n2wdw's Tales of the Comic Book Room 15 15

[Bat34]

Quality Meats never disappoints!

[FlyingDonut]

On 1/5/2018 at 10:25 PM, n2wdw said:

We're going to the one in Reston VA.  You have to be in their Landry club for this deal, which is like their frequent flyer miles.

 That Morton's is about a mile from my house.

Edited January 17, 2018 by FlyingDonut

[n2wdw]

19 hours ago, FlyingDonut said:

 That Morton's is about a mile from my house.

[n2wdw]

21 hours ago, Ricksneatstuff said:

The rolls look phenomenal. 

I'm on a no bread, rice or pasta diet.  So I compromise.  I only eat the top part of the rolls, the part that's crispy and buttered with sea salt.

[n2wdw]

Birthday Steak and Martini, Captain Action and Matt Baker

We spent this past MLK weekend at our little beach cottage where I have my comic room.  Here are some pictures.  I wrote on @Robot Man's journal about my Captain Action collection.  I've had these toys since I was a kid (over 40 years ago) and lost a lot over the years.  This is all I have left.  A few years ago I mounted the outfits on thick mylar for both display and to keep from losing anything else.

 

Here's a pic of some of my lovely lady statues.  There's a variant statue of the She-Dragon that I'm looking to add someday.

 

Here's my raw Matt Baker comics.  Actually, I have the graded Bakers that you see in front, and the raw comics are behind.

 

Here's my display of Baker's Cinderella children's book.

 

Now turning to my belated birthday dinner, here's my dirty martini with blue cheese stuffed olives (I stuffed the olives myself -- they taste better than the pre-made ones in a jar).

 

Here's the steak, a huge 2.5 lb porterhouse.  I shared it with my wife and we had a lot leftover.  Usually I like to grill in a smoker, but it's been too cold to go outside.  So, I sauteed the steak in olive oil and garlic, and then finished it in the oven.  Below is the finished steak just before cutting. 

 

Edited January 19, 2018 by n2wdw

[comicjack]

The Martini looks yummy and the Going Steady isn't bad either 

[Yorick]

I'll have to try the fresh stuffed blue cheese olive.  I don't like the jar varieties (and I've tried several).  Perhaps spending too much time with the olives makes them a bad couple.

[n2wdw]

11 hours ago, Yorick said:

I'll have to try the fresh stuffed blue cheese olive.  I don't like the jar varieties (and I've tried several).  Perhaps spending too much time with the olives makes them a bad couple.

I agree, blue cheese olives need to be fresh to taste good.  They have the stuffers on Amazon for around $10.  Just search "blue cheese olive stuffer."  You can use it to stuff jalepenos into olives too, or anchovies, and it's easy.  Sometimes the olive breaks if you try to stuff too much, but then you just pop it into your mouth and go to the next one.  I'll probably stuff a few this weekend during the afternoon football game (go Vikings!), to use later at dinner in a martini.

[lpsunburst]

You may want to give Cooper's Hawk in Reston a try as well though the Ashburn location is better.

[n2wdw]

18 hours ago, lpsunburst said:

You may want to give Cooper's Hawk in Reston a try as well though the Ashburn location is better.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[n2wdw]

Recent Pickups

I already have a Marvel Mystery 87, but this was so cheap on eBay I picked it up to flip someday.  Or maybe I'll just keep both copies, as I love this Schomburg cover.

 

Got this at the end of the year, and I got it from the Planet-Man himself, @Ricksneatstuff.

 

This is a wild Jumbo cover. 

 

And I finally got a copy of this classic Eisner cover.

[lpsunburst]

1 hour ago, n2wdw said:

Thanks for the suggestion.

Any time, and dont forget that the Shoff show is back in Tysons this weekend.

Edited January 20, 2018 by lpsunburst

[n2wdw]

2 minutes ago, lpsunburst said:

Any time, and dont forget that the Shoff show is back in Tysons this weekend.

Thanks, I forgot about that one.  But I'm saving my money for Terry's con next Sunday.

[n2wdw]

Probably Last Buy Before Going to Terry's Con

Won this from Heritage this past Sunday.

[n2wdw]

Terry's Con Report Part 1

Here's my report of Terry's Con (Cal Con 2018).  On Saturday I flew in from DC.  The traffic was horrendous from LAX to my hotel (I stayed at the Fairfield Inn rather than the Ayres as I'm always chasing after Starwood points).  So, I didn't get to the swap at the Ayres hotel until about 5pm.  The pickings were slim by that point, and I thought prices were high.  I heard you had to be there right at 330 when it opened for the good stuff, and there was a lot of money flowing on big books.  Maybe someone who got there early can provide details.  Here are some pictures of the swap.

 

I wanted to buy something at the swap, so I ended up with this:

 

 

Edited January 29, 2018 by n2wdw

[n2wdw]

Terry's Con Report Part 2

Before flying out to LA, my wife says "So you're going all the way out to LA for a 1 day con?  You're flying out Saturday and coming back Sunday night.  Is this worth it?"

I have to admit I was having second thoughts, especially since I was in SF earlier that week for work.  So in the span of 5 days I'd gone from DC to SF, back to DC, then LA, then back to DC.  And on top of that, on Thursday I'm going to Germany/Bulgaria for 10 days for work.  So as I was sitting in my hotel room Saturday eating carryout chinese food, and this was after going to the swap which was pretty much a non-event for me, I was definitely wondering what I was doing going to this one day con.

Things didn't start well on Sunday.  The con started at 930am and I got there right at 930.  There was a line to get in but not too bad.  Not like SDCC or NYCC or even a WW con.  Here's a picture of the line to get in from where I was standing.

 

But it took forever to get in, just under 30 minutes, which didn't seem warranted given the relatively short length of the line.   I started having deja vu of SDCC. The people working were very helpful and they were working hard.  Problem was, the registration area only had space for 2 people, and they had to deal with cash, credit cards and those who bought on the internet.  On top of that, they had to tear raffle tickets for each person.  I read someone else saying it took 1.5 hours to get through the line.  I find that hard to believe but then I wasn't paying attention to the line once I got in.

So anyway, once I got in I did a quick reconnoiter of the floor.  There were 2 rooms, the main room and the auxiliary room (that's how I thought of them).  All the action was in the main room (at least for the stuff I was looking for), so I didn't spend much time in the aux room.  Here are 2 pics of the aux room.  This was about 4pm when the crowd was thinning out.  Still, the traffic in the aux room seemed to be much less than the main room.

 

Here's a pic of the aux room earlier in the day when the crowd was better.

 

One of the main things I wanted to do at this con was meet some boardies in person.   So, after my quick reconnoiter, I looked for @Robot Man who I knew had a table.  It's not easy to find someone when you only know their board name, and not their real name, or what they look like.  But I was able to locate Robot on the first try, by what he was selling on his table.  I met @Tri-ColorBrian at his booth.  Here's a picture of Bob (Robot) in front of his wall.  As you can see, he prefers to keep his secret identity intact.

 

I bought a bunch of comics from Robot, which I'll talk about later.  Then I headed over to Terry's comics.  That's where I met @Ricksneatstuff in person.  I also met @Dreamtoreal1 (Pablo) and we completed an earlier buy here on the boards.  Then we had fun going through Terry's golden age boxes.  It took me a couple hours to go through all the boxes.  Here's a picture of them standing from one end of his booth.  I'll post more about what I bought later.

 

If you look the other way, you could see the line out the door to the CGC table.  The line was pretty steady all day.  Before the show, I considered bringing some books in for grading, to save shipping.  I'm glad I didn't.  Saving the shipping wouldn't have been worth it to stand in this line.

Edited January 29, 2018 by n2wdw

[Knightsofold]

On 1/20/2018 at 6:25 AM, n2wdw said:

Recent Pickups

I already have a Marvel Mystery 87, but this was so cheap on eBay I picked it up to flip someday.  Or maybe I'll just keep both copies, as I love this Schomburg cover.

I like this cover too, but it's a Syd Shores not a Alex Schomburg.  

[Knightsofold]

27 minutes ago, n2wdw said:

Terry's Con Report Part 2

Before flying out to LA, my wife says "So you're going all the way out to LA for a 1 day con?  You're flying out Saturday and coming back Sunday night.  Is this worth it?"

I have to admit I was having second thoughts, especially since I was in SF earlier that week for work.  So in the span of 5 days I'd gone from DC to SF, back to DC, then LA, then back to DC.  And on top of that, on Thursday I'm going to Germany/Bulgaria for 10 days for work.  So as I was sitting in my hotel room Saturday eating carryout chinese food, and this was after going to the swap which was pretty a non-event for me, I was definitely wondering what I was doing going to this one day con.

Things didn't start well on Sunday.  The con started at 930am and I got there right at 930.  There was a line to get in but not too bad.  Not like SDCC or NYCC or even a WW con.  Here's a picture of the line to get in from where I was standing.

 

 

But it took forever to get in, just under 30 minutes, which didn't seem warranted given the relatively short length of the line.   I started having deja vu of SDCC. The people working were very helpful and they were working hard.  Problem was, the registration area only had space for 2 people, and they had to deal with cash, credit cards and those who bought on the internet.  On top of that, they had to tear raffle tickets for each person.  I read someone else saying it took 1.5 hours to get through the line.  I find that hard to believe but then I wasn't paying attention to the line once I got in.

So anyway, once I got in I did a quick reconnoiter of the floor.  There were 2 rooms, the main room and the auxiliary room (that's how I thought of them).  All the action was in the main room (at least for the stuff I was looking for), so I didn't spend much time in the aux room.  Here are 2 pics of the aux room.  This was about 4pm when the crowd was thinning out.  Still, the traffic in the aux room seemed to be much less than the main room.

 

 

 

Here's a pic of the aux room earlier in the day when the crowd was better.

 

 

One of the main things I wanted to do at this con was meet some boardies in person.   So, after my quick reconnoiter, I looked for @Robot Man who I knew had a table.  It's not easy to find someone when you only know their board name, and not their real name, or what they look like.  But I was able to locate Robot on the first try, by what he was selling on his table.  I met @Tri-ColorBrian at his booth.  Here's a picture of Bob (Robot) in front of his wall.  As you can see, he prefers to keep his secret identity intact.

 

 

I bought a bunch of comics from Robot, which I'll talk about later.  Then I headed over to Terry's comics.  That's where I met @Ricksneatstuff in person.  I also met @Dreamtoreal1 (Pablo) and we completed an earlier buy here on the boards.  Then we had fun going through Terry's golden age boxes.  It took me a couple hours to go through all the boxes.  Here's a picture of them standing from one end of his booth.  I'll post more about what I bought later.

 

 

If you look the other way, you could see the line out the door to the CGC table.  The line was pretty steady all day.  Before the show, I considered bringing some books in for grading, to save shipping.  I'm glad I didn't.  Saving the shipping wouldn't have been worth it to stand in this line.

 

Great report!  Thanks for sharing!  I hope to attend it someday.  

[n2wdw]

Terry's Con Report Part 3

I'm trying to get more pictures in shape for posting, but here's my bottom line review of the con.  It was definitely work the effort to go, even though right now I'm a zombie from taking the red eye home last night.  This is one of those cons where there are more gems hidden in the long boxes than the walls.  I left early but only because I was way pass my budget and I finally told myself I had to stop buying.  I didn't even make it to some tables and I wonder what treasures I left there.  And dealers were willing to deal!  Not big dealers like Terry (although he did give me a fair volume discount), but from other people I was getting big time discounts.  Compare that to NYCC that I went to late last year.  I left the con with money to spend, and what money I spent was mostly with artists rather than comic dealers (and not by choice; I'd rather it be the other way around).  And discounts were light and hard to get.

Let me give you 2 examples.  Here are my last 2 buys before I headed to the airport.  I wasn't looking to buy anything more but the deals were too good to turn down (although my paypal account is feeling the pain today).  I ended up not buying anything from Harley only because his booth was one of the last I went to, and by then I'd spent too much (even though he had some good books for good prices on sale).  My point being, I thought the selection was really good at this con, and the pricing was fair.  Sure there were lots out of my price range.  But there were more comics in my price range than I could afford to buy.

 

Edited January 29, 2018 by n2wdw

[n2wdw]

22 minutes ago, Knightsofold said:

I like this cover too, but it's a Syd Shores not a Alex Schomburg.  

Ah, you're of course right.