throw money around like it's air.

It is, but in comparison, the top QBs in the NFL make more than 3-10 on the list over a 5-year period. People justify QB pay by the amount of money they make for the team, so one could say the above make decisions that make money for the company and shareholders. Crazy amounts of money either way though. It's obscene and it's why I have cut back on everything obscene including sports and Hollywood. Just Johnny Depp that sizzle outta here! "I don't even think about it anymore."

One of the main reasons people DON'T adapt is complacency. And that complacency comes from a lifetime of easy living. If we were to objectively look at it, Americans (and Canadians and UK and most of the democratic West) live in the top percentile of earnings worldwide. We're literally in the top 1-2% in the world in standard of living while the rest of the world lives below the poverty line. The rest of the world has more sickness,death, suffering, poverty, hunger, lower life expectancy. Those people would take these jobs in a heartbeat at any wage. If people realized how good they had it, they'd appreciate and adapt. But we're not used to austerity or struggle anymore, and unfortunately that's the solution to everything at this point in time. A little patience, a little regrouping and rebuilding and you can be back on top.

The rules of the game changed as soon as AI went public. People who are in denial still don't realize what's happening. People who realize what's happening have already adapted. The problem is the information shell game. Almost everyone is a bad actor these days and almost nobody moves forward with honorable intent anymore. You can see it in every aspect of society. I was skeptical growing up. Now I'm convinced that most of the world is corrupt.

They are, but it's impossible to treat a package carefully when there's 100,000 of them on a conveyor belt or in the back of a truck. I think if CGC could provide a better holder they would. I think after 20 years the game is maxed out. The #1 thing is the packaging and shipping. And just thinking about this, but the #2 thing is probably Encapsulation and Quality Control at CGC. If the slabbers are rushing because they're backlogged, they WILL make more errors like either choosing the wrong inner well shells for the book or in assembly, etc. I would bet my bottom dollar that if books are packaged the way we discussed (the Comiclink way) that you wouldn't see NEARLY as many damaged books anymore.

THAT was actually the idea that I proposed to Matt and Harshen. They weren't very keen on the idea but I agree that I think it's a GREAT solution. CGC did have some growing pains over the pandemic, that I know and I will say that my books have been making it to invoicing much quicker since the summer (usually within 2-3 days rather than 1-2 weeks to open a package) and Matt assured me that opening packages in a timely manner is a high priority but that was back in July in SD and we're now 3 months out and I still have the same concerns about theft in warehouses.

Right. I'm saying that people putting all these qualifiers trying to explain the success of the WD doesn't sound valid to me since all of the same arguments COULD apply to MOST comics. I agree it's not a dud, but it just as easily COULD have been. The fact that it isn't a dud is probably more of a testimony to great story telling and right time / right place than good marketing. Good marketing only goes so far and it collapses pretty quickly once the fad passes. I could be wrong but that's how I see it. Happy to change my views with more info.

Doesn't every junk book break out big if it goes viral? It could just as easily have been a dud.

The other stuff is sort of a wash because all other comic books have television shows and movies now as well as video games. The only thing I'd consider is the print run, but then what are print runs of moderns these days? Don't they ALL get print runs of a few 1000 books now? What would a "low" print run book be vs a "high" print run book?

r2020dork.

I'm dovetailing this discussion from an old post which I copied and pasted above. I was unable to discuss this a few months ago because I was banned but I actually have had the discussion with CGC management, a few auction houses and dealers and some collector friends and I think it's a discuss worth having because I think there are some implications that need to be addressed. CGC has asked submitters to mark boxes so that they can be opened in a timely manner. We now KNOW that theft is happening in shipping warehouses across the country as times get tougher. I know SEVERAL boardies who have had things stolen never to be found again. The problem with marking boxes externally is that it makes them stand out like a sore thumb in a pile of unmarked boxes. Worse, if someone is able to decipher the markings it makes them even more susceptible to scrutiny and theft. Just imagine being an unscrupulous person walking through a massive warehouse and seeing some boxes stick out from the rest. The markings are required because CGC can't open the boxes in a timely manner but the box markings designed to help CGC prioritize the boxes is increasing their susceptibility to theft. The real solution would be to get shipping times back on time so that boxes can be shipped unmarked. Does anyone disagree? Am I being paranoid and overthinking it? Discuss.

Gang, I have a discussion that I think is worth having.

The Walking Dead. We had a thread almost a decade ago talking about how that book was dead in the water. Still chugging. Is the show even on TV? I stopped watching mid way through 2017. There are probably others but this one has surprised me.

For the same reason CGC grades vary from book to book. They don't use objective standards. They use subjective standards.

Or a ghost....