Seattle Show Review (updated and very long)

[lighthouse]

I will come back and edit this post in a little while, to include the full details and a first-hand commentary about the evils of drunk driving...

 

But the short version is this... anyone who thought about attending the Emerald City ComiCon in Seattle yesterday but didn't.... you missed out. Anyone who thought about setting up at the Emerald City ComiCon but didn't... you missed out even more...

 

I don't know whether I should be happier about the JIM 83 in Fine- at $700, or the Adventure 48 that was 20% off guide... or maybe the fact that I did ten times my table fee in the first hour without a single sale over $50...

 

Biggest surprise of the day for me was the fact that I sold over 50 issues each of Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, and just three issues each of Daredevil and Incredible Hulk. I was offered six different copies of DD 1. all at less than 70% of guide in grade.

 

And I think the coolest scavenger hunt possibility at the show was this. You could put together a run of Batman #1-11 at the Con, without buying two issues from the same dealer...

 

More later... still unpacking...

 

*Update*

We drove up the night before, choosing not to do the 'suicide run'.. Why some dealers think it's a good idea to leave home at 1:30am, drive for 5 hours, then try to be sane for a con is beyond me...

 

After dropping off most of the inventory at the site and getting set up, we headed to the Motel, which despite the opinion of the folks on the 1-800 number was NOT within "a couple miles" of Seahawks Stadium. But we checked in anyway and got a recommendation for pizza delivery (JetCity) which turned out to be quite good.

 

I pulled out the last two boxes of unpriced Silver that I wanted to get priced for the show and we watched Shawshank on tv... I've probably seen the film 60 times, between the full version, the TNT version, and the ABC version... It's really no wonder it ranks so highly on imdb.com, I just can't turn it off no matter how many times I see it. So after pricing just 20 books, I put the rest away, decided to save them for the Portland show in two weeks.

 

I tried to hook up with a high-school buddy of mine who lives in Seattle, but he made the semi-final table at a cash Pai Gow tournament, so it was not to be. Oh well, we probably would have wound up in jail anyway... They don't treat Duck fans too kindly in Seattle...

 

Arrived back at the stadium around 7:30am, show opening at 10. Got most everything arranged the way I wanted it. The booth next to us was selling anime and toys, giving away a "Free Miffy Clock with every $50 purchase". I have no idea who Miffy is, but boy did I want that clock... The power of advertising...

 

I walked the length of the floor around 9:30 and saw that the line outside was over 100 yards long... Several other dealers had noticed the same thing and I saw a lot of grins around the building. It took until 10:45 before the line outside had cleared, but by then I was waist deep in customers.

 

Everything was selling... everything... I had overstock TPB's at half-cover price, plus a bunch of low-end Silver Age, some store new release overstock, and a ton of Manga trades that I picked up last year at $1 a piece that we were selling for $5 (cover prices from $10-$20). The dealers across the aisle had 50c stock, toys, gaming stuff, t-shirts, and they were doing quite well themselves.

 

By the end of the day I had talked to most of the dealers at the show, and everyone seemed to say the exact same things. Everything was selling. The Golden Age dealers did well. The Silver Age dealers did well. 50c Bargain Books, Vintage Toys, T-Shirts, DVD's, Big Little Books, TPB's, everything sold well...

 

The more I think about it, the more I wish I had taken home the Adventure 48. Looked like a Fine- but had deer mice chew removing a piece the size of a postage stamp from the entire URC, all the way through the book. (Not in the shape of a stamp of course, more like a crescent moon off the corner, but that was the total area missing). If I had any sense at all as to how Steve would grade the book I would have bought it in a heartbeat... There were certainly other books I could have picked up with the same cash, but picking up a copy of that book that I could sit down and read without the least guilt... Oh well... my loss...

 

Visited a little with the artists and writers... Didn't get any signatures as I really don't see the point. I've met them, I don't need to prove to anyone else that I have, which is really the only reason for signatures in my opinion... One of my employees has a sketchbook that he carries with him to every con, and he has been able to get sketches from a lot of people who normally refuse. They tend to look through his book, see who else is in there, realize that if he was planning to sell "their" sketch he would have already sold some of the ones in the book, and then agree.. Anyway, he got an amazing sketch by Darick Robertson, using the same method I always use, which is to ask the artist to draw whatever they feel like. You know that Darick gets asked to draw Spider Jerusalem so often it's like sitting in the dentist chair, so when my buddy made his request, Darick said "Are you sure???". My buddy's "Yes" was followed by a happy grin and a chortle, and two minutes later he's the proud owner of a page-size cool 50's-era-Robot sketch. Easily the coolest addition to the book this show.

 

Show wrapped up smoothly, chatted with the organizers for a while, then loaded up, which went VERY smoothly... We headed south, wanting to get at least 30 miles away before we stopped for gas and food. So we pulled into a Circle K in Fife, Washington.

 

We decided on Mitzel's for dinner, and I turned around while my buddies headed over. I heard a loud crash, and when I was pointed towards the road, I saw their car in pieces all over the roadway, with them running over to check on the other driver. Another driver had already stopped with his hazards on to block the two debris-filled lanes, so I drove to the other side of the road and started helping move pieces out of the oncoming lanes. My buddy's car was totalled, everything forward of the radiator was scattered on the road. The police arrived in less than 90 seconds, and the ambulance and fire crews arrived immediately after. My buddy who was driving was bleeding a little from his hand where it hit the windshield, but his passenger was fine, and the other driver seemed unhurt as well.

 

We waited in the 33º rain for over 20 minutes, while they took statements, then I moved my buddy into my vehicle so he could get warm. They were worried he might go into shock, so we stayed with him while trying to get everything processed with the tow trucks and all. After a while we realized that the other driver was in the back of a cruiser, in handcuffs. Turns out he was doing better than 80mph, blew 0.22 on the breathalyzer, and had run 3 consecutive red lights before striking my friends car. The impact was directly on the right front wheel, spinning the car completely around. Had they been even 1/10 of a second further into the intersection, they would both be dead now. As it was, the car was totalled, and other than a few bumps and bruises, they are both fine.

 

Needless to say it put a bit of a damper on the perception of the show, especially since I didn't have room for both of them in my vehicle, so I took the driver home with me, and put the passenger on a Greyhound... He's 23, the life experience was good for him...

 

But all in all, I think more good than bad came from the event. My buddy intends to talk to all of his friends about drunk driving, and it will be hard for them not to listen. And we all gained more appreciation for the people we expect to protect us. My own state has decided that police and fire departments are good places for budget cuts, and for some reason the electorate has agreed with them. It feels wrong to say this, but I am happy the accident occurred in Washington, because I don't know that the response in my own state would have been as swift. I don't pay Washington taxes, I don't pay for the police and fire and EMT services there. But they were there anyway. I think the citizens of Oregon do a disservice to visitors by not ensuring that they are just as safe...

 

Off my pulpit now... Start making plans now for next year's Emerald City ComiCon. It should be a heckuva show!

[greggy]

Arrrrgh, odin88 told me about the show and the turnout! Over 2 K in attendance for a Seattle show! Is this going to be a yearly show only or will they have more?

[cd4ever]

Sounds awesome. I haven't been to a real comics show since London in 1987 where I met Alan Moore, Mike Baron, Walt Simonson and a slew of great people. Although Mike Baron was a bit of an , it was still one of the highlights of my life. I think this year I will try another one.

 

What, in your opinion, is the best show of the year for silver/bronze back issue selection and meeting comic professionals? I have no interest in star wars, star trek, toys, or other stuff. Just comics. I'd appreciate your opinion.

[lighthouse]

Head count with about twenty minutes to go was just over 2500. By comparison, the Portland shows do between 1400-1700, and the "other" Seattle show (which has been going on for several years and goes again in March) does under 700 attendees... And these folks were not "San Diego attendees" there to get free swag to sell on eBay. They were there to spend money. I personally spoke with over 20 dealers who all said it was one of the best shows they had ever done...

 

I have nothing but praise for George and Jim Demonakos, the organizers of the show. I told them about halfway through the day that I would happily pay MORE money for my booth space to get that kind of crowd again. They did a lot of advertising, through both standard and unusual methods, and this show was far from "Winking in the Dark".

 

Their next show is next February, and they are currently planning to make it a 2-day event. Frankly that scares me a little, I sold 5 1/2 long boxes of Silver Age yesterday. I don't think I can bring enough stuff to make it through a 2-day event there.

[COI]

Yeah, that sounds pretty impressive. It's good to hear considering the last few shows I heard about were a bust.

[supapimp]

yeah, way to go on your sales LH, and nice score on the JIM 83!

[read_em-migration]

Wow, I'm glad you enjoyed the show, Lighthouse. You had better luck than I did. For me personally it was a disappointment. How many dealer tables were there, 60? And how many of them were selling bulk 50 cent - $1 comics? Seemed like 30 at least. (I don't need any of those). And then there were all the regular dealers from the other Seattle show (like 10 of them?), whose stock I've already been through. And nobody seemed to bring any ECs.

But I can see that if you don't live in the area, the show would seem pretty cool. There were definitely some deals to be had, but just not in my area of collecting. They had a good line-up of guests too (which even the regular show seems to get, I don't know how). I'm not putting the show down, (it was the biggest con around here in at least 5 years) but I just hoped to see some new dealer faces with a killer selection of Bronze/Silver stock. But eh... what are ya gonna do?

[lighthouse]

And nobody seemed to bring any ECs.

 

If you were one of the four customers who asked about my Double Cover Tales From The Crypt 37, then you met me at the show... shame on you for not saying hi..

 

The same dealer with the JIM 83 also had around 60 EC's in various grades and was extremely interested in making deals. I got the sense he really was hoping to make some cash at the show, he was definitely interested in moving product. If not for the fact that one of my customers was picking the boxes ahead of me I would have spent a good deal more at his booth (and no I don't step aside for all my customers, but when a guy drops a fat stack of Benjamins I try to be nice to him for at least a few hours). The dealer was the one with a set-up of Big Little Books on one of his tables, if you didn't see his EC stuff you missed out...

 

I agree the show was a little light on Bronze, though I found at least 60 9.2 or better black-cover 20-centers around the floor. I didn't buy many of them, since I was trying to fill some Golden Age holes, and was frankly too busy at the booth to get very far away...

 

As to the dealer count, there were 86 10x10 booths, which equated to around 130 8-foot tables. I much prefer "booth" shows like this one over "table" shows like the ones in Portland. I only had a 20-foot space, but had 32 feet of table set-up. The table count is usually a little higher in Portland, but from a dealer standpoint setting up at a show with 29 attendees per booth space is hella-good... Portland averages less than 10 attendees per table, and San Diego averaged just 47 attendees per booth space last year (for a four-day show with a fair number of duplicate attendance counting).

 

I would expect that after the success of this year's show, the one next year will have a lot more fresh faces behind the tables. If anything, George and Jim will be even more aggressive in their marketing next year, and I would expect a fantastic show for people on both sides of the table...

[PovertyRow]

Lighthouse - this is great to hear and reviews of shows are a high point for me in the forum and much appreciated.

 

What you said tends to jive with my perception that a lot of stuff is going on at shows and it is really where a good chunk of our hobby lay (lies? oh great, it has been so long since I have written porofessionally I am forgetting the basic rules!)

 

Wondercon is in April and hope to be ablke to report similar excitement.

 

Did you happen to notice that, beyond EC, if much in precode horror was there?

 

 

[lighthouse]

yeah, way to go on your sales LH, and nice score on the JIM 83!

 

Sad to say I did not leave with the JIM 83... One of my customers and I found it at the same time, and considering how much he had spent with me just a few minutes earlier, I graciously stepped aside. I was content to wind up with a small stack of high-grade Fawcetts and some gorgeous LB Cole Romance books...

 

The one book I am most kicking myself for NOT picking up was the Monkey-Brain book that Richard from Tomorrow's Treasures brought with him... I have owned Weird Mysteries 5 six times in the last three years, never for more than a couple weeks, and I really would have liked to pick up the nice copy Richard had... It was cool finally meeting him in person, since I have purchased from him several times...

[lighthouse]

Did you happen to notice that, beyond EC, if much in precode horror was there?

 

Off the top of my head, I would say probably six dealers had at least three pre-code Horrors available (no telling how many were behind the tables, I had some with me, but none of my customers would have known that).

 

I didn't see any Black Cats, but I saw a fair number of Beware, Out of Night, Weird Mysteries, and a few other LB Cole books from Star Publications. I really only had a few windows of 10-minutes or so to look around, but I was quite pleased with what I saw...

[PovertyRow]

I didn't see any Black Cats, but I saw a fair number of Beware, Out of Night, Weird Mysteries, and a few other LB Cole books from Star Publications. I really only had a few windows of 10-minutes or so to look around, but I was quite pleased with what I saw...

 

Sweet! I have been getting more and more precode from ebay. Just got a Marvel Tales 96 Fine at $110 and an Uncanny Tales 16 Fine+ at $60. I have bought recently from this buyer and his grading is pretty darned good. The Marvel Tales in FN guides at $190 (it is tantamount to #4 as it started with #92) and the Uncanny Tales guides at $87. So if the grades are ok then a couple of more bargains.

 

The Uncanny Tales 16 is a favorite cover of mine. I LOVE the dynamics of that Brodsky cover.

 

Imagine going fishing and hauling up THIS!

 

 

 

[read_em-migration]

"If you were one of the four customers who asked about my Double Cover Tales From The Crypt 37, then you met me at the show... shame on you for not saying hi.."

Hmmm, was that the only EC you had? Was it displayed on a small rack with about 10-12 other comics? If so, I did ask if you had any others. I didn't realize it was a double cover, because I already have that issue and didn't think twice about it. And you would have had to have had a big sign that said "Lighthouse Comics" for me to recognize you "The same dealer with the JIM 83 also had around 60 EC's in various grades and was extremely interested in making deals. I got the sense he really was hoping to make some cash at the show, he was definitely interested in moving product."

Huh. The only guy I can think of that had that many EC comics there was Old Man Swan, who is a fruitcake. I've tried to deal with him before, but he's nuts! He never wants to give me a deal - I tried to haggle one time and he took it personally! I've heard other stories about him too. If it was someone else then - DAMN! I thought I asked at every table Oh well, probably out of my price range anyway...

[supapimp]

And you would have had to have had a big sign that said "Lighthouse Comics" for me to recognize you

 

im sure he isn't hard to miss, he did state that he is 6'7" or taller, or in slang terms, "a tall MF'er!"

[greggy]

Mmmm, I don't know about two day events for Seattle. They have tried it in the past without success. However, the advertising for those shows weren't as widespread as this one. I may regret not going. I didn't want to bring big $$ like in the past and only buy 1 or 2 books. Oh well, until next year!

[aardvark88]

I got lost driving to & away from the Seattle Seahawk's stadium. Damn Canucks can't read a map !

Liked the layout of the con. Very tall ceilings w/ good lighting. No problem of overheating w/ the over 2k of collectors/buyers in attendance. Noticed more women at the con than usual. Think they were attracted to the manga, independent comics & publishers' booths. Successful Marvel movies are making comics FUN again & collectors are pulling the CASH out of their pockets this time.

Disappointed that John Cassady (Planetary, Capt Amer) showed up at noon without any artwork/sketches for sale. Nice to see all the regular Vancouver, BC & Portland, OR artists drive in to support this new comicon promoter.

Crazy Charlie from Swan's finally decided to be reasonable with his prices on his vintage stock of ECs, BLBs, Marvel mags, etc.

Amazed that Rich (Tomorrow's Treasures) would fly in from NY. 1st Seattle show I ever saw him at. Wish he had a master list of the grades & prices of his gold & silver bks. At the very least, he should of had his business card out w/ his email & webpage address. He was rumored to be carrying a Marvel Comics 1 in his suitcase.

1 Canadian collector was running around buying all the vf Lois Lanes, Jimmy Olsen's he could retailing at $5 or less.

Saw 1 dealer with a relatively fresh collection of Marvel & DC bronze for sale. About 8 long boxes. Avg condition vf or better.

[aardvark88]

Collectors were also bringing in comics to trade/sell. Saw 1 guy pull a raw 1930s New Comics 9 vg+ out of his knapsack. My jaw dropped !

[blowout]

Thanks for the review Lighthouse, as pov said it is great to hear about succesful shows.

 

You mentioned the JIM 83, was there much other early silver stuff?

JIM, TOS, TTA, & STT?

Always on the lookout for nice books from these runs but don't seem to find many raw at shows anymore.

[lighthouse]

You mentioned the JIM 83, was there much other early silver stuff?

JIM, TOS, TTA, & STT?

 

Counting the copies at my own table, there were at least two copies of every JIM 84-125 available, and I saw at least 3 each of the issues in the 90's.

 

TOS there was no 49, at least not by the time I got to each table, but 2 40's, at least one each of 41-48, and three different dealers with full runs from about 60-up.

 

TTA I saw multiple copies of the early Antman stuff, but not as much from 50-80...

 

Strange Tales I didn't see a 101, but I saw three 110's and a couple 115's, plus a bunch of miscellaneous later issues.

 

Pre-Hero Marvels there were some but not a lot, maybe 15% of each of the runs represented for JIM, TOS and TTA and 5% of the Strange Tales.

 

A couple good runs of Amazing Adult Fantasy starting around 5...

 

All in all, there was good stuff to be had. As usual there was a lot of dealing before the show. I passed on two different ASM 1's that were walking around. And I watched a guy open a backpack full of nice Good Girl stuff that he was offering around... stuff was out of my price range that day so I never saw where it wound up...

[chromium]

Always a treat to read about a convention...I'll probably never make it to any, but living vicariously is a nice substitute

thanks lighthouse you gentle giant you....