Charlotte ComiCon

Ok... I'm going to try this again... I guess. I hate computers.
Right. Mini-report on the mini-convention. This was the first time I'd been to a comic book show as a "dealer" instead of a random guy walking around with no money. Which was good on so many levels. There was so much stuff there that looked really great. Comics Planet had a rack of beautiful EC's, which were WAY out of my price range. So I actually bought nothing. Which was strange for me in addition to good. But the whole thing was a lot of fun... Allison helped me all day, and Bryan stopped by to check it out and even paid the $3 to get in. His presence, of course, is what led to all the picture taking. How freaking cute is this? If any significant portion of the comic book collecting population was female, I think I would have seen sales rise during this particular depicted period of the day.
"Za-Zow! Buy some comics!"	"For instance these moderately high-grade but totally not rare at all X-Men issues. Acts of Vengeance... what could be better?"	"Or buy something totally different... or nothing at all... It's not like I care anyway."
So... here's Allison and most of my backboard (or whatever it's called)... Comic collectors can definitely be single-minded in their task. How else can you explain the lack of purchases off of that board with her as the sales pitch? I reckon you can see some of the stuff that's underneath in that other picture. I spent a lot of time putting things together in sets and marking them down, so I was glad that at least one person (the guy in blue) picked up a few complete runs of stuff.
"Marvels are on your left, DC's are on your right; everything else is underneath."	"Marvels are on your left, DC's are on your right; everything else is underneath." If I say that one more time, Allison is going to go nuts.	"Marvels are on your left, DC's are on your right; everything else is..." oops... yep... there she goes...
	So... what sold? Iron Man. I went in with a near intact run of Iron Man from 64 up to the beginning of the current series and left with hardly any IM issues at all. Several people left with 1 or 2, but several more left with big chunks of the series. Which confuses me a bit... Recently, on the best news show in Charlotte (as voted on by me), the sexiest woman in Charlotte (as voted on by readers of Creative Loafing) spoke with some old guy who dealt sports memorabilia. Apparently, once OJ started being a douche, the values of OJ collectibles quite rather plummeted. When Tony Stark decides to start being a douche, however, everyone wants his stuff. Not-a-douche = people who don't punch Captain America in the face. Perhaps that is art's big "fuck you" to life. - "Hey Life. This whole sincerest form of flattery thing? It's over. It is done. Fuck you."
Perhaps I should note that I, personally, am actually more of the life-imitates-art kind of guy. Art is where people dream, right? How many people dream of the status quo? If you think everything is great right now, you're just not looking hard enough. Go paint a picture.
What else... Everyone was pretty interested in the Albedo 2, Primer 2, and TMNT 1, but I had them priced too high to sell. Which, honestly, was kind of the point. I just wanted people to come talk to me. And maybe buy some other stuff, but those are my best comics, so you only get them if you wanna pay me a LOT. :) I think that, maybe, one guy looked at the CGC Magnus 1, and no one looked through the Valiant boxes at all. I didn't really promote that they were available tho, so that's ok. Hopefully when the new Valiant stuff starts coming out, some of the old stuff will pick up again. But probably everyone is thinking that. I was also surprised that nobody picked through the fairly large number of Captain America issues I brought. Steve Rogers >>>>>> Tony Stark. And he's dead. You know, "comic book dead." But I still thought people would be interested. Especially when all that Iron Man stuff started going out the door...
	I wish that I had seen more kids tho. I got a few from the 10-ish year old demographic, and I was able to find something for all of them. I think/hope that I gave them a good deal and that they're happy with what they got. Finding a few issues of Transformers for a little guy and giving him one for free might have been the most fun sale. And the freakiest thing was having someone ask if I had Fantastic Four #132, and I'm like, "Sorry, I think the oldest I have is #115 and then it jumps to 182 or something." My actual oldest issue? #115. The next actual oldest issue? #182. I don't even like FF that much. But it was all fun. Even wheeling all those boxes back-and-forth. Allison was a huge help in bagging and unbagging and rebagging stuff before the show as well as with getting all the boxes alphabetized. I'm kind of OCD when it comes to the alphabet... And an OOOLLLLDDD friend from high school, Richie Ritter, showed up the night before for a concert in town and helped with the alphabet and helped a lot with putting all the boxes in the car. Very cool.
Oh... and I just remembered... See how there are comics on the front of all those boxes in the pictures above? And how that one box on the far right has nothing? It used to house the current Jonah Hex #1, and I was asking $2 for it. The dealer setup on my left (I forgot his name, dammit...) bought it from me for $2 before the show started and put it out on his table for $3. *sigh* I guess that's smart business. I don't think he sold it tho... and I totally stole his idea for folding the table cloth up under the boxes on the table so that the ones under the table were more accessible, so it's all good. Meeting people as a "dealer" just kind of felt different from meeting them as a potential buyer. I guess that should have been obvious. But it was a lot of fun to see things from the other side. I really liked meeting the guy to my right... his booth was as poor to moderately busy as mine was, so we got to talk a bit. I think I got invited to present at his ZombieCon show in Greensboro; if they get Rob, I'm so totally there. I think I also got asked to present in Greenville as well as at the next Charlotte show in December. I'm not sure I have enough stuff to make it worthwhile, but, if I do, I'll definitely go again. And I almost forgot... a couple of guys that I sort of "met" on the CGC boards came over and said hi, which was really nice. I only remember Sal's name at the moment b/c I was trying to remember too much as it was, but it's kind of neat to see that it can be a "community" instead of just a bunch of random guys together. And Shelton stopped by to say hi as well, which was super nice. AND Rick and Dave (the promoters) couldn't have been nicer, more helpful, or happier to have me there.
Weird. Did I just post an entire entry without being a negative dipshit asshole? I think I did. (except for that art thing, maybe, but that hardly counts.) I also just realized that there aren't any pictures taken from my POV behind the table. That's annoying. I should have thought of that...
Very very very late update... this picture of Allison was just floating around... can't remember why it was where it was and was not on here. So here you go.