Any OA Reports from SDCC 2012?

[thehumantorch]

Thanks for all the kind comments on the JJ piece. Now for the second piece I picked up at the SDCC - Barry Windsor-Smith's cover to Conan the Barbarian #13! I didn't go to SDCC expecting to buy the cover (which I had been eyeing on and off for the past 2-3 years), but Albert offered it to me for what I felt was a fair & sensible price (not a 2012-style irrational exuberance price), and I'm glad we could make the deal happen at the show.

 

A BWS Conan cover had been at/near the top of my want list for some time, so I'm thrilled to finally acquire one, with a large image of Conan in action and practically leaping off the page to boot - enjoy!

 

Gene

 

Congrats, that is a great cover.

[jbud73]

Thanks for all the kind comments on the JJ piece. Now for the second piece I picked up at the SDCC - Barry Windsor-Smith's cover to Conan the Barbarian #13! I didn't go to SDCC expecting to buy the cover (which I had been eyeing on and off for the past 2-3 years), but Albert offered it to me for what I felt was a fair & sensible price (not a 2012-style irrational exuberance price), and I'm glad we could make the deal happen at the show.

 

A BWS Conan cover had been at/near the top of my want list for some time, so I'm thrilled to finally acquire one, with a large image of Conan in action and practically leaping off the page to boot - enjoy!

 

Gene

 

Dude, seriously - I don't say this often but now I am totally jealous. That's like awesome. Can you at least put it in the top left corner where it belongs.

[spider9698]

Great piece Gene!

Congrats

 

[NelsonAI]

Nice pick ups Ron and Gene.

 

Cheers!

N

[chromium]

My first SDCC was a blast, even though I was working most of the time, I did have the opportunity to buy two pieces that had been on my want list for a long time.

I have wanted a Mignola Hellboy page (period : 1994 to 2001) for years..but could never find the right page at the various dealer sites or the auction houses. But I was lucky at SDCC...I went through most of the inventory of the various dealers on preview night and the only Hellboy pages I was able to find were the ones that Mignola himself was selling and this one :

 

Hellboy Splash

 

Which was being sold at a dealer's booth by a collector looking for cash to buy another piece.

Mignola was selling the cover to Hellboy in Mexico which was pretty nice, but he wanted $6000 for it, and told me he had priced it this high as he didn't really want to sell it. I liked the cover a lot, but it was a 2012 piece and I was really looking for something earlier. So I struck a deal with the collector and took the Hellboy splash page home (well to the Hotflips site so Jeff and Charles could keep it safe for me )

 

SDCC would have been perfect for just there and then, but there was another piece I had seen online and wanted to see in person. So I took a stroll over to Bechara's booth and found the page.

I was worried that Vince Colleta had erased a lot of Kirby's work, but once in hand I could see most of the details, especially on the "Kirby Machine" were still there.

So I engaged Bechara in some friendly but straight to the point haggling... after a while we were $100 apart for the final price...so he proposed a coin toss...which we did...right there on the SDCC floor. I lost (of course ) but was stoked to get this piece I really wanted as well at a price I found more than fair.

 

Kirby Thor

 

I have always been skeptical when told how SDCC is perfect for buying art...Logic would dictate that the sheer volume offered online would dwarf what would be for sale at SD..and I also assumed due to the large overhead of Comic Con, dealers would be more reluctant to "deal".

Well I was proven wrong. A lot of dealers carry new inventory and pieces on consignment that don't end up online, and showing up with a stack of $100 dollar bills does open doors. Even in the age of eBay and paypal, cash remains king and SDCC is a great place to buy art.

[Bronty]

I've flipped coins on stuff many times. Definitely a fun way to bridge the gap as long as you can live with losing the toss

[chromium]

I've flipped coins on stuff many times. Definitely a fun way to bridge the gap as long as you can live with losing the toss

 

It is, I was already happy with the price before the coin toss... had I won it would have been an extra bonus, but $100 difference for this page wouldn't have mattered that much. Dealer was happy too because he won the coin toss

[rrichards]

Bechara has offered me the "coin flip " thing on deals also but not being a gambler I always shy away from it. It is one of those things that makes Bechara one of my favorite dealers !! Your Kirby page is great!!!!

[VintageComics]

Kirby Thor

 

Wow, what a piece. Absolutely gorgeous.

 

A lot of dealers carry new inventory and pieces on consignment that don't end up online, and showing up with a stack of $100 dollar bills does open doors. Even in the age of eBay and paypal, cash remains king and SDCC is a great place to buy art.

 

The problem is finding that stack of $100's.

 

[VintageComics]

I've flipped coins on stuff many times. Definitely a fun way to bridge the gap as long as you can live with losing the toss

 

It is, I was already happy with the price before the coin toss... had I won it would have been an extra bonus, but $100 difference for this page wouldn't have mattered that much. Dealer was happy too because he won the coin toss

 

I've done the coin toss a couple of times as well. I have yet to win one.

 

[alxjhnsn]

The problem is finding that stack of $100's.

 

Getting into SDCC is a pretty sizable problem, too.

 

Thus, on to ComicArtCon. Low cost of admission, lots and lots of art, and convenient housing at the hotel. What's not to like?

[VintageComics]

Getting into SDCC is a pretty sizable problem, too.

 

 

Yea, verily. It's getting tougher and tougher every year to get collectors into the doors to spend money there. They are being displaced by fans of the media, which is great for the con but not great for vintage dealers. I set up as a comic dealer this year (my second year) and even though I was at the front of the room with lots of decent material, I would say that we were significantly less busy than we are in New York.

 

The number of actual buyers coming in the door is a fraction of what I saw in NYC last year.

[PsylockeSmythe]

Getting into SDCC is a pretty sizable problem, too.

 

The number of actual buyers coming in the door is a fraction of what I saw in NYC last year.

 

I've never been to the NYC show; but I have to agree that their are more buyers showing up at other shows now then SDCC.

 

At SDCC; the opposite ends of the convention hall that had the dealers and the artists; were the two easiest areas to move around in. The middle area which was mostly media companies were a pain getting through.

 

Makes me miss the good old days when the SDCC was 85% comic based.

 

Psy

[VintageComics]

There might be a small group of vintage comic book dealers talking to the SD higher ups about this. I've already spoken to a couple of dealer friends about it.

 

It's so difficult to get tickets and hotels that even if people want to make the show and spend money there, they can't.

 

It's ironic that the San Diego Comic Con has little to do with comics any more.

[rrichards]

Hey wait a MINUTE!!

Has anybody ever WON the coin flip thing with Bechara!

Hmmmmmm! I smell a trick coin! ( just kidding,I think???)

[chromium]

Hey wait a MINUTE!!

Has anybody ever WON the coin flip thing with Bechara!

Hmmmmmm! I smell a trick coin! ( just kidding,I think???)

 

After I lost the toss my buddy said "I checked, the coin was legit"

[monsterbento]

I had a weird experience at Anthony's booth.

 

Helper A asked me what I was looking for, so I told him some artists and characters. Before he goes off to find anything, he whips out his phone for a couple minutes. Helper B comes along and asks me the same thing, and I tell him the same stuff I told A. B actually gets some stuff right away. A few minutes later A drops a portfolio on top of what I'm looking at and tells B to buzz off (wasn't the exact words) because I'm his sale. Then they go back and forth. It made it really uneasy for me because I personally felt B was more helpful, but A did ask to help first. I ended up not buying anything, so neither of them got a sale. Were the people working the booth paid commission for any sales?

[chromium]

Maybe he tried the patented "heads I win, tails you lose" strategy?

 

[jbud73]

I had a weird experience at Anthony's booth.

 

This is the equivalent of 'It was a dark and stormy night' in the OA world. Lot's of people have had 'weird experience' at Anthony's.