Report from Big Apple Convention

[underthebigw]

This was my second table where I snagged a few I love you's for $3 bucks each. The guy before me purchased a beautiful Rangers comic.

Hey, I was that guy. Too funny. I wish I'd known you were there! I would have said hello.

 

I chatted with John Haines (the dealer in your pic) for a good ten minutes or so. He came from Cleveland to work the show and buy a local collection. Really nice guy, very knowledgable about GA books. I love it when "smaller" dealers are at the convention, in addition to the handful of big dealers that always set up at every show. I can't recall ever seeing him at a NY show before.

 

John consistently has one of the best stock of books around. Lots of offbeat stuff, great GA, great BA, grades fairly, and is an all-round great guy. Also one of the funniest people you will ever meet. Sold me one of my all-time favorite books--FC 33.

[Speedy-D]

Actually I really hope that wasn't me! I was there though. It was pretty fun, though far far smaller than the NY Comic Con a few months ago.

 

I went looking to buy some comics, Silver Age DCs and Showcase #8 or #13 in particular. I asked at every table, and not a single seller had a copy of either issue. I was totally surprised. Well, one guy did have one copy of #13, but it was kinda too beat up for my taste.

 

There was an OA seller there who had some incredible Silver Age Carmine Infantino pages. He had a couple pages of one of the Strange Sports Stories Showcase issues, and lots of pages of Infantino & Anderson Mystery in Space that were shockingly beautiful, but well out of my price range. I did manage to buy one page of Infantino Flash from the 80's, the second to last issue. It's my second Infantino page and I love it.

 

I'm not really up on modern comics, so I didn't know who most of the artists were that were doing sketches. But I got three pencil & ink sketches of the Flash by Mike Lilly, Guy Dorian, and J. Calafiore. They're all pretty sweet, especially the Dorian one. As soon as I can get a larger scanner I'll put up some pics in the OA area.

 

All in all, it was definitely a good time. Much lower key than the NY Convention in February. I stuck around till the end to pick up my drawings, and chatted with a few dealers as they were packing up. They all pretty much agreed that the show had been fun, but not hugely profitable. One seller pointed out that most buyers were bargain hunting, that not much (if anything) sold off the walls, and that sellers who had only high end comics pretty much sold nothing. And I did definitely get a more "just looking" vibe this time.

 

O, there were also a ton of silicone-enhanced wrestler chicks selling soft core wrestling porn.

[Senormac]

Thanks for takin the time to post up your experiance. and pictures. I love to see the " wall of books" that dealers always set up......and in all those pics.....I can't find 1 single Police comic.

[Bosco685]

Thanks for takin the time to post up your experiance. and pictures. I love to see the " wall of books" that dealers always set up......and in all those pics.....I can't find 1 single Police comic.

Yeah, but I am always searching for a nice House of Secrets 92 and I must have seen three to four copies in those pictures. Wow!

[Speedy-D]

HoS 92 was definitely to be found there.

[VintageComics]

HoS 92 was definitely to be found there.

 

Someone just sold a Showcase #8 today in the selling forum.

 

[Senormac]

Thanks for takin the time to post up your experiance. and pictures. I love to see the " wall of books" that dealers always set up......and in all those pics.....I can't find 1 single Police comic.

Yeah, but I am always searching for a nice House of Secrets 92 and I must have seen three to four copies in those pictures. Wow!

 

Guess nobody likes HOS 92......and thats why they are all for sale....where as Police comics......people are hoarding

[Bosco685]

Guess nobody likes HOS 92......and thats why they are all for sale....where as Police comics......people are hoarding

[KryptoSpidey]

Actually I really hope that wasn't me! I was there though. It was pretty fun, though far far smaller than the NY Comic Con a few months ago.

 

I went looking to buy some comics, Silver Age DCs and Showcase #8 or #13 in particular. I asked at every table, and not a single seller had a copy of either issue. I was totally surprised. Well, one guy did have one copy of #13, but it was kinda too beat up for my taste.

 

There was an OA seller there who had some incredible Silver Age Carmine Infantino pages. He had a couple pages of one of the Strange Sports Stories Showcase issues, and lots of pages of Infantino & Anderson Mystery in Space that were shockingly beautiful, but well out of my price range. I did manage to buy one page of Infantino Flash from the 80's, the second to last issue. It's my second Infantino page and I love it.

 

I'm not really up on modern comics, so I didn't know who most of the artists were that were doing sketches. But I got three pencil & ink sketches of the Flash by Mike Lilly, Guy Dorian, and J. Calafiore. They're all pretty sweet, especially the Dorian one. As soon as I can get a larger scanner I'll put up some pics in the OA area.

 

All in all, it was definitely a good time. Much lower key than the NY Convention in February. I stuck around till the end to pick up my drawings, and chatted with a few dealers as they were packing up. They all pretty much agreed that the show had been fun, but not hugely profitable. One seller pointed out that most buyers were bargain hunting, that not much (if anything) sold off the walls, and that sellers who had only high end comics pretty much sold nothing. And I did definitely get a more "just looking" vibe this time.

 

O, there were also a ton of silicone-enhanced wrestler chicks selling soft core wrestling porn.

i just sold A SHOWCASE 8 in the forum sales area...

[KryptoSpidey]

HoS 92 was definitely to be found there.

 

Someone just sold a Showcase #8 today in the selling forum.

 

(thumbs u

[Speedy-D]

It's just as well I missed it, I don't have two grand anyway...

[Topnotchman]

The show today was a good time, Todd from New Dimension was sharing a booth with Haines today as they split costs. Spent most of my time scavaging for books in bins, plus I did get some Hama sigs on some Joes. I would definately say the air conditioner was working, which is a plus compared to the other Big Apple shows. The one drawback I had was the lighting was so poor for evaluating books, there was huge windows all around plus the overhead lights. The room was not dark, but trying to look for high grade raw books was not easy with multiple light sources.

[Foolkiller]

Good show for me:

 

Picked up a Showcase 22 CGC 5.0 (nice copy), the only slabbed one I saw in the room.

 

Picked up some nice raw books from Terry O'Neill.

 

Picked up a few nice books from John Haines.

 

Nothing blew me away in the room, but the dealers reported strong sales overall. Looking forward to getting stuff graded at WW Philly.

[Antonio]

I went today too and bought a lot of Bronze Age reading material and some 1/2 price trade paperbacks. It was great that the con was on the 18th floor of the pennsylvania Hotel, instead of the Penn pavilion. Back in the 1980's the bigger conventions, including creation mostly used the 18th floor for their shows. I remember seeing Jane Badler (Diane from V and Deforest Kelley in the room in the Artists Alley room.

 

The Creation Thanksgiving weekend shows at the hotel (then called the Statler Hilton I believe) were awesome.

 

For me, it was also a bit weird, because the last time I was in the in the area where the dealer's were set up was for a NY Bar review Class, which I took back in 2002.

 

Great pics by the way!

 

Anthony

[the blob]

The one drawback I had was the lighting was so poor for evaluating books, there was huge windows all around plus the overhead lights. The room was not dark, but trying to look for high grade raw books was not easy with multiple light sources.

----------------

 

I second that. A book I actually looked at to see if it had tape on it and somehow decided it didn't....well, the tape was pretty obvious when i got home under decent light and I have better than 20/20 vision...thankfully it was only a $2 book. I missed a lot of little stuff..can't blame it all on the light, I was a bit more rushed by having my family there than normally when I don't. Usually I do a second run through my stack of cheapies and wind up deciding not to buy 25% of them do to things i didn't see the first time. With the little guy tugging at my shirt I didn't do that and, well, you guys are going to get some nice BA dollar books that look really gorgeous if you only take a quick glance...

[the blob]

i can't believe mile high chuck came to this rinky little show. it might have better AC than downstairs in the Penn Pavilion, but the room seems like its 1/2 - 1/3 the size. yes, this is where shows used to be, but those shows were a lot smaller, albeit a lot more frequent.

[Black Lantern]

Thanks for the great report! I always love the con reports on this board, so many great pics with great comics. You don't see such books displayed at cons in Austria. So this is always something special for me to enjoy!

[nocutename]

My first purchases were at this table, a few Charlton romance issues. The seller is Terry's Comics and he is located in Cali

 

 

That may be Terry's inventory but the character in front is Dave Reynolds of Dave's American Comics. Dave is located in Philadelphia and Terry is in CA but the two of them work together. He may be subbing for Terry but the last time I saw Dave at the NYCC he had a pretty good inventory too.

bb

 

Oops it looks like someone beat me to the punch. Oh well.

 

That's what I get for taking pics at the end of the day. The gentlemen with the ponytail was the one that gave me the catalog for Terry's comics. When we were talking he told me that they don't bring all the comics as they are from California.

 

As I am reading, I messed up all the names. Sorry for the misinfo.

[nocutename]

This was my second table where I snagged a few I love you's for $3 bucks each. The guy before me purchased a beautiful Rangers comic.

Hey, I was that guy. Too funny. I wish I'd known you were there! I would have said hello.

 

I chatted with John Haines (the dealer in your pic) for a good ten minutes or so. He came from Cleveland to work the show and buy a local collection. Really nice guy, very knowledgable about GA books. I love it when "smaller" dealers are at the convention, in addition to the handful of big dealers that always set up at every show. I can't recall ever seeing him at a NY show before.

 

Hi Jon, that's funny! I was the girl that told you that was a nice comic. Frankly, comic collectors can give a girl a complex because all you guys are interested in are funny books

[nocutename]

Good Report. Thanks for sharing. I was there from 7 a.m. till about 7 p.m. From the looks to me, it seemed everyone had a fun time being at the show. It was on the 18th floor of the hotel which was where they used to have the shows back in the 90's. Some of the dealers got a little misty eyed cause it brought back memories. Anyway, the atmosphere was great, there was plenty of comics to be had from GA up until last Wednesdays new comics. Oh and there was a handsome guy there selling toploaders. Next show i will bring more of a selection of supplies. My van needs breaks and we borrowed my father's hyundai to bring just toploaders to the show.

 

I think Mike did a great job with this one.

 

Jeff

 

 

Oh, in case anyone wants to know (particularly that artist who complained about the last show because he was rude and wondered why he made no money), the bathrooms were being cleaned continuously throughout the day by the hotel staff.

 

Jeff, I did not see your booth at all at the show. I needed some supplies too. I admit that I was overwhelmed though.