Calgary Expo 2016 con report

[Artboy99]

Anthill Books

 

I have known this dealer awhile now, he does the same Alberta based shows I do. He has a pretty good inventory of golden age books. My only problem is his prices tend to be on the high side and many of his books have a strong smell to them so I rarely buy from him.

 

 

My friend John ( Piper ) has his eye on a book but he won't "pay the piper" (snicker)

[Artboy99]

Eegabeeva Comics. The WWBN 32 caught my eye but I thought it was priced to high so I put it back:

 

 

[Artboy99]

Harley Yee was in attendance. I firmly believe he has developed transporter technology to get around to all the shows he does.

He always has a great inventory, and if I had been on the ball I might have got the Suspense Comics 8 he had, I love that cover! Our own Podboy66 got the book and brought it to my booth to show me.

 

If you see this Vern, post a pic of the book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Artboy99]

Collectible Heroes

 

 

He wouldn't pose for the pic with his booth. He didn't have a very good show when I talked to him after he said he didn't bring whatever people asked for. I can sympathize but you just can't bring it all.

 

[Artboy99]

Mike of Phoenix Comics in Calgary. Mikephoen here on the boards.

He brings lots of retail items to the show, and a carrying case of the good stuff that he is always bringing to our booth to tantalize.

 

Dave bought a couple of books a Marvel Mystery ( 14 I think it is ) and a Captain Science. Dave and I bought a Walking Dead 1 and 2 for our wall.

 

I bought 4 Planet Comics to upgrade what I have:

 

I screwd up on the Planet Comics 69, I already had a decent copy and I for some reason thought I had a 4.5ish type of book.

I bought this CGC 6.0 because it has beautiful colors. The thing is so does my current copy!

Great copy of 70.

 

[Artboy99]

Thursday night the gang of boardies went to the Cowboys Casino for dinner. It is right on the Expo grounds and the food was not to bad.

 

These photos are terrible, I took them on my cell phone as I didn't bring my camera.

 

 

The place was extremely loud, you couldn't really even talk to anyone. Apparently it was students night and the place was packed with 18-20somethings most of which were girls. It was like 85% girls 15% guys, and the girls were parading around in tight pants and revealing tops. So to be honest I don't think we would have said much anyways. We just ate the food and gazed around the room.

 

[Iceman399]

The place was extremely loud, you couldn't really even talk to anyone. Apparently it was students night and the place was packed with 18-20somethings most of which were girls. It was like 85% girls 15% guys, and the girls were parading around in tight pants and revealing tops. So to be honest I don't think we would have said much anyways. We just ate the food and gazed around the room.

 

And the Karl didn't have the camera :O

[Artboy99]

Thursday was not that busy for crowds and the show went from 4pm-9pm. 9pm is to late in my opinion, I would rather they did a 1pm -7pm Thursday there isn't a lot for sales after 7pm anyways, and you end up eating far to late. After you pack up the wall books and get to where you are going you are lucky to be eating by 10pm. By the time you eat and have a couple of drinks it is 12 midnight to 1 am before you get back to the hotel. It is part of the comic convention experience, and I love the after show fun with the boardies!

 

There were more people on Friday and to be honest Friday was my best day for sales. After the show we all went out to the Wings place again:

 

 

[Artboy99]

The place was extremely loud, you couldn't really even talk to anyone. Apparently it was students night and the place was packed with 18-20somethings most of which were girls. It was like 85% girls 15% guys, and the girls were parading around in tight pants and revealing tops. So to be honest I don't think we would have said much anyways. We just ate the food and gazed around the room.

 

And the Karl didn't have the camera :O

 

 

while I have no problem taking pictures of people in costumes at a comic convention it is another thing entirely to be taking pictures of girls randomly at a nightclub. I just cant do it.

[Artboy99]

This is Gene and his girlfriend Anna. Gene has been buying golden age horror books off of us for 4 years now. Considering he is currently 17 years old and graduating from high school this year, I think his collecting focus is extremely cool.

She made the T-shirt Gene is wearing, so not only is she gorgeous she supports his comic collecting! A keeper in my book.

 

He bought Dave's Blue Bolt Weird and Andy's Tomb of Terror 15 CGC 3.5

[mikephoen]

Mike of Phoenix Comics in Calgary. Mikephoen here on the boards.

He brings lots of retail items to the show, and a carrying case of the good stuff that he is always bringing to our booth to tantalize.

 

Dave bought a couple of books a Marvel Mystery ( 14 I think it is ) and a Captain Science. Dave and I bought a Walking Dead 1 and 2 for our wall.

 

I bought 4 Planet Comics to upgrade what I have:

 

I screwd up on the Planet Comics 69, I already had a decent copy and I for some reason thought I had a 4.5ish type of book.

I bought this CGC 6.0 because it has beautiful colors. The thing is so does my current copy!

Great copy of 70.

 

Great report so far, and I don't even look too bad in that picture!

[Artboy99]

Saturday was very busy for crowds, and pretty good for sales.

 

Overall I did about half of what I did for sales at the 2015 Calgary Expo. This was due to several factors: the Alberta oil driven economy is taking a beating. There just isn't as much money for comic book purchases.

Additionally, the attending celebrities have increased their prices. As an example: Stan Lee charged $50 for signatures 2 years ago, this year he was charging $125. That is $75 dollars not making it to my booth this year.

 

The last reason is what I brought for books to sell. I focused this last year on paying down debt instead of buying comics for resale so I just didn't have as much to bring this year. The economic downturn here in Alberta galvanized me to focus on debt repayment and I am very proud of what I managed to payoff.

 

 

[mikephoen]

Oh, and if you don't need that Planet 69 I'll trade you for something else. I love that book and don't mind having a 'spare' copy!

[Artboy99]

Saturday evening the board bunch decided to go to the Keg for dinner. I was quite looking forward to a great steak dinner but as we got there it turned out that they wouldn't be able to seat us until several hours later. We got there at 8pm, they couldn't seat us until 10:30!

 

I called the other Keg location and they said the same thing about when they could seat us.

 

We all decided to try the Japanese restaurant that was right beside the Keg, it was called Ki.

 

The food was amazing!

 

Most of the guys did the Chef's Taste option, I don't like to eat any seafood and I knew it would have lots of that so I ordered the Steak. It was absolutely delicious, with a peppercorn sauce and garlic mashed potatoes. Arguably the best steak I have had.

 

[Artboy99]

Oh, and if you don't need that Planet 69 I'll trade you for something else. I love that book and don't mind having a 'spare' copy!

 

Thanks bud, I will give it some thought! Appreciate the offer.

 

 

[Artboy99]

The experience at Ki was great.

 

Mike let me try some of his Chef's Taste items and they were all delicious.

 

It was my first time ever trying saki, the group had 3 different bottle of saki to try, I liked the second one the best, go figure it was the sweetest. My sweet tooth is going to be my undoing.

 

Dave had to much to drink I think:

 

The waitress was awesome, I had her take the board dinner pics there and she did great and posed for a pic with me. This is arguably the worst photo of me ever! I was going to edit it, but what the heck you guys can all laugh at my expense!

 

[piper]

The experience at Ki was great.

 

Mike let me try some of his Chef's Taste items and they were all delicious.

 

It was my first time ever trying saki, the group had 3 different bottle of saki to try, I liked the second one the best, go figure it was the sweetest. My sweet tooth is going to be my undoing.

 

Dave had to much to drink I think:

 

The waitress was awesome, I had her take the board dinner pics there and she did great and posed for a pic with me. This is arguably the worst photo of me ever! I was going to edit it, but what the heck you guys can all laugh at my expense!

 

 

Karl, what is she holding?

[Artboy99]

those of you that remember this :

 

 

Once again we discover that girls do indeed buy comics. Sold lots of books to girls, although for the most part they stick to the $10-20 dollar range.

Some bought some sets in the $40+ range.

 

We had one girl buy $1100 dollars in marvel keys, but they were not for her they were for her fiancé. He is very new to collecting, so we offered up years of advice/ experience while he was in our booth which was over an hour. He took a long time deciding what to buy. I even went to a competitor's booth to help him check out books he was looking at there but they were middle of the run Spidey's that were over graded and priced to high. A 6.0 ASM 54 for $300 as an example.

[Artboy99]

The experience at Ki was great.

 

Mike let me try some of his Chef's Taste items and they were all delicious.

 

It was my first time ever trying saki, the group had 3 different bottle of saki to try, I liked the second one the best, go figure it was the sweetest. My sweet tooth is going to be my undoing.

 

Dave had to much to drink I think:

 

The waitress was awesome, I had her take the board dinner pics there and she did great and posed for a pic with me. This is arguably the worst photo of me ever! I was going to edit it, but what the heck you guys can all laugh at my expense!

 

 

Karl, what is she holding?

 

Like I said she was fantastic! You can use your dirty mind to figure out what she is holding. It looks like "wood" to me.

 

[Artboy99]

Sunday was also rather busy, not as busy as Saturday was but easily the same as Friday was for traffic. Lost of sales of books on Brian and Ryan's side, Dave and I sold lots of sets and small stuff Sunday.

 

The take down went reasonably fast, the hardest thing is you are very tired after little sleep for 5 days and waiting for the cart to haul stuff out.

 

Went to Mike of Whyte to ask for the keys to the truck and his staff brought the cart they had and even helped us load our boxes on the truck.. Thanks again Mike!

 

Dave got a great spot outside to load our stuff but he was in front of the cardboard recycling station. They told him to park there, then later said he had to move. They told him to drive inside the convention center so he drove up to our booth! Made loading easy.