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wondercon report

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Over the years I've seen and bought quite a few variants at Wonder Con, maybe I was just unlucky confused-smiley-013.gifI still remember seeing Motor City a few years back with a short box full of dozens upon dozens. cloud9.gif

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Over the years I've seen and bought quite a few variants at Wonder Con, maybe I was just unlucky confused-smiley-013.gifI still remember seeing Motor City a few years back with a short box full of dozens upon dozens. cloud9.gif

 

I pick them up whenever I come across them... and a lot of dealers at this con are also at the smaller regional cons. I know of at least a couple of other collectors in this area who actively search for them as well... so they may just have been picked clean.

 

(I picked up 9 in the last few months.. some for as low as 12 cents.. so it's not like they're THAT hard to find.) I'm talking about both 30 cent and 35 cent variants. I literally saw someone find from 4-6 35 cent variants at the last Sacramento Con I was at within a couple of hours of digging.

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Other popular requested titles were Marvel Spotlight 5, Giant Sized X-men 1, early FF and Daredevil 168.

 

i didn't see any raw copies of DD 168, saw a lot of raw DD 158's but not in NM.

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Sorry Supa didnt see this sucker, so I started my own thread which I will delete.

 

I have just dragged my sorry butt into the office - Ugh 3_4_4.gif tired. Well first things first and I would like to thamk everyone who attended the Con, it was really nice to see and meet so many people from the boards and just in general. Observations ------

 

1. There were alot of very cool comics on the floor. Now I know that assuredly there will be people who will be upset that such and such a dealer wasn't there, or there weren't enough of this and that, but if there was a fair variety of books from all ages and some excellent dealers in attendance. For a show of its size, from all accounts attendance was up significantly from last year, I would say that WonderCon was a success.

 

2. CGC board members were in da' house, including 'the House'. Plus (Either by name or board ID) Supa, Garthgantu,Rich, Shin, Fantasyfootball / Scott, Pov, BassGMan, Jim94, Rip, Gemworks and of course Steve and the CGC gang who were taking submissions. I know I missed a few, but between the real names and the AKA's it was a tad confusing sorry.gif

 

3. Well I hit the Con floor with a vengence on Saturday, having been out of the country on business Friday I was out to make up for lost time. At the top of the want list was House of Mystery between 180 - 300 in VF/NM or better. I literally just bought every issue I saw - for the right price of course smirk.gif I think the final tally was 35 issues, some dupes, but hey that happens from time to time. I'll post more on the specifics of the HOM's and the DC BA horror in general that was available in the BA forum, but my overall impression was that there are a lot of darl covers with deep inking on these issues and they are NOT as easy to find in High Grade as I thought. At least at that show. The 100 pagers being at the top of the list - I'm sure Greggy is smiling somewhere. news.gif Heros brought a large HOM run in High Grade - including a few Northlands, they were largely gone by Saturday but I snapped up a few gems from the 250's nevertheless.

 

4. I will post what I thought of the dealers specifically later - during a Con I will take a piece of tape and stick the business card from every dealer I buy a significant quantity of stuff from to the bag of one of the books I bought. That way when I get home I can go back and associate the books and the grading with each dealer. And there are definitely a couple of dealers that I am anxious to do business with again.

 

5. Forum dinner, my impressions. One of the highlights of the weekend 893applaud-thumb.gif and thanks to FFB for setting it up. It was a nice venue, maybe a tad too nice, as at the end of a long day in the trenches at a Con and still jet lagged from a long flight the previous night, I was not entirely motivated for the pomp and circumstance of a fine dining restaurant. However, the food was excellent, as was the atmosphere - a dark quite room that allowed up to be noisy and not get drowned out by anybody else but each other 27_laughing.gif For those reasons alone I can give an overall thumbsup2.gif

 

6. Forum dinner topics of conversation devil.gif this was a serious crowd of collectors. 4Gemworks has already posted that he was a bit put off by some of the lines of questioning that were direct at Steve, however, though sometimes heated, the questions were articulate and I think Steve was allowed time to respond and given the courtesy of not being interrupted when doing so. To his credit he made a sincere attempt to make his way around the table and spend time chatting with everyone present. Im sure others will get into specifics, briefly topics included, clean and press, notations of the label, the Wizard 9.5 grade and other arrangements, as well as resto in general etc. etc. I had a nice conversation with 4gem about variants, and Shin about buying in large quantity and the Green Rivers. As well Paul Litch and I discussed a lot of comic related topics, CGC grading, art, story, publishers, etc, etc. Pov, Garth, Rich and I got into it on a few topics as well, very, very smart guys who bring keen insight and a weath of knowledge to the table. I didnt get a chance to talk to FFB as much as I thought, we briefly talked about variants and PLOD books, goes to the fact that it was a big table and alot of ppl engaged in alot of topics. In the end I will say my impression of Steve B is that he is a cool guy that honestly cares about the hobby , however the jury is still out on the ppl he works for.

 

7. Got a chance to have lunch with Garthgantu and some of his childhood chums, one of which happens to be Erik Larsen. It was super cool to sit down with these guys who have obviously known each other for a lot of years. I was almost on the floor 27_laughing.gif as the tongue in cheek ideas for Savage Dragon came out and Erik has some cool insights into the business and artistic side of the comics biz. 893applaud-thumb.gif Thanks to Garth for the invite.

 

8. Sunday was a great day, back down to business and I hit the Con floor early. Ran into Supapimp at the CGC booth and we were joined by BassGman who discussed the forum dinner, which went on till 1:30 AM. I made my way around to a number of dealers determined to close a few deals that had been brewing the day before. Got some very nice 20cent Thors from a Ron _____ from Fresno sorry.gif forgot his business card, but he had some TOL stuff. I wasnt even looking to buy Thors, but they were super bright with awesome gloss and the price couldnt be beat, needless to say I will be digging through my business card collection from the show and will buy from this gentleman again.

 

9. Spent the latter part of show talking to Lighthouse for about 2 hours. 'House brought 2 things to the show. Alot of Trades and alot of TOS #49 893whatthe.gif he had 8-9 copies. I'm not in the market but 893whatthe.gif893whatthe.gif893applaud-thumb.gif Even got a chance to meet Mrs. 'House. Lighthouse is a super nice guy and really enjoyed our conversation - talked about so much stuff I cant even remember most of it. Pulled out some of my books and had him check them out, as well Shin showed up with some stuff he brought and we got into discussions on grading and really examined about 4-5 books in detail comparing flaws and assigning grades. thumbsup2.gif fun stuff, thanks again.

 

10. Spent the end of the show with Supa, talking comics, CGC, board stuff, etc. He pulled out some sketches he had from artist Alley. A Yeates Batman, I was like 893whatthe.gif Tom Yeates is here. I raced down to the alley, while Supa, who was volunteering at the show was cool enough to watch my stuff. Sure enough there he was with Al Gordon and Sergio Argonnes. I asked for a SwampThing Sketch and he saif no problem. I returned 20 mins later to see him finnished the awesome inks on a super cool sketch of Swampy emerging from a pool of water. The coolest thing was he was surrounded by Al Gordon, Argonnes and JIM STERANKO They had a guitar, which Steranko was playing and the other guys were singing a few tunes, while Yeates was finnishing my sketch. Got a chance to meet all 4 gentleman, including Steranko cloud9.gif it was the highlight of the show. Thanks Supa for the heads up and watching my stuff while I got the sketch.

 

thumbsup2.gif

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Got some very nice 20cent Thors from a Ron _____ from Fresno

 

Sounds like Ronnie Murray..super nice guy.

 

Say, does anyone have an update on Ronnie's stolen art that was heisted from him at the LA show a few months ago?

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My pleasure. I had as much fun as anyone else did. Thanks for not getting mad at the fact that my volume control becomes defective as I consume more and more alcohol. blush.gifgrin.gif

 

It was really great getting to know you, Paul, and Shawn. Hope to see you in San Diego, and I'm sure Liz and I will be making the trip to Sarasota before too long.

 

Oh, yeah........ A big "THANK YOU!" to Scott acclaim.gif for putting this all together for us, The restaurant was awesome! thumbsup2.gif
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Got some very nice 20cent Thors from a Ron _____ from Fresno

 

Sounds like Ronnie Murray..super nice guy.

 

Say, does anyone have an update on Ronnie's stolen art that was heisted from him at the LA show a few months ago?

 

Ya thats it - the brain is still on Monday setting. And ya he is a super nice dealer with super nice books and I will be contacting him to buy more. thumbsup2.gif

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Over the years I've seen and bought quite a few variants at Wonder Con, maybe I was just unlucky confused-smiley-013.gifI still remember seeing Motor City a few years back with a short box full of dozens upon dozens. cloud9.gif

 

And they still have them (saw them a couple weeks ago), but don't expect them to be cheap...

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I only wish I hit the show floor on Friday, but I think I was at it the most in terms of dilligence and the HOM run. BassGman plucked some as well as Rip I believe. I got a shot to see the Wrightson HOM Northland pedigree that Ron Murray got off Heros. Oh 893censored-thumb.gif I almost forgot he pulled out his FF #1 golden record reprint, the book is still shrink wrapped with the record 893whatthe.gif and is like Uber High Grade, I commented that you could slice bread with the corners. It was insanely white flawless copy.

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6. Forum dinner topics of conversation devil.gif this was a serious crowd of collectors. 4Gemworks has already posted that he was a bit put off by some of the lines of questioning that were direct at Steve, however, though sometimes heated, the questions were articulate and I think Steve was allowed time to respond and given the courtesy of not being interrupted when doing so. To his credit he made a sincere attempt to make his way around the table and spend time chatting with everyone present. Im sure others will get into specifics, briefly topics included, clean and press, notations of the label, the Wizard 9.5 grade and other arrangements, as well as resto in general etc. etc. I had a nice conversation with 4gem about variants, and Shin about buying in large quantity and the Green Rivers. As well Paul Litch and I discussed a lot of comic related topics, CGC grading, art, story, publishers, etc, etc. Pov, Garth, Rich and I got into it on a few topics as well, very, very smart guys who bring keen insight and a weath of knowledge to the table. I didnt get a chance to talk to FFB as much as I thought, we briefly talked about variants and PLOD books, goes to the fact that it was a big table and alot of ppl engaged in alot of topics. In the end I will say my impression of Steve B is that he is a cool guy that honestly cares about the hobby , however the jury is still out on the ppl he works for.

 

 

Excellent post!!!! This is the first post I've seen that addressed the dinner issues and discussions.

 

It seemed that everyone has danced around it thus far. I was expecting a verbatim transcript of the entire dinner/discussion/press conference/debriefing from someone by now, given the profuse outflow of "verbal diahrrhea" coming from the Wizard First thread 893frustrated.gif It's like pulling teeth... unless everyone attending is mot allowed to talk about it? "what happens at CGC dinner, stays at CGC dinner" 27_laughing.gif

 

 

Wonderful experience jbud and thank you very much for sharing.

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Jbud, great report. I'm at work now but later on today I'll be writing another long report of my experiences at Wondercon and the Forum dinner. I'm still suffering from both the "con-buzz" as well as a lack of sleep so I'm kinda' walkin' around like a zombie. But My report later on will be quite long.

 

I did want to say now that I really lucked out at the con on Friday. I was right there at the open with nothing but Bronze DC horror on my brain. Just by luck the Heroes booth was the first large dealer where I did some serious buying, just about 30 minutes into the show. I bought around 25-30 of those great HOM and HOS books and I feel sorry for anyone that had to follow me at that booth looking for the same books. And all at half price of what they listed at pretty close to FMV, not bad. The books I brought to the dinner on Saturday were from a second run through and not the primo stuff I bought Friday. Later on today I'll list in my report all the DC bronze horror books that I aquired. -------Sid

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Jbud, great report. I'm at work now but later on today I'll be writing another long report of my experiences at Wondercon and the Forum dinner. I'm still suffering from both the "con-buzz" as well as a lack of sleep so I'm kinda' walkin' around like a zombie. But My report later on will be quite long.

 

893applaud-thumb.gif I'm waiting with bated breath.

 

I was right there at the open with nothing but Bronze DC horror on my brain. Just by luck the Heroes booth was the first large dealer where I did some serious buying, just about 30 minutes into the show. I bought around 25-30 of those great HOM and HOS books and I feel sorry for anyone that had to follow me at that booth looking for the same books.

 

why? Are you that con-goer that purposefully creases the books that he won't/can't buy so that everyone else is left with nothin better than a vg/fine? devil.gif

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