Joosh

Another pen and sharpie that got sent out with a sold comic.

A pen and sharpie of Carnage on cardboard, I shipped this out with a comic I sold. 

That would be cool to recieve a package like that. 

Another pen and sharpie that got sent out with a sold comic.

A pen and sharpie of Carnage on cardboard, I shipped this out with a comic I sold. 

A pen and sharpie of Carnage on cardboard, I shipped this out with a comic I sold. 

A pen and sharpie of Carnage on cardboard, I shipped this out with a comic I sold. 

I've learnt two things from this thread:
1. It's mildly annoying when the questioner fails to return to respond to the answers to their question 
2. @Joosh has a cool avatar 
 

I was pleasantly surprised by the show. Bought a bunch of $5 books from Collectors Zone, the guy with glasses with the Avengers #1. I’ll try and share some pics later this week. What I really enjoyed was buying some books on sheer instinct like when I was a kid. Even bought some books I used to own that I bought new back in the day. Late 70’s Bronze Age.

My older brother won the grand prize raffle, a copy of ASM 129!  He wouldn't give it to me for some reason. At least he let me hold it for a photo.
I had a great time! It was fun meeting Matt and Nick, you guys both have some very nice books, thanks for the deals! I bought way too much overall. The sheer amount of $0.50, 1, 3, and 5 boxes was amazing. I literally ended up with almost a longbox of books.  
I got sigs from Moore, Larsen, Messner-Loebs, Medina, and Zahler. These guys are all super cool and fun to talk with. I didn't even get to Steranko, and Friday night he didn't even have a line. The only book I have I want him to sign is my 9.6 copy of Nick Fury and His Agents of SHIELD (1973), but I couldn't bring myself to crack it open.
 Pictured is one of the signs set behind Jim Larson's booth, signed and sketched. My younger brother won this in the raffle, then got it signed and sketched, then gave it to me!
The other pictures show an original sketch by Angel Medina of my favorite villian Carnage.
 
 

Of course, we ALL know that a "true" variant is discovered only after it has been printed . . . sometimes years (or decades) later. Publishing a "variant" is an oxymoron, nothing more than a "manufactured collectible" which in time becomes an antithesis of itself.
 

Got home a bit ago and wanted to put together a quick Con report for those that didn’t make it.  I drove over Friday afternoon and got in the door at around 3:30 with the dealer badge provided by Skow (Matt) and Nick.  Thanks for the hook up guys - much appreciated!  The Con is at a Community College in northern Detroit but they have plenty of free parking and it’s a safe neighborhood.  The decorations and things to see are not great but the Con makes up for it with a great selection of book!  Very little Cosplay on Friday but I hit the boxes hard and pulled out some gems especially from Crazy Rick’s booth.  Rick had a nice selection of $5 books this Con as always.  He was sick on Saturday so hopefully he is feeling better.

Next to Rick’s booth was some nice guys but I didn’t get much except some nice pictures.  The pictures are Saturday morning before it got started.

The Con is laid out very well with most comic dealers on the one side and the artists in the middle and some more vendors in the back.  The aisles are very wide and there never felt to be a huge crowd except at certain booths when people were tearing thru the $5 boxes.  

In the center of the dealer section there was a dealer who had some really nice books at some great prices.  Picked up some great books.  Was very happy to grab that FF 48 for a discount and I’m always stoked to get another FF Annual 6 in high grade.

Skow (Matt) is a great guy who is having a kid soon and I was happy to add some cash to the baby fund.  He has a great batch of books and he is very reasonable with a nicely timed bulk offer.  I wish I would have spent more time looking at his pre code books.  His booth was busy most of the show so I’m sure he did great.

I got to meet Nick ( Nick’s Comics) and he definetely is a nice guy so stop on by and say hi to him.  His wall was chock full of sweet books and I think I grabbed a couple X-Men 143s from him that look really nice.

I’ll be the there to buy stuff! I went last year as my first con and got some great deals. I’m the guy in my avatar and I’ll have a fantastic handlebar mustache 

Late to the party, but I finally found some Image newsstand books in a dollar box, had to share. Not much for high grade, a few are NM-, most are F/VF
 

Thanks Joosh.   By the way, today I found out from a reliable source inside Mile High comics that they did indeed obtain almost all their newsstand issues in the last six years from two different Barnes and Nobles stores in the Denver area.

My experience is one of pure insanity....   Not only did I find them all, but if one was not in high grade, I had to replace it.   The lowest grade I would accept is a FN.    Of 1800 newsies, all are VF to NM except approximately ten of them, which are FN to VF-.    The Batman Rebirth 14 shown above is an example of one of the lower grade newsstand issues I own (you can see a tiny bit on spine stress in on the black part of the cover....  it was hard to find... so I had to ask my son's wife to go to a Barnes & Noble in Atlanta to pick it up, and I forgot to tell her to pick the best copy!)
I was usually pretty picky about the newsies I bought.    But after going through them all, I decided that I could not have any with significant spine stress or a dreaded crease on the corners.   So I probably had to replace 40 of so of them toward the end.   
Of course, I had to have all the direct sales copies too, in high grade.   While surely insane, the run is impressive.   After all this work, I'm pretty sure at least 3 or 4 other guys will think it is neat, but that might be about it...  I think most other people would think "What a colossal waste of time and money!".   They are probably right... but for me it was a fun and interesting Easter egg hunt.

Here my copy.  Only have the one.  Have yet to find another in any condition.

It seems that certain Image NS are more difficult for some folks than others. I wonder if there was a higher regional distribution for some books. I have every early Image newsstand except Wildcats 1 and 2 for some reason, but I have seen others with multiple copies. Here is one with a great cover variation I have not seen posted yet. It was one of the harder Image books to find for me personally and i'm a very active digger. This is scarce on the bay as well. Unknown whether because of rarity or lack of interest.

Late to the party, but I finally found some Image newsstand books in a dollar box, had to share. Not much for high grade, a few are NM-, most are F/VF
 

Late to the party, but I finally found some Image newsstand books in a dollar box, had to share. Not much for high grade, a few are NM-, most are F/VF