BuraddoRun

Not Walmart, but grabbed a couple of 4 for $4 packs at Five Below. Nothing special, but man Marvel has had some weird variant cover themes, haven't they? Marvel Anatomy?

Got a couple more. The Ororo was obviously in a library at some point.

Bought a cheap Archie grab bag (about 12 comics for $7) and found this inside!

Found the Phantoms at HPB, and the Finnish X-Men at a local comic shop. Storm looks so strange on the back cover without color.

These have been sitting at a local HPB for a month or 2 now, so I finally grabbed them this week. These are from 2011, but they tell you right on the cover whether they were reprints or new stories. I'm not a Phantom collector either, but I do think it has a rich history and these books are cool to find.

Pic 1 is of true $1 books I found in the $1 bins at a local comic shop. The rest are all HPB pickups for half of cover price.

Most of these are more HPB finds for half of cover price. I found the Ultimate Doom for $1 at Movie Trading Company. And the Venom I got from a comic shop for $20.

This is more like this month in my collection: Pics 1-3. I picked these up at a couple of shops on FCBD, taking advantage of sales. That X-Men is Finnish, I believe. The clerk at the shop didn't even know they had it, but I found it in one of their bins. Voltron wasn't on sale, but I wanted it so I bought it anyway. 4-5. Some random HPB finds, including another comic-in-paperback format, this time the X-Men. Black and white interiors with 1-3 panels per page, reprinting a few classic stories. Can you believe I've never read The Dark Knight Returns? Well, now I plan to! And I've read Days of Future Past, long ago, but I re-read it after picking this up (it's newsstand, for what it's worth). That Ororo is another single issue library binding hardcover edition. 6-11. I went on a trip to Ft. Worth for work and found a true, family-owned, non-corporate used bookstore a block away from my hotel. There was a sign on the door that said, "Leave backpacks at the front desk. We'll return them on the way out. No exceptions!" As soon as I walked in, I tried to hand my bag to the owner of the shop at the desk right inside, and he told me, "I don't want that." I replied, "Your sign says 'no exceptions.'" He responded, "my brother put that up." So anyway, the shop was somewhat organized, but not especially so, so it was an adventure to walk around and dig in the nooks and crannies of the place. I did find some actual comic books, but they were all 90's stuff in Poor to Good (at best) condition with $1 stickers stuck to the covers. Nothing valuable anyway, so I passed on those. There were a few graphic novels, but nothing I was interested in. He did have a lot of random old books, stuff on coin collecting, history, old brochures and travel stuff, and really just lots of random books, you know? I wanted to buy something, so I settled on a hardcover book of cartoons with a 1935 publish date. Ebay has it for about what I paid, so I don't count it as a valuable score $$-wise, but I still think it's cool. These cartoons are so old, though; some of the humor goes over my head. LOL! Anyway, thankfully he accepted credit card payments, but he gave e a handwritten receipt! Fun times. The store's been open since the 60's, apparently. I'm glad places like this still exist in the world.

AWESOME get! There was a time I was searching for a within-my-range DD #1, but besides a coverless I saw on eBay (which I probably should've bought and just matched a cover-only later), I never found one. Congratulations on that one! Beauties, indeed! Classic comic magazines like these are underrated, in my opinion. Yeah, HPB is all over the place with pricing. It's awesome when you find the underpriced stuff, but the overpriced are aggravating because those books will sit for eons clogging their special cases.

As ridiculously hideous as this is, I have to admit those claws are intimidating.

Godzilla wasn't a normal FCBD book this year. That one on the pick is from a previous Halloween Trick or Read. That store probably just had leftovers. My LCS had leftover books from previous events they have out as well (different ones). As for me, I live in a big city with lots of stores so I was able to grab a good number of books overall. Sorry for the lack of pics, but some I was excited for are Popeye (I hear it's surprisingly action packed and awesome), Street Fighter VS Final Fight, the Atlas book, TMNT (hoping Aaron makes it fun), and the Marvel Ultimates book. But there were a lot of good choices this year. I saw lots of families and kids at the shops, which is great.

I love it when comics are shown off with cool background stories and lore. Awesome find, for sure, "drek" or not.

Mystery boxes and grab bags are usually terrible investments. You might get equal or greater "value" in FMV for the books you get, but no one's looking for that random issue of Superman from the 90's worth $3 or whatever. Nor are all those unsold, random comic store exclusive covers that are for sale for $15 on a website highly sought after. Most of the time, curated grab bags and mystery boxes just aren't worth getting, unless you go into it for pure fun and enjoy getting random stuff, or if you buy one from a run that has guaranteed big hits and actually do win. Or there are the mystery boxes that have exclusive variants you only get in those boxes, so you partially know what you're getting. But that's comic retailers and flippers, right? They sell grab bags to dump bulk books. However, you might find stores (or even individual sellers) who don't specialize in comics that sell grab bags. Walmart sold those grab bags that often had ratio variants in them, sometimes things like 1:1000 variants, as well as their exclusive covers. Five Below has sold bags with comic-con exclusives in them. Ollie's sells bags with all sorts of random older and newer books, including modern ratio variants and older key comics. And Half Price Books sells grab bags that are sometimes themed, with 2 outer-facing books so you can get an idea of what you're getting. Anyhow, I know there are various threads about this, but how about one where we just show off our pulls? If anyone is considering trying their luck, they can see the hits and misses of other boardies to make more informed decisions. Personally, I think the best ones are where you know partially what you're getting. That way you can decide if you want at least what you know you're getting. Such is the case with these recent Half Price Books grab bags I got. I picked them all up because I specifically wanted Wolverine fills. And the Batman ones, well, I just hoped for good books but didn't expect to get what I actually got. This kind of hit is very rare anywhere, but the other books I got were still pretty great for what I paid. I have some more unopened bags still, so I'll share those this week at some point most likely. I didn't take pics of every book I got. They had 20-25 in each pack. I just picked the keys and some other samples from what I pulled. But the Wolverines were all from the first ongoing. Batman had a mix, but had a lot of Knightfall, and of course, the little hits and the BIG one pictured below. Show off your recent grab bag and mystery box pulls, too! Good or bad.

Here's a haul from Half Price Books earlier this week. I spent about $90 total, which is more than I usually would, but I got some cool stuff! 1. Some Marvel Graphic Novel original Punisher books & Return to Big Nothing HC: I actually first discovered the Marvel Graphic Novel line at Half Price Books back when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. I loved them then and still do now, though of course the line was discontinued. They were more edgy than your standard Marvel tales and came in a more prestigious format. I kind of want to collect them all, but that will take some time. I guess Return to Big Nothing isn't in the line technically, but it feels like it is. 2. The Killing Joke (12th print), The Killing Joke Deluxe HC (1st print), and a cool Wonder Woman book: I always grab any print of Killing Joke when I find it cheap. I didn't own the Deluxe HC and I thought the price was good so I decided to grab it, too. But this Wonder Woman book was just something you don't see every day. It's from the late 70's, and it simply reprints some of her Golden Age stories, but in an uncommon format, with each page having 1 or 2 panels. A previous owner lovingly colored WW throughout the book, but I don't mind for a $5 pickup. 3. A 9.8 (does anyone grade Graphic Novels?) candidate Batman Harley & Ivy 1st print GN and the collected Jim Lee Punisher guest-starring Wolverine TPB 4. 4 grab bags (or mystery bags): These were $7 each, came with 20-25 comics, and 2 comics were visible in each one. Everything else was tightly packed. But I could tell they were themed to Batman and Wolverine, because the books on either side were Bats and Wolvie. The Wolverine books were all from the first ongoing, which is great because I had (and have) a number of gaps in that series that was one of my childhood favorites. I took a pic of some minor keys and a couple others that were in them. The Batman bags came with a lot of Knightfall, but some other stuff as well. I got a few small keys, but I also got a BIG hit. First print, VF+ to NM (with a press would assuredly be NM)...this was an awesome surprise!

I dunno. It figures they probably get multiple copies from various sellers. Or it could just be coincidence. I don't know how they handle distribution with things that go back to the main warehouse VS things sold directly to and kept at the individual stores.

Oddly enough, I found this same book at Half Price Books myself a month or two ago. Definitely a cool find!

Pic 1 is modern, half of cover price buys. The rest came in $7 grab bags. They each had 20-25 comics in them, so these were 28 - 35 cents each. I bought 4 grab bags, and these are the highlights from them, though there was other fun stuff. Most are in F or higher condition, but that GI Joe 24 is pretty beat (though complete).

I found these recently at HPB. I never knew they made comics based on the Disney World attraction.

I dunno. Keeping them sealed too long may cause eventual warping and corner bending. But there may be potential buyers who hope for big ratio or exclusive variants in unopened packs. But if potential buyers just want the Walmart exclusive books, then opening is best, probably. Personally, I've opened all mine.

Far too many spiders. But Slott writes Spider-Boy as a fun character, so I think it's a mix of true fan enjoyment and spec.

Just a couple found this weekend at HPB

Nice books! I especially like those Usagi pickups. I just recently got that issue of Doomsday Squad myself. Nice pickups! I love seeing what other people find at HPB. It's such a fun place to hunt for comics!

Found a stash of these Saturday (1st pic), then went back Sunday to spend more time digging and found a bunch more (remaining pics). All at HPB for half of cover, so $2.50 a pop. I never bought any of these combo packs polybagged when they were new, but someone mentioned somewhere how the bags disintegrate, and I gotta say, yeah, they definitely do! The Nite Owl book was bagged and boarded but still had the polybag inside, and when I rebagged it, plastic fell everywhere and made a huge mess. Every time I tried to pick up a piece of plastic, it would fall apart into even tinier pieces. So annoying! I'm thankful literally only that 1 book still had its original polybag. The rest looked like they were debagged shortly after they were originally purchased. So Protip: if you have some of these still polybagged, take them somewhere like your garage, or outside (though that's bad for the environment), or a Dexter-like kill room or something and extract your comics carefully so you can re bag-and-board them. That plastic is nasty stuff!

More HPB finds for half of cover price. The Aquaman is a little older but it's a cool book and a semi...minor...former key, I guess?