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>>I still don't understand the mechanism of how vendors ordered their comics,,,if anyone can answer that, it would be appreciated. Did they just "get what they got", or was there some sort of rudimentary selection process that existed? If they just "got what they got", who decided for them? The local ID distributor? Regional? National? I've always heard they just got what they got. But it would be "decided" from the local, who got what he got from the regional.

Such fun books. I especially love the Jugheads.

I thought Barry was more of a golden age seller? His stock mainly came from buying out a used book store in Sacramento, as well as Holmes Books in downtown Oakland.

Now that you've gotten through another new comic book Wednesday, let me toss you a quick little question on your philosophy towards local cons. If the promoter of your local con asks to put fliers in your store, do you say yes? Do you support your local annual Comic Con (really a pop culture con, with some comics)? Do you take a booth at the show to promote your store? Or will you in the future? Also, has your philosophy on this been consistent with your previous stores or has it changed with the new store?

Had an old school 70s dealer over to my office today and he said that Conan 1 was a $50 or $60 book in 1975. So imagine that kind of appreciation i 4 years for a fifteen cent comic. He told me of a collector who was so smitten with the BWS Conans at the time that he bought three copies of each.

Compare to 1983 (or possibly earlier) where you had distributors putting full page ads in CBG with all the comics coming out in three months and you could just meet teh minimums and order. No credit check, no proof of business, nothing. Ads in OPG and CBG are how I got started at age 15.

I think the limit to one's speculation is just funds and ease of finding the stuff. If you were a 60s kid, the speculation might just be that extra copy or three. If you have a job in the early 70s and you can still speculate on Shazam at twenty cents, you can probably grab 50 or 100 copies. If it's 1985, you can just preorder 100 copes of Web of Spider-Man from your LCS for extra discount. Conan 1 was the first book that really exploded in value right away, so that it became a giant treasure hunt to find copies or even go to the distributor and try to get the returns. Which led to people pre-planning to buy Shazams before release. I have no doubt that some people made a nice profit very quickly buying Iron Man 1 or other 1968 books. I know of kids in Oakland in teh 60s that had 2-3 complete Marvel sets (something that would've never occurred to me as a kid, having multiple copies).

The procedure was to contact and befriend the local jobber/distributor/wholesaler, no? This was a trick that persisted into the the 80s where comic book store owners, etc. could go to the newsstand guy (who was a bit behind the direct market) and get all the copies of Thor 337, ASM 252, and Punisher mini #1 after they were instant direct market hits. I first learned of this in 1985 when a store owner in Grand Rapids told me he could get me more copies of Punisher 1 because he'd grabbed 50 or 100 newsstand copies from the local distributor. Also, I've always read that it was the instant success of Conan #1 that led to the heavy speculation in Shazam 1, Shadow 1, even other things like Black Magic 1, Secret Origins 1, etc. Followed of course by Howard the Duck 1.

https://www.comicconla.com/

Nice job by the video author--thanks for posting. Russ was a titan.

Best brick and mortar thread ever. The alpha and omega of opening a new store threads. Great to see such customer interest right away. Really hopping.

Hahaha!

I will take it at your current offer of $110 shipped. Cool stuff.

I assume he was planning on dropping the location and store name at the end of placeholder five.

Thanks for posting this. As soon as I saw the thread I wanted to post that this story from OAAW 244 is the best art job in war comics history. IMO. At a Wondercon long ago, Marv Wolfman related how Russ drew this while living at the mansion in Chicago and that when they arrived in the mail the whole office stopped in its tracks and it was passed around in awe. Note that he has -script credit on this too. Russ was a lot of fun to talk to and a joker too. I was in an elevator with him once and he asked the guy closest to the buttons to hit 12 for him. But the hotel only had 8 stories.

Great job organizing. Looks like I'll be able to make it.

Wow! I read that book like four times as a kid.

I'm looking forward to reading this thread Tuesday or Wednesday.

Fun rule...

At the Oakland convention center, there is a level of rooms where you could take a picture from that angle. I know that place was used for a few comic shows before Wondercon started, so maybe a Creation Con is a good guess.

Let's not forget Detective 477 reprinting Detective 408. (though there is a new framing by Rogers).

Not surprisingly, it was the Batman reel that was uber alles for me in terms of the Viewmaster stuff. Never looked more than once at any other reels I don't think.

Were the Six Million Dollar Man figures a different type of plastic that was more brittle? The legs broke on my Steve Austin fairly quickly Did they have to use a different type of plastic in order to have the arm modules?

No one has mentioned Knievel stuff yet. The Johnny West figures were great. The accessories were incredible. So much stuff, and detailed.