Baltimore Comicon!

[FlyingDonut]

I heard Frank on the ComicZone but didn't realize that he is a super celebrity. Here he is with his black cat. He drew some barbarian babe that hit $2K. To put it in perspective Romita did the following:

 

The "some barbarian babe" was Shanna the She-Devil, star of the upcoming huge series from Marvel, and the sketch was FABULOUS.

 

A tremendous time was had by all. My feet hurt.

[chrisco37]

I'm going to keep my report short. I had a good time at he Baltimore ComicCon this year despite my low funds.

 

Friday was great as I went up to BWI Marriott and got to hang out with my buddies: Brian (Foolkiller), Dave (Dam), and Bruce (BB13). We had some drinks and played foosball. I was on Bruce's team (he's really good), and our victory won Bruce the bed in the hotel room (instead of the cot).

 

Saturday, I arrived late at the con (surprise!). I immediately headed to Andy Lee to put in some sketch requests. Ended up w/ a killer looking Roarschac (sp?) and a really cool Morpheus for a buddy of mine. Tried to get some sketches for CGCMint, but only was able to get him a Steve Lieber GA Batman (really cool). I found the Doom Bowen Bust I'd been looking for and everything seemed to be going pretty well. Picked up some HG Alan Moore Superman's from Donut (thanks!).

 

I then rec'd a call from a friend of mine that my next door neighbor (she's a year older than me) had passed away the night before. Needless to say, my day was pretty much shot. Thanks to my new pal, Solar, for being there when I found out the news and giving his condolences.

 

The day went on, and I kind of just wandered aimless, tried to get a few more sketches for CGCMint, but either the lines were too long or the creator were absent(Where was Bill Willingham??? Didn't see him at all. Same w/ Adam Hughes). Had some fun when I threw out a couple of thrill bids on the Romita Con sketches. Ran into some more forumites and started rounding up people for dinner. I got back my two on-site submissions, and was very happy with my grades (thanks to Bob Storms for the sweet Boston Caps!).

 

Onto the forum dinner, which is always my favorite part of any show. Great time w/ good people. Sat with my boy, Paul, and some of the new graders. Props to Matt and Eric for being really cool guys. All in all, I think the dinner went well (considering I set it up ).

 

After the dinner, Steve, Solar, Flink (a total pleasure to meet you!), and I went and had a few drinks and some great conversation. Always good talking w/ Borock who is one of my favorite people. Just a great guy.

 

So, just wanted to say thanks to everyone that attended. I had a great time, and being there with you guys helped ease the shock and sadness from my news earlier in the day. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like everyone to pray for (or send a good thought to...however you do it) my friend Jen and her family. Thanks.

 

Sorry about the downer post.

[Solar]

Here's the summary for those with extremely short attention spans:

My Baltimore Convention experience started off really really bad, but ended quite nicely.

 

And here's the slightly longer one:

Saturday morning, I dragged my lazy self out of bed at 715 and set out on the 45 minute drive from Newark, DE to Baltimore. Why did I leave so early? Cause I knew something was going to make me late. It always does. Unfortunately, "something" came in the form of a $250 speeding ticket, courtesy of a [!@#%^&^] Maryland trooper.

 

At that point, I was so ticked that I seriously considered bagging it and heading back to bed. I kept driving though and soon reached the massive traffic jam that is downtown Baltimore. I dont know what was going on at 9AM, but the convention center area was a parking lot. Speaking of parking lots, I soon found one. It was an all day $10 event deal that will come back to bite me in the later on in the story.

 

So finally, I arrived at the show and got in line. There was actually a huge turnout for the beginning of the Con and the show opened about 15 minutes late. Upon entering I noted that it was smaller than I expected and about 35% of the room was made up of the artist/publisher/Palisades toys section. It didnt matter much to me though since I was mostly there to get some books graded.

 

I dropped off my submission at 1030 and began wandering. I'll just get this out there right now: there werent many comics that interested me at this show. There were plenty of pretty books on high shelves, but most were priced alot higher than my sanity and knowledge of GPA would allow me to consider. I decided it was time to hunt for moderns and readers that I needed. I didnt end up buying much, but I got my missing Moore Swamp Thing TPB, a nice Harbinger 1, and a run of Walking Dead 1st prints that I got signed by Kirkman and Tony Moore. Cool stuff, but nothing I could sell off to cover the damn speeding ticket.

 

I bumped into Darth Diesel and Shield Agent by the CGC booth and introduced myself. Both were extremely cool guys who suggested I should crash the Forum Dinner since there were still open spots (I was signed up but forgot to pay). I met Chrisco outside while we coincidentally shared the same bench during a smoke break. Chrisco's an awesome guy and I was glad I could be there to talk to him when he got his bad news. He introduced me to DAM60 and Bronzebruce at the ACTOR booth.

 

Eventually the show came to an end and the dinner crew met up by the CGC booth where I met Steve B. and the rest of the CGC guys. I talked to Rocketeer, Foolkiller, and Tom from Gemstone. Everyone was incredibly cool considering I'm a newbie to the dinner scene. The dinner was a great time! I sat with Mark Haspel, Shield Agent, and Jerry from CGC. We discussed everything from original art to various grading issues. The conversation was excellent and the food was great too (plus CGC picked up the drink tab, which was very cool).

 

After the dinner, Chrisco, Flink, Steve and I headed over to the bar for a couple rounds of drinks. I had a great time and did my best to maintain my sobriety for the drive home. That drive however, was not to be...

 

Around 1AM the thought occured to me that my event parking garage may actually have business hours since it wasn't part of a hotel. I mentioned this and Steve gave me his cell number just in case. I left the bar and made the 5 block hike back to the parking garage only to find a large chainlink metal wall was standing between me and my car. I was out of change so I put the call on my Master Card and phoned Steve.

 

Let me just say this: Steve Borok is a god among men and saved my from a night of wandering the streets of Baltimore. I crashed in the extra bed in his hotel room, which was FAR more comfortable than the park bench I would have been on otherwise. Steve is one of the coolest people out there, period. I'll say this one more time - THANKS MAN!

 

Anyway, I woke up at 9 wondering where the hell I was. We caught a cab and made it over to the show for the opening. Jerry had been cool enough to bump my moderns up so I could get out of there early since I had to make it up to Philly for the Eagles game at 4. I grabbed my books and rolled out (after getting my new Conan 1 CGC 9.8 signed by Linsner on the slab).

 

Fortunately, my grades came in and they were sick! To this point, I figured the new friends I met were easily worth the price of my speeding ticket and parking garage incident, but my grades paid for the ticket, and then some.

 

Here are some highlights-

This one's just for my personal collection:

 

There havent been too many of these subbed, but this is a new top census:

 

This was a $20 wall book at my LCS:

 

This one's a quick flipper:

 

Another one for my personal collection:

 

A book I think is underrated:

 

And the one that made my day (I paid $100 for this one last week):

 

I had about 20 more books, all of which hit great grades, but arent really interesting enough to post.

 

Once again, I'd like to give a shout out to everybody I met. You guys are great!

 

That's it for my report. I'm sorry I'm so long winded. Nobody's ever accused me of being a concise writer

[Dmac538]

This my short little report from the Baltimore Comicon, i arrived at the show about midday with my girlfriend, and was a little disgusted to see the city overrun with Yankee fans( Met Fan here). The ease of entering the show at that time was great, no line whatso ever. I really don't get to many cons as i used to , but this one was very well run , and plenty of space. There were a few artists there that i was very excited to Romita Sr., Grell, Rude, Starlin and my buddy Lisner. My girlfriend really got into all the fantasy art and actually purchased a few books. Some of the forum members i actually recognize from Dam60's pics, i also stopped by the ACTOR table as well.

I eventually made it over to the CGC table as i had about 50 books delivered up from Florida. It was fun meeting some new people , and meeting people that i had talk to on the phone. The one person that i wanted to meet was Steve B., who i had not seen in years. Well i bumped into him when he was working the floor , and he is still as nice as i remember. He invited me and my gf to the forum dinner , but we couldn't make it, but i am in for next time.Hopefully at the next show i will meet more forum members, thanks for letting me bend your ears.

[Foolkiller]

Before I begin any long winded con-report, let me just say to Chrisco that I'm really sorry to hear about your friend, and I would have said something in person had I known at the dinner --

 

 

As for the con itself, I'll try to repeat too much of DAM's report, but I'm sure there will be overlap.

 

 

I set out from Philadelphia to go Bronzebruce's house in New Jersey. Bruce was kind enough to open his home to us and show us some of his amazing books. As you can see from one of Dave's pictures where I'm holding a slew of slabs, I'm giddy at the thought of owning some of those books. Additionally, Bruce was kind enough to let us look through some of his raw books and show us his prize posssessions as well. Since it seemed like traffic was ugly on the way over to Jersey, I decided leaving early wasn't all that big of a deal. We waited until about 5 pm, and started on the raod. Traffic was a little stop and go through to Maryland, and the one thing I noticed were the rediculous number of expensive tolls there were on the way to Baltimore. Every ten miles it seemed like there was another $2 or $3 toll. Before we started the trip, Dave kept telling me that he was most excited about the car ride down to Baltimore because it'd be great conversation with Bruce and me. Dave fell asleep about half an hour into the car ride.

 

We stayed out at the Marriot at the airport (thanks again Chris!) which was a great hotel. After getting there, we met up with Chris and a friend of his and decided to eat at the Sports Bar/Resturaunt at the hotel. Originally, I intended to head straight into the harbor area to hang out, but since it was a little late, everybody seemed tired, and we were right there, we all decided that eating there was probably the best thing. After a few beers and some light fare, we started playing some foosball, but were then joined by Rocketeer and started chatting comics.

 

Sleep on Friday night was hard to come by because I kept tossing and turning, and since we had to be at the Con by 9 am to help ACTOR set up, the 7:00 AM wake up was just brutal on about 3 hrs. of sleep. Once I got going and got to the con (and had two cups of coffee) I was feeling better. Things at the ACTOR booth were jumping, although well orgainzed, the line for John Romita, Sr. was long and everyone was requesting sketches (and we had to turn everyone's request down), and at some point, they had to be cut off. Although busy, I did get a chance to submit my lone book (Brave and the Bold 28) to CGC. In addition to all the goings on at the ACTOR booth, Donut was set up right across from us, so unfortunately we had look at each other's mugs all day long. I wanted to dig through his boxes, but sadly I only had a couple of minutes on Sunday.

 

During the day I spun around the convention floor a couple of times, but I really didn't have all that much time to actually dig through boxes. I was really looking for raw books that I would want for my collection or slab myself since the prices were completely outrageous there as many, many people have noted. Dealers ought to consider that there are a lot of people with money now who I've heard are simply keeping it in their pockets because of the high prices they see at shows.

I wanted to dig more through the boxes on Saturday but simply didn't have the time. In a cash/trade deal with Ted of Superworld I did aquire an Avengers 4 (VG/FN great eye appeal, but there were definitely defects), a gorgeous JLA 30, and another nice looking JLA book in 60s (and I can't even remember the # now). I got back my Brave and the Bold and it was 5.0 which I was very, very happy with.

 

Then I picked up an awesome piece from Buzz of a cover recreation to Detective 38. If you've never seen Buzz's work or have thought of, but held off from, commissioning a piece from him, then I suggest you check him out at the next con. The piece is awesome, and Buzz is one of my absolute favorite artists.

 

On Saturday night we had the Forum Dinner which was great as others have reported. I sat with Kevin and Mary Ann who I worked the ACTOR table and wanted to invite to come along -- and Carl (Darth) and Flick were also nearby so I had a chance to talk with them. Also got a chance to talk to Paul for a little while and Mark Haspel for a bit to see what was going on with them. It was definitely a good time at the dinner, although there was a little initial confusion from the Phillips resturaunt and Phillips buffet. Thanks again to Chris and Steve... as always, the forum dinners are awesome.

 

On Sunday morning, Bruce, Dave and I were to meet up with a friend around 10 am, but fortunately we had a good night's sleep and a McDonald's breakfast, so it wasn't the painful morning Saturday was. We arrived at the Con at 12 pm, and wandered by the ACTOR table but everything seemed under control. So I began hunting around -- my disaster dealer story of the day comes from Motor City. Although they had a lot of beautiful slabs, most of them were priced very, very high and he refused to budge from his prices. I suppose his windfall from the summer of people pumping up his bronze age find inflated his head, but regardless, the prices were sky high. A couple of other people (and some dealers) were also shaking their heads at the outrageous prices they stickered at. I was shopping the brave and the bold 28 a little to see what kind of interest anyone had, and here's the funny part of the story. When I asked whether Motor City (and I'm pretty sure it was Mike Goldman) whether or not he was interested in a 5.0 Brave and the Bold, he said he wasn't (which was fine) but then proceeded to tell me how it's not that hot a book in that grade and he could barely get guide or less. I found this a little hard to believe, especially since at Wizard World Philly, when I inquired about a Brave and the Bold 28 raw low grade, his price was stickered above guide and he told me how hot the book was. I wanted to say it to him, but decided just to walk away, but knowing that obviously you can't really trust him, because they'll say whatever they need to sell their books and devalue yours. Thus ended any association I'll ever have with Motor City.

 

Although several other dealers were interested, most wanted trade, or trade/cash, but none had books I wanted, or if they had books I wanted, the dollar values weren't matching up. Instead I just decided to spend some more cash and went over to Dale Roberts' table to look and found a beautiful Green Lantern 85 (solid 9.2) and a CGC 9.4 Warlock 10 at a very reaosnable price. Dale was friendly, knowledgable, wanted to work with you on prices and had a very nice stock. He was a great guy, and I will definitely look for him in the future.

 

Bruce, Dave and I took off then, said our goodbyes, and grabbed a quick bite at the harbor before heading out -- and the drive home was all that was left...

 

Baltimore was a blast! The National should be fun as well in November.. looking forward guys.

[Darthdiesel]

short report - no pics - they'll come later...

 

Saturday

 

Uneventful drive up to Baltimore from No. VA. Got to the con around noon, met up with ShieldAgent (Harry). First things first - dumped 60 books off at the CGC booth - caught up with Scott, fellow former Staten Islander and comic colleague who I've known before he worked for CGC. He's the man for taking care of my invoices and payment and giving my pregnant wife a chair to feed Logan his lunch. At the booth, I met Solar who filled us in about his early morning speeding woes. We talked briefly about comics and books we were getting slabbed and invited him for the CGC dinner that night.

 

After CGC, Harry and I made it up to the cards Comics and Collectibles booth (Marc Nathan) where FlyingDonut Dan, the unpaid laborer, was slaving away selling books. he filled me in briefly on modern books that were selling: Nyx 3, people looking for Y the Last man 1, the Astonishing xmen 1 and 4 retailer variants, teen titans go, and so on... then he pointed Harry and I to the direction of Earl Shaw - the 35 cent variant man who happened to be set up next to the Mile High of 35 cent variants, Motor City Comics. When we got there, we met bonas123 from eBay, a fellow 35 cent variant collector, with a handful of books from a short box full of thee things. We talked briefly with Earl and mentioned returning to purchase a couple of the variants. Harry and I went over to Motor City and checked out prices on variants - the Scooby Doo 1 CGC is stil $3500 - also their Xmen 30 cent variants were in the $150 - $200 for FN and FN/VF copies. At this point I had to break from Harry, as I promised to take Logan and my wife to the Baltimore aquarium. My son was in a great mood all day and we had a fun time by the Inner Harbor: music, street performers, a guy making animal baloons, ice cream, the aquarium (took several pics of Logan enjoying the fish swimming around! He loves them!) and ended it with the Dolphin show. At that point he was sleepy and went down for a nap, so back to the con it was. I met up with Harry again around closing time who had scoped out a lot of the booths but spent a lot more time talking with Earl, a very cool guy by the way with new stock worth picking through. Harry led me to this one booth , a local MD shop, and we picked through his boxes real fast and came up with 10 variants between us. Not a bad score for 15 minutes before closing

I caught up with Dan and saw how his day went. His wife Diane was there when we came back so my wife Kolette and she chatted it up about the Aquarium and the kids and comic talk as well. I met Kevin and Mary Ann (working the ACTOR booth)and spoke briefly but we would be seated next to them at dinner and chat more then. Glad to see Solar was going to come along. I met Tom Gordon and his lovely wife Jen. I saw Chrisco, Brian (foolkiller), bronzebruce and Dave (DAM60) over by the Actor booth and the funny thing was we had kept missing ech other all day long - I was at the con they were at lunch - they came back from lunch - I was at the Aqaurium. I met William Insignares from Demolition Comics in FL - I enjoy his reports in the OCPR and will have to get his thought on modern slabbing. I was nice to see that there would be more atendees to this dinner than what the reservations thread had been showing (several last second cancels ) We got ready to meet with the rest of the forum at the CGC booth and it was great to see Steve and meet Paul, Marc, Shawn and Eric - the CGC crew present at that time.

 

So we all broke for a bit b/c the con center kicked us all out. We had a bit of time before dinner so Harry came back to our car where I had his Conans and Shannas. I gave him a whole bunch of stuff he had bought from me earlier about two months ago and just held for him.

 

We all made our way back to the Inner Harbor and we caught all the forumites outside waiting for the room to be set up. Bruce had brought a wolverine figure (old yellow and blue costume) for little Logan. Logan kind of tossed him aside at the time, but has incorporated it into his bath time playtoys... anyway, typical Phillips on a Saturday evening, busy; cramped; long waits; dry crab meat - but all this was tolerable because of the company

 

I enjoyed many conversations that evening. Flink arrived later, a victim of the Orioles-Yankees game traffic, but was ready for a gin and tonic and dinner. She brought Logan a Spidey coloring book which he will love. I spent most of the dinner taking care of feeding Logan but got some conversation in with everybody there before we broke for the evening. If I didn't have to go back to VA, I would have been down for the late night afterparty We made it home safe that evening and Logan was already asleep. My wife and I talked it over earlier, since I was a good daddy that day, I would be able to come back on Sunday and go con hopping some more.

 

Sunday

 

got up late - was digging through boxes for slabbable stuff - then gave up after I couldn't find my darn RRP books lost somewhere in my inventory...oh well...driving up was horrible due to traffic - the Yankee-Oriole game was a day game and the streets were littered with fans - the closer I got to the con center, the worse traffic got - fortunately I parked at the same $10 event parking place both days with no incident.

 

As I'm getting out of the car, I'm talking to Harry who couldn't make it, Donut tells me they have my books ready - and says I've got some killer grades. Indeed I did as I got them from the CGC booth - recounted evening conversations with Paul, Shawn and Eric and moved back to talk with Donut. It turns out that they still had a batch of my books that wouldn't be ready till 3:30

 

- at that point Kevin was at the ACTOR booth holding up the Sweet Sweet Cho Black Cat for auction. It was at $1100 in a matter of minutes and rising... I broke away from there and headed to the booth with the 30 cent variants from Saturday. Found 5 more - Warlock 12-14, Kazar 17 and another I forget. I decided to go to that lonely corner by the tables and the concession stand and work my way down from these. I met a few new dealers with recently acquired collection from the Baltimore area. I told them all about the 30 cent variants I was looking for and exchanged information. Some really nice people. I saw current asking prices for signed Turner stuff, Nyx 3 was selling for $35, very high asking prices for Ultimate spidey 1s. After diggin through boxes I turned up one Omega 3 variant - it was sunday and I figured guys like ft88 probably found all of them by now.

 

So, I went on a new search pattern. I turned into Greggy Jr and started picking up Millies and Chilis; considered some Binkys and Dating with Debbies. I met a nice couple working a booth with a little baby hanging from daddy in one of those baby belly sacks. He had awesome high grade DCs and marvels from the 60s and I bought 3 Chilis from him and found out he is a Northern VA neighbor and he sells at the Tysons Corner shows now - WartHawg Comics, I think. I have his info so I'll be shooting him some requests for those goofy Marvel "Archie wannabe" cartoon comics...

 

I stopped by my buddy Jeff Schwartz's booth Fantasticrealm and talked about the Jay Company, Turner stuff - told me that Ezra 1 sketch cover and Wanted 1s were moving all day long ($10 for the Wanted 1); I also met long time business associate Joel Elad from California - I had bought or sold tons of Top Cow stuff through him and we have a mutual customer who like to send stuff to our houses unannounced. It's funny 'cause every now and then I'd get a pakcage of very expensive books and I'm telling my wife, "I swear I didn't buy it" - It's all Hwee CHong's fault... - she probably thinks that I set up my buyer alias as Hwee Chong with all his books that come to my house.

Stopped by Koop's Comics and couldn't find and Millies or Chilis but had some nice USM 1 regulars and White vars, I was getting some pricing input for my own upcoming sale of the book- Koop was on the phone at the time dealing with his credit card machine breaking down for the umpteenth time, so I didn't bug him

 

I went back to Earl Shaw because I had to get this one Daredevil variant - I also picked off his wall a Millie annual and an chili Annual - queen sized specials or something...but since he had books for me back in GA and also had another DD 35 cent variant for me that someone reneged on, we decided he'll gather it all up back home, total it and send me the bill later. I walked away with the one DD variant though I decided to break from the comic book search ennui and roamed the artist/creators section. Tons of cool stuff - a lot of more mature material and eye candy women to go draw attention to the booths

 

Time for me to go pick up my books and get the flock out of Balto. Sunday was slower than Saturday according to the dealers but I enjoyed talking with a lot of the small time sellers who were new to the con and just learning what business would be like. I stopped by the CGC booth and Paul and Marc were there. We went over several copies that I had graded and as I posted in the price variantclub thread in Bronze Forum, these guys are great and very informative when it comes to finding flaws on your books that'll knock out of a high grade range contention. More sweet variant books

 

I hung out with Donut some more, reviewed my books and grades, talked with Steve and the CGC guys (Mark, Paul, Shawn, Scott, Eric) before they left and wished them a safe trip back and an Ivan-free week...

 

I headed home and passed most of the long trip back talking with Harry and filling him in on the con events and finds. I started talking to him aroun the 495/95 merge and next thing I know I'm pulling into my parking spot. Harry's a great guy to hang with and easy to deal with everytime. I'm glad he made it up Saturday. He may not post too much on here but always good to see him. I have dinner and play with Logan for a bit. I clean up the house and help my wife Kolette with getting laundry done. After they headed off to bed, I uploaded and edited some of the pics from Balto and then I got to work on sorting my variant collection with the new books and scanning my books for sale and variant dupes, all the while watching Kill Bill vol 2 (which was not as good as 1 IMO - a lot more mushy stuff and fight scenes were a bit cheesy compared to the battle with Oren and the crazy 88s in the first Kill Bill movie). I decide to check the boards around 1:30 AM and got caught in an IM fest with Rickdogg, Greggy, and Bigman. I made sure to flaunt realitytrip's gorgeous DCs that were graded for him at the con. Greggy's couldn't PM fast enough, but I really didn't need to hear the lengths he would go to for sweet sweet DCs... By 4:45 AM this morning, I get into bed and wake up a 7:30 AM to take care of Logan, get ready for work and drop him off at daycare. and here we are with a long arse rambling report..

 

 

Any questions? Direct them to Donut and Greggy My apologies if I didn't give any of you a mention in the report and we had run into each other at the con More pix to come....

[flink]

What he said...

Chris did a great job setting this up, thank you! (So sorry to hear about your friend Jenn, my condolences to her family.) It's nice to be able to attach a face to a name. Darth and his beautiful wife bought the cutest and most well behaved little boy (Logan) I've ever met. If I try to mention everyone I met I'm bound to forget someone and hurt their feelings so I won't even try. Suffice it to say even though I got there late, (damn Yankees) I had a great time.

 

Chris, Brian, Steve and I went to another bar later where I promptly forgot my two drink limit but sure had an interesting conversation. Wobbled back to the hotel and then Sunday morning...

 

My sister called and said my Dad went to the emergency room because his heart was racing, he has a pacemaker and it's not supposed to do that. So I take my poor aching head and start driving home. Got to the hospital, the cardiologist had put him on a medication to suppress atrial arrhythmias and he should be fine. He is getting a new pacemaker in the near future anyway. So I missed the con on Sunday but I wouldn't have had a moments peace there anyway.

[Jgel]

Just posted links and picks in the Market place. The show was great. I bought a ton of stuff. Onsite grading was a success. Highlights...

 

The Incredible Hulk #117 CGC 9.6 WHITE PAGES

 

The Incredible Hulk #115 CGC 9.4 WHITE PAGES

 

The Incredible Hulk #112 CGC 9.4 WHITE PAGES

 

The Incredible Hulk 104 CGC 9.4 WHITE PAGES Rhino cover

 

The Incredible Hulk 111 CGC 9.4 WHITE PAGES

 

There were others as well. I now have about 50 more books to send into CGC and wait forever again. I might wait for onsite grading in NY for some. Hope all had a good time.

[Darthdiesel]

My sister called and said my Dad went to the emergency room because his heart was racing, he has a pacemaker and it's not supposed to do that. So I take my poor aching head and start driving home. Got to the hospital, the cardiologist had put him on a medication to suppress atrial arrhythmias and he should be fine. He is getting a new pacemaker in the near future anyway. So I missed the con on Sunday but I wouldn't have had a moments peace there anyway.

 

Sorry to hear about that but glad it turned out well. And Chris, our prayers our with Jenn...

[BronzeBruce13]

Although I was seriously from lack of both Friday & Saturday... I'm very to have had a chance to with David and Brian for a couple of days.

 

I also enjoyed meeting up and with Chris (and Matt, his IT friend) and JD on Friday Night. Appetizers, Beer & Foosball... whatta' combo!

 

Finally got to meet Carl, his lovely wife Kolette and Logan too, although I did not have a chance to spend as much time with them as I would have liked. Little Logan is a really cute kid! I had a good when he tossed my "Wolverine Action Figure" offering down to the ground as if he was not the inspiration for his namesake... . I think Logan was just checking to see if it was authentic... (laced with adamantium). Spent a little time chatting with Tom G & wife and Dan... and the CGC crew too.

 

Regrettably, I did not have enough energy to mingle as much as I would have liked at the CGC dinner. I did not get a chance to speak much with several people that I never met before... like Solar and Carl. I even only managed to down 3 plates of seafood at the buffet when I usually can do much more damage. It was loud and I was hot and weary and ready to pass out. AND yet again, I did not go "after-drinking" with the hardcore party animals! I have to change that next time as I'm told I can be quite entertaining when I get a little loopy.

 

A special thanks to both Brian and David. Two of our hobbies most genuine, helpful and fun fellas. I could not ask for better company. These guys were kind enough to get me to Baltimore (door to door), put me up in their Hotel room on short notice (even got the bed with David taking the cot despite my protests of the foosball game victory not being binding)... and even got me into the con gratis. Thanks again guys and for the enjoyable company!

 

As for the con, I was with my raw search... I came soooooooo close time after time! I was prematurely excited more than few times (thinking I unearthed a solid 9.6 bronze key or filler) until the last pass revealed a defect taking it to 9.0-9.4. Damn its tough!

 

I did manage to make the trip worthwhile from an acquisition standpoint. I did come away with a very hard to find Marvel Super Heroes 18 9.4 White (for a friend) and a Werewolf 32 9.6 oww for several hundred less than the copy I won online last month... and it looks much better! Same grade upgrade (and dupe)on a book I could not find for almost 4 years! Gotta' love it!

 

Anyway... Enjoyed meeting you all and sorry I was not as "peppy" as usual. Next con I will find a way to sleep and WILL go drinking after the CGC dinner!

[Red Hook]

Come on guys....WE WANT PIX!

[Jgel]

I will post some of my purchases later tomorrow. Here are some of the books from on site grading.

 

 

 

 

 

[Darthdiesel]

As promised:

 

Logan was there primarily for the Baltimore Inner Harbor and the Aquarium:

 

Mommy and Me at the Inner Harbor

[Darthdiesel]

 

When Can I swim?

[Darthdiesel]

Enjoying the fish

[Darthdiesel]

Just hangin'

[Darthdiesel]

Dolphin Show

[Darthdiesel]

Lunch at the CGC Booth

L to R: My wife Kolette, Logan and Forumite ShieldAgent (Harry)

[Darthdiesel]

Daddy and Logan at CGC dinner

Notice the shirts! Thanks, Rob_React!

[Darthdiesel]

This is just TOO exciting!