Calgary Expo April 25-28, 2024 - Todd McFarlane just announced 1 1

[kimik]

On 4/29/2024 at 3:04 PM, thehumantorch said:

And a regular buyer who own a video game store told us about his experience with Mcfarlane.  Got a call from Mcfarlane’s nephew saying Mcfarlane would like to come to his store for a signing.  Didn’t want a lot of advance publicity to limit the crowd.  McFarlane showed up at noon and walked down the line and said hello to everyone and then signed from 12:30 pm to 9 pm.  Without a break.  1100 people.  For free.  That’s someone who doesn’t need any more money and just wants to give back and is a pretty good human being.

That is similar to other stories I have heard bout him.

One of our regulars got a standby ticket for a signing with Todd on Saturday. He asked him why he was not charging for certified signings. Todd told him if people want to do that to make money off of SS books they can do the signings through CGC. He said he was there this weekend for the fans so he was signing for free with no witness. People that had things signed and came by after had nothing but great things to say about him. He would talk and interact with each fan for a bit instead of just churning them through. 

Edited April 29 by kimik

[thehumantorch]

Also wanted to say how much fun I had this year hanging out with my buddies kimik, 500club, artboy99, joeypost, fantasticthor and even greggy.  The comics are always fun but the people are most important

[Artboy99]

Enjoyed the show!

I sold quite a few books out of the 4 boxes of my inventory, emptied a box. What was selling was Spawn, as well as J. Scott Campbell variants. I sold my Le Chat Noir Black Cat Campbell, and turned that sale into a 3.5 Hulk #5.

I bought quite a few VF-NM Hulks

Absolutely hilarious times out at night eating dinner after the show. I have not laughed like that since...last Calgary Expo!

[piper]

On 4/29/2024 at 7:12 PM, Artboy99 said:

Enjoyed the show!

I sold quite a few books out of the 4 boxes of my inventory, emptied a box. What was selling was Spawn, as well as J. Scott Campbell variants. I sold my Le Chat Noir Black Cat Campbell, and turned that sale into a 3.5 Hulk #5.

I bought quite a few VF-NM Hulks

Absolutely hilarious times out at night eating dinner after the show. I have not laughed like that since...last Calgary Expo!

Sorry that I missed the show!

[piper]

On 4/29/2024 at 5:46 PM, thehumantorch said:

Also wanted to say how much fun I had this year hanging out with my buddies kimik, 500club, artboy99, joeypost, fantasticthor and even greggy.  The comics are always fun but the people are most important

[piper]

On 4/29/2024 at 3:30 PM, kimik said:

That is similar to other stories I have heard bout him.

One of our regulars got a standby ticket for a signing with Todd on Saturday. He asked him why he was not charging for certified signings. Todd told him if people want to do that to make money off of SS books they can do the signings through CGC. He said he was there this weekend for the fans so he was signing for free with no witness. People that had things signed and came by after had nothing but great things to say about him. He would talk and interact with each fan for a bit instead of just churning them through. 

That's awesome!  The lines were beyond crazy last time he was at the Calgary show!

[aardvark88]

On 4/29/2024 at 6:40 PM, piper said:

The lines were beyond crazy last time he was at the Calgary show!

Last time Todd McFarlane was at Calgary Expo, I remember kids lining up for 4.5 hours to get their parent's comics signed in the Big 4 Building. Even at the small Fan Expo Vancouver (FEV), folks lined up 3.5 hours waiting for McFarlane.

[thehumantorch]

On 4/29/2024 at 7:38 PM, piper said:

Sorry that I missed the show!

Wish you had come.

[kimik]

In addition to Todd McFarlane driving a lot of Spawn/ASM/Spider-Man sales, I noticed the impact of streaming shows on back issue purchases by the 15-25 year olds who spent a lot this Expo. The titles they bought were Moon Knight (I had a 13 year old buy most of my 1980 run), Invincible, Star Wars, Harley Quinn, and Ivy. I was out of Swamp Things, but had a ton of requests with people commenting that the show was great and they wished it had not been cancelled. X-Men was in demand as well due to the X-Men 97 show. As one buyer put it: "Disney kept the new show close to the original and it worked...."

Edited April 30 by kimik

[piper]

On 4/30/2024 at 11:06 AM, kimik said:

In addition to Todd McFarlane driving a lot of Spawn/ASM/Spider-Man sales, I noticed the impact of streaming shows on back issue purchases by the 15-25 year olds who spent a lot this Expo. The titles they bought were Moon Knight (I had a 13 year old buy most of my 1980 run), Invincible, Star Wars, Harley Quinn, and Ivy. I was out of Swamp Things, but had a ton of requests with people commenting that the show was great and they wished it had not been cancelled. X-Men was in demand as well due to the X-Men 97 show. As one buyer put it: "Disney kept the new show close to the original and it worked...."

Have you watched X-Men 97 yet?

[kimik]

On 4/30/2024 at 11:41 AM, piper said:

Have you watched X-Men 97 yet?

No time right now.

[1Cool]

Kids are getting into comics for the 1st time in Canada.  They are a little bit behind the states up there.

[greggy]

On 4/30/2024 at 11:06 AM, 1Cool said:

Kids are getting into comics for the 1st time in Canada.  They are a little bit behind the states up there.

Learn to fill out a customs form properly.

[kimik]

On 4/30/2024 at 12:06 PM, 1Cool said:

Kids are getting into comics for the 1st time in Canada.  They are a little bit behind the states up there.

Nah. Kids up here are spending big $$$ again which is nice as it is sign of solid economy. They youngest buyer I had was a 6 or 7 year old dressed as Batman who pointed out a Batman #427 on the rack. His mom asked if he wanted it, he said yes, so his mom handed me the money and they thanked me for it. I am sure that meant one less high grade Batman #427 by the end of the day.  

[1Cool]

On 4/30/2024 at 3:40 PM, kimik said:

Nah. Kids up here are spending big $$$ again which is nice as it is sign of solid economy. They youngest buyer I had was a 6 or 7 year old dressed as Batman who pointed out a Batman #427 on the rack. His mom asked if he wanted it, he said yes, so his mom handed me the money and they thanked me for it. I am sure that meant one less high grade Batman #427 by the end of the day.  

You sold a death in the family book to a 6 year old?  Hope he knows Robbin didn’t stay dead.

[kimik]

On 4/30/2024 at 1:54 PM, 1Cool said:

You sold a death in the family book to a 6 year old?  Hope he knows Robbin didn’t stay dead.

I told his mom it was not suitable but she said she would take it as he liked the cover. I pushed a bit more then gave up. It was definitely a child sees, child gets family looking at the other stuff they were lugging for him already.

[kimik]

I wish I had gone shopping a bit before the show as there were plenty of posts on Thursday nigh and during the day on Friday of great deals/steals that were found at other booths. There was one place with 25 cent books that had a bunch of rare Whitmans, and a friend nabbed a nice stack of older 1:10 and higher ratio variants for $2/book. Several of them were $200+ books. 

Pre-Covid we used to get a number of US buyers up at the show and they cleaned out a lot of great stuff. Now it is just @joeypost and @greggy cleaning up with less competition. 

Edited April 30 by kimik

[thehumantorch]

On 4/30/2024 at 1:40 PM, kimik said:

Nah. Kids up here are spending big $$$ again which is nice as it is sign of solid economy. They youngest buyer I had was a 6 or 7 year old dressed as Batman who pointed out a Batman #427 on the rack. His mom asked if he wanted it, he said yes, so his mom handed me the money and they thanked me for it. I am sure that meant one less high grade Batman #427 by the end of the day.  

Ironically, he had it pressed and send it to cgc for a quick flip...

[batmiesta]

On 4/30/2024 at 8:11 PM, greggy said:

Learn to fill out a customs form properly.

[thehumantorch]

Thought I'd share a story of a customer at the show. 

His son, who is special needs, told him he wanted to go somewhere but didn't want to tell him where.  Dad asks why don't you want to tell me and tells his son you don't have to hide anything from me I love you and won't judge you.  Son tells him he wants to go to the Calgary Comiccon.  Dad laughs and takes him downstairs and shows him a trunk with his old comic collection which he hasn't looked at in 40 years. 

So now they're at comiccon and dad comes to my booth looking for Tomb of Dracula 1-4.  I had 2-4 so he asked about trade and pulled out a stack of Byrne X-men.  Most of his books were in rotted old bags and were generally midgrade.  So we did a trade and I bought the rest off him.   One of the books he wanted to keep so I tossed it in nice new bag and board.  He couldn't believe the difference.  He told me he'd be back tomorrow with more books.  Next day he's back with more X-men and his plan is to sell them to us and look for a Tomb #1.  Artboy goes over to another dealer knows well and buys a lower grade Tomb #1 for half of his sticker price.  We bought his books and sold him the Tomb #1 for what Artboy paid for it and he was thrilled.  

And he told me he took the book I had bagged and boarded home and showed it to his brother and they spent an hour talking about the book and how beautiful it looked and about buying comics when they were kids.  Sometimes a 20 cent investment makes the world.  I'm pretty sure he'll be back and he'll be collecting comics in the future.