AndyFish

Well I've got to say I understand your pain. But I know for me personally I stopped all international sales on eBay for quite some time because of the hassles that would occur almost always to Europe. A good friend who sells a lot more than I do convinced me to try GSP and it took care of every problem I ever had. No more emails asking where the package is (despite provided tracking) no more lost packages, from nothing but headaches to zip. I've noticed a dip in international sales, although to be fair because anything shipping via GSP goes to Kentucky so I may not notice, but my overall sales are up, way up. As a buyer you could always reach out to a seller and mention your concerns about GSP and see if they'd work with you. I know for me personally I've never considered Canada "international", especially if you develop a repeat customer relationship with a seller. Again, I feel your pain, I may not speak for every US Seller but I can tell you GSP has been a winner on my end.

Jack Morelli is one of the best-- he worked through the 80s at Marvel and if you ever get a chance to talk to him (which is hard because he doesn't do shows) ask him about the making of the Marvel Team-Up 128 Cover. The photo cover features Spider-Man and Captain America on a New York City roof. Well, that's Joe Jusko in the Cap suit and Jack himself in the Spider-Man costume (he was the only guy in the office at the time who fit) and the shoot was done on the roof of Marvel Comics. There's much more to the story including a hilarious prank directed at EIC Tom DeFalco-- but I leave it to Jack to tell sometime. He's an endless trove of amazing anecdotes and I hope someday a smart promoter puts him on a panel at a show. Jack has been my letterer on my two SABRINA series at Archie and he's a consummate professional. Long live the letterers!

It was pointed out to me that a lot of folks didn't have a family gathering last year, and this year might be their first chance. Even more reason this is a bad idea. I'm hearing SDCC is reconsidering because of all the backlash.

Two great artists-- three if you count Sterinko (which I think is brilliant by the way). You can't go wrong with any of them.

Thanksgiving weekend? So flying in on Thanksgiving day at the latest? Big pass. Family is more important than comic books.

Well, back in the good ol days of the Comics Buyers Guide that's how we bought all our books. Ask them if they have a return policy. If you don't like the grade send it back. I've dealt with them a number of times when I'm in the city and they've always been great.

Take

Take

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Great books, love Harvey!

Stay tuned.

Take it

SuperWorld comics live on Tuesdays at 6pm is a great show, good prices and Ted keeps the variety up. They also do a giveaway for anyone attending. On Thursday’s at 1pm Jose does a shorter show for them.

Take The Golden Age Flash Archives Volume 2 Hardcover (sealed)

It's more than likely that Walt or his handler while he signed the books smudged that signature. Sharpies dry pretty quickly but not quick enough. We did a show in Chicago with TV's Sabrina Kiernan Shipka and since my wife and I did the "official" show edition comic we had CGC reps at our table while we signed about 250 copies -- we signed in gold or silver because those dry faster than the black does but even then we had to lay them out in groups of 25 or so at a time to give them at least 30 seconds to dry. I'm sure Walt was signing a lot more copies than we did and if he didn't have a bunch of handlers it can really get messy.

Guns. I have quite a few.

I think the thread is a great idea, I bookmarked a few sites I wasn't familiar with and found some art I'm interested in. Personally, I ascribe to the if you don't have anything nice to say theory- and I can draw my own conclusions. I'm sure dealers could make a Yelp list of customers to avoid too.

All right so I've been on eBay, selling, since the very start, so I've seen a lot of ups and downs. I stopped shipping Internationally a few years ago because of the hassles all of which have been mentioned above. The worst for me was I would more often than not have to go back and forth with the International Buyer in trying to come up with a ship price. They'd want the cheapest possible option, they'd want me to lie on the value for customs (which I would not do) and then after getting that cheap option email me daily asking where the item is. So I stopped. A good friend who has been on as long as I and runs his eBay shop full time reached out to me and suggest GSP-- I was suspicious but I've been using that for about a year and it's absolutely hassle free. I ship it to Kentucky and wipe my hands of the whole thing, eBay does the rest. This friend who suggested it is even more of a stickler than I am, he was a reluctant PayPal adopter, so when he advises something I have faith in it. GSP changed the whole international game for me. Using it has affected my International sales 0% while making hassle free transactions go up to 100%. If that becomes unworkable no more International for me again. As for eBay itself, there's really no substitute. I put a great vintage toy up on Etsy, it sat there for three weeks. When I put the same thing up on eBay for a BIN it sold almost as soon as I listed it. Same thing with a Spidey #5 CGC slab-- crickets everywhere but instant notice on eBay. I'm surprised no one else has come along. But in terms of eBay fees they are still cheaper than Amazon and it puts them in line with most other options. Cost of Doing Business if I opened a brick and mortar business would probably give me margins of 30-35% if I do really well, with eBay my margin is 75-80%. If you want the cheapest option, try having a yard sale, but don't be shocked when the right buyers don't come along.

I'd say if you're talking a few weeks maybe even a month with a private seller you might have a leg to stand on, but five years? Why not fifty? You could go back to the kid who drew on it with marker in 1972 and hand him a bill for the damages! It is buyer beware. Now if you're talking a dealer, I'd say the window is a little bit longer, but still I'd be hard pressed to make a claim even six months out. Things with the 'rona being what they are everything has slowed down a wee bit but I think honest mistakes do happen.

To the general public Stan Lee created comics, to those in the know Jack Kirby did the heavy lifting. So too did Will Eisner. I doubt anyone could assume the emperor status Stan had in his final years. He was like the Wizard of Oz.

I just subscribed-- I just only signed up for an official YouTube account but since Google already owns the world it was pretty simple.

I've heard over and over again that the old stuff will die off as new collectors come in. Well, I was a new collector at one point, when I was a kid you could get almost any Silver Age Comic for $1-$100 depending on the grade and when I would buy Batman's from the 1960s (this was probably 1979 or so) the older buyers near me would always laugh and tell me I was throwing money away because that stuff would never be worth anything. When I first saw a Golden Age book in person (coincidently Batman #14 which I still have) I paid the ungodly sum of $50 for it and it's about a 4.5. It opened a flood gate of chasing down Golden Age comics despite them being well before my time. At a con last year I was talking to a twenty something collector who told me he had just discovered and loved Golden Age comics, so I don't think an era ever goes away interest wise. The Spirit is a character many had forgotten about, but those "in the know" would never forget. It's not hard to become a member of the "in the know" club. As for the original question, DC Comics is not going away, there is way too much money in the licensing of these characters for WB. They certainly could license out the characters to other publishers but I think the most likely scenario is that American comics follow the Japanese model; comics are released serialized in digital format and then collected into volumes as print editions. There will still be artists making the art for these books, the fact that many artists are going digital is a factor but the whole blue line print out traditional ink thing seems to be gaining steam. So there will be comic art, it'll just be a little harder to get a penciler's work but I think there will still be a decent amount of inked work, and more and more (and I know this from experience) creators are getting hired and it's assumed you're going to ink your own work.

Trouble is I don’t do Facebook.

I think it’s great that the booths are locked, I simply used the pull down menu to mark an item as sold and then added SOLD- into the title as an extra precaution. The save feature was great and it’s how I went to buy items I was kicking the tires on. Best online con by far, and it’s even high in my book with real world cons. I’m a lifetime premium member now. I wasn’t aware they have regular YouTube events and I’ll be watching now. Bill is there a schedule posted anywhere? My only complaint about CAF is the site is overwhelming when you first jump on.

We did the first show last May and we did this one-- the first one was pretty good for us, and this one was gangbusters, doing about 5x what we did in May. Easily our top #3 show of all time, never mind the fact that it was virtual, this one was right up there with Rose City and C2E2 for sales for us. We sold every sketch we had done for the show, a bunch of pages from some old projects and we filled out commission slots by the end of the day on Saturday. The 24/24 art drop was great. For the first show we did 100% of our sales on Saturday and then nothing on Sunday-- for this show it was probably a 70/30 split. 48 pieces sounds like a lot but as a buyer I loved it. I loved that art is locked in so that a dealer can't change what's in the booth mid show. My only complaint is that there needs to be some kind of message board or announcement section so you can announce markdowns or whatever. I picked up a couple of really great pieces although I was on an extreme spending limit because of some serious expenses we've had, but had a lot of fun. The only panel I watched was Bill's closing remarks which are always interesting which I also watched while I was packaging up the orders Sunday night. I'd third the idea of some sort of social area. It would be kind of neat to have a virtual "bar" or something be it a chat room or something, that's probably my favorite part of doing these shows, besides having dinner in a new restaurant with my wife. Super mega kudos to Bill Cox for putting this on. It's a lot of work for him, and it's a lot of work as a seller but if you put the work into it you'll see a payoff.