Mrwoo's National Comic-Con Report.....SPOILERS!

[mrwoogieman]

I don't really have any spoilers, but I've always wanted to post that in a new thread.

 

Friday night

 

Wasn't able to get into the City until almost 6:30, got right in as the place was pretty dead at that late hour. More than one dealer looked like they needed their 8 full hours rest by that point; setting up for the show must be some strenuous activity for a large number of dealers (I imagine it would be for me too).

 

As soon as I got in for free (after convincing the guy at the door that I was indeed a volunteer for the ACTOR booth), I made a beeline for the CGC booth where I met mrhighgrade (Juan) who showed me the invoice from his submissions. Pretty sweet except for that crazy 7.0 PLOD which said one page trimmed on the label. I overheard Paul Litch at the forum dinner the next night mentioning a comic that had siamese pages which received a PLOD when someone split them, not sure if he was talking about this particular book or not. mrhighgrade was kind enough to tell me I was at the CGC pick-up booth, not the submission booth which was downstairs (I had passed it on the way in and didn't notice it)

 

So I hightailed it down to the submission booth and there were several CGC guys looking like they were ready for day one to be over. Scott Talmadge (sp?) was kind enough to assist me with my submissions. He tried to use the 'end of convention' turnaround time on me, but I pleaded for end of Saturday since I wasn't able to attend Sunday. After a bit of cajoling, including telling him I was a board member (which strangely enough didn't earn me any cred) and using exact change for my fees, he put me down for a 5:30 Saturday pick up time.

 

Books I submitted and my guesstimates for the grades:

 

ASM 298 9.4

ASM 300 9.2

Unity 0 red logo variant 9.6 or better

X-O Manowar 0 gold edition 9.6 or better

Psi-Lords 1 gold edition 9.6 or better

Bloodshot 0 gold edition 9.6 or better

Eternal Warrior 1 gold flat edition 9.6 or better

 

After getting my books in and with the assurance that I would have them back by end of Saturday, I made my way to the ACTOR booth. One volunteer was there and he said the booth had been pretty much dead for most of the afternoon. He suggested I take a trip around the floor and then come back so he could take off. So off I went, but about half the dealers and all of the celebrities had packed it in since show had about an hour left for the day. I spoke to CKB (a board member who set up to sell at the show), but I didn't know it was him until Saturday. I didn't buy anything, I wasn't really shopping either.

 

I called Dam60 (dave) who said that he and foolkiller were meeting at the con at about 8:30 to go out with some of the CGC graders. I decided to tag along. The show closed up and we all gathered together and made our way down to Union Square to go to the Heartland Brewery (you can see where this is going). In attendance were myself, Dam60, Foolkiller, his friend from Philly, and the CGC graders Paul, Matt, Shawn and Eric (I think it was Eric, the one with purple spikes in his hair), along with forum member Kevin_Boyd and his buddy from Paradise Comics, I believe (I forget his name). Anyway, we sampled the beverages and had a fun time. The CGC guys were a lot of fun. Sometime after 11:00 it was time to hit another bar. Paul and Eric were plumb tuckered and wanted to head back to the hotel, so I decided to call it a night too and we three walked back up to 33rd where the hotel and show was and I hit Penn Station for my train back to LI. Rumor has it the other guys were at it until 3:00 a.m.

 

Saturday Afternoon

 

Basically, I would have been happy to have been sedated until 5:30 so I could go and get my subs back (yeah, less than 24 hours was still too long but I managed). I hit the con at about 3:00, got my free pass again and headed to the ACTOR booth. I saw Dave and Brian and hung out with them for awhile. I walked the floor again, and stopped at CKB's booth for a bit after we figured out we knew one another (he posts on Valiantman's website too). I bought some nice low-grade Hulks off of him #s 103, 108 and 109 for my brother. Good deal too!

 

Then I stalked Tanya Roberts for awhile. She feigned interest but I was kind of distracted because I kept having flashbacks to my teenage years. It was awkward because how do I tell this nice lady that she occupied my mind while I was occupying my hand! (Sorry if that was TMI, but this is the unexpurgated con report!) Anyway, I didn't embarass myself too badly as no security was called and she didn't look frightened at any point, so all was well.

 

After cruising the floor some more, I made my way back to the ACTOR booth for awhile and hung out there with our own Flink (Ann) and Stynxno (Mark), and we had some nice chitchat. I heard a rumor that Redhook was in Da Hizzo, but I hadn't seen him yet. After a bit, Shadroch (Bill) stopped by as well. I decided to cruise artist alley, but although he was advertised, Jim Shooter wasn't in attendance. Didn't really stop by anyone else's booth, and I missed Neal Adams who was signing downstairs and I didn't get down there for him.

 

Finally, the clock creeped past 5:00 and I was jonesing to get those subs back. So, I made my way over to the CGC pick-up booth. Shawn found my books, they were ready right at the appointed time!

 

The grades I received:

 

ASM 298 CGC 9.8 o/w-w

ASM 300 CGC 9.6 w

Bloodshot 0 gold CGC 9.6

the other four Valiants were all 9.8!!

 

Very, very pleased with these! I still can't understand how the ASM 300 was a 9.6, I saw two NCB spine creases, but apparently because they didn't break color, no problem! Who knew? . If someone is interested in the storage conditions for the two Spideys, just ask, it's a hell of a tale on just what a comic can endure and still be better than NM! In any event, later on at the dinner Paul suggested that I resub the 300 because obviously the grade was too high. I agreed, but didn't take him up on the 'offer'.

 

So now I've got my books and I'm in full elation mode. I head back to the ACTOR booth and show off the slabs to anyone in sight. Burntboy stopped by with his lovely wife at that point, so he wasn't spared having to look at the books too. The rest of the con is a blur, obviously, because I was here - - instead of at the show.

 

Saturday Night

 

All in all, a great forum dinner!! The saying goes, 'what happens at the forum dinner, stays at the forum dinner', so I won't go into the same excruciating detail on what transpired at the dinner. I'll just list some notable attendees, in addition to the forum members already mentioned, almost all of whom came to the dinner:

 

Dmac538

Heartened

Ze-man

More CGC guys: Steve B., Mark Haspel, John (magazine grader), Ron (quality control), Dave (I think), and Paul Litch again.

In addition, several dealers were there as well, led by our own Blazing Bob!

Also a couple of international collectors, one fellow from London and one from Paris (not sure of their names, however, sorry).

 

So, that's it! We had fun, no one was arrested and no one threw up (at least not right at the tables!).

[DiceX]

TMI about Tanya, Woogie.

But I agree.

 

Great report! I'm glad you had a good time.