c/comic-book-fans

That back issue trick from the guy at my LCS paid off big

A collector in Tulsa told me to check the 25 cent bins for damaged copies, found a first printing with a crease that graded a 9.0 after pressing. Cost me $12 total with supplies, flipping it for $85 on eBay. Anyone else find steals that way?

I used to dunk on variant covers until a $3 bargain bin copy hit different

After 15 years of calling foil and virgin covers a cash grab, I grabbed a random Mark Brooks variant for $3 at a garage sale last month and realized I wasn't mad about the cover, I was mad that I never actually looked at the art, so has anyone else flipped on a stance like that after one cheap find?

Rant: Sold my early 90s run at a con, then watched the buyer flip it for triple

Back in 2018 at a small convention in Albany, I sold my full Death of Superman arc for $60 because I needed gas money and thought old issues were worthless. Two booths down, that same guy had them priced at $180 each before I even got to the door. Has anyone else ever sold something cheap only to see it resold right in front of you, and how do you shake that feeling off?

Vent: My comic box organization system fell apart after 3 weeks

I spent a whole Sunday sorting my pulls by publisher, then by character, then by release date, color coded tabs and everything. By the third Wednesday, new books were just shoved in wherever they fit and now I can't find anything without digging through the whole long box. Does anyone actually keep a labeling system going for more than a month, or is chaos just the natural state?

The guy who graded my comic at a convention made me question my whole collection

I was at the Pittsburgh Comic Con last Sunday and brought a Detective Comics #880 I thought was a solid 9.6. The grader at the CGC booth took one look and said, "That spine stress is a 9.0 on a good day." I stood there for like five minutes just staring at the edges with a loupe he handed me, and he was right, there was a tiny color break I never even noticed. I ended up buying his loupe off him for $15 just so I could go home and re-check all my key issues. Has anyone else had a pro point out something obvious that made you feel blind?

Warning: the $60 sketchbook table at Salt Lake FanX is a trap

Last weekend at Salt Lake FanX, I watched three separate artists wreck their wrists on those flimsy folding tables they set up near the indie row. The surface wobbles so bad that even a light pen stroke throws off the line, and by hour four everyone was hunched over like they'd just finished a 12 hour framing job. I'm not saying boycott the whole convention, but if you're planning to sit there for more than an hour, bring your own clipboard or a hardcover book to level it out. Has anyone else noticed the tables getting worse at bigger cons, or was this just a bad batch?

Two graphic novel kickstarters, one came out great, the other was a $350 lesson

Back in March I backed two Kickstarters for indie graphic novels. First one was a 150 page horror comic from a creator I'd followed for a while. Shipping was delayed 4 months but the book showed up last week and it's honestly one of the best things I own. Great print quality, extras, the works. Second one was a big hype project, bunch of big names attached, $350 all in for the deluxe slipcase edition. Got an update in June saying it was on track. Then nothing for 5 months. Just found out the creator ran off with the money, page art was never even finished. No refunds, no book. Kinda makes me wonder if backing big name collabs is ever worth it when solo creators can actually deliver. Has anyone else gotten burned on a project and did you ever get your money back?

Why does nobody mention how rough old comic ads were?

I was flipping through a 1986 issue of X-Men I picked up at a flea market in Portland and saw that ad for the X-Men fan club where they wanted you to send in 3 dollars and a self addressed envelope. It got me thinking about how kids back then had zero info, just a tiny black and white box and a 8 week wait to hear back. Has anyone else gone back and read those old ads and felt weirdly nostalgic for a slower pace we never had to deal with?

The week I read 3 old issues of Crisis on Infinite Earths and finally got the hype

Honestly, I never cared about DC reboots until last Tuesday when a buddy lent me his original 1985 copies and I just sat there reading all three back to back. The deaths actually hit me, even though I knew the outcomes from online summaries. Has anyone else had a run they avoided forever suddenly click like that?

Gatekeeping comics is killing new readers, and it's our fault

Last week at my shop in Austin I watched a teenager grab a Batman trade and some older guy sneered at him for not knowing a 1986 retcon. That kind of attitude is exactly why comic sales keep dropping every year and we only have ourselves to blame. Why do we act like asking a simple question makes someone a fake fan instead of just answering it?

My longbox tipped over and now I have to re-sort everything

I was reaching for issue #187 of Detective Comics on my top shelf last Sunday and my cheap plastic longbox gave out, sending about 300 books across the bedroom floor. The dividers were basically useless so now every issue is shuffled together, including some early 90s ones I had sorted by publisher. I spent 4 hours putting them back in order by series and number, but I still can't find that one variant cover I know I own. Anyone else deal with a longbox collapse, and do you trust the plastic ones or go for the heavy cardboard?

Graphic novel snob, but digital issues finally won me over

I used to say floppies were the only real way to read comics, but after a 6 month move to Austin I had like 30 long boxes in storage and zero shelf space. Started using Comixology on a 10 inch tablet during lunch breaks, and the zoom on double page spreads honestly works better than my old reading lamp. Has anyone else switched fully digital or am I still the weird one here?

I finally get why collectors keep sealed copies after a chat at my LCS

Last Saturday at my local shop in Akron, this older guy noticed me flipping through a beat up copy of Uncanny X-Men 137 and asked why I was reading it instead of slabbing it. I said I wanted the story, he laughed and said he once bought two copies of every issue for 20 years just so he could read one and save one. It hit different because he showed me his box of sealed books from the 90s, all worthless now, but he wasn't mad about it. He said the fun was the picking, not the payday, and now I'm second guessing my whole habit of cracking open every floppy I grab. Anyone else ever had a collector change how you treat your own pulls?

Took me 3 years to sort my long boxes by reading order, not alphabet

I got back into collecting after the 2020 shutdown and did the usual thing, organized everything by publisher and then by title A to Z. But I kept having this itch where I wanted to read a whole storyline like Knightfall or the original Secret Wars without jumping around. Last weekend I finally bit the bullet and re-sorted about 40 long boxes in my basement in Akron, and it took me 11 hours across two days. The problem was events, you know, issue 12 of one book ties into issue 4 of another, and my old system completely missed that. Now everything is in chronological order based on when each issue actually came out, and following a crossover is just pulling a stack instead of playing detective. Has anyone else tried sorting by story arc and then given up halfway because the numbering gets so messy?

Found a hidden gem comic shop in Portland with a full Silver Age bin

I was killing time before an appointment on Hawthorne and stumbled into this tiny shop called Back Issue Alley. They had a whole long box of Silver Age books priced under $10 each, which I thought was impossible in 2024. I snagged a 1967 Flash for 8 bucks with a crease on the cover but the inside is clean. Anyone else find a spot like this lately where the owner just wants books read, not graded and flipped?

Paper comics vs digital reader, my wallet finally picked a side

Why does nobody talk about bringing a small notebook to cons?

Went to the Central Ohio Comic Con last month and my phone died by noon. No pics, no notes, no way to remember which artist at which table had that killer swamp thing sketch. A guy next to me pulled out a pocket notebook and wrote down booth numbers and prices. Total game changer. I grabbed one for $4 at a drugstore before the next show. Do you guys bring anything else besides a bag for comics and cash?

Why does everyone call Stan Lee the creator of The Thing?

Saw it again in a YouTube comment thread yesterday. Ben Grimm was Jack Kirby's design, Stan gave him the voice. I checked three old issues from 1961 and Kirby's name is right there in the credits. How do you split that credit when someone draws the whole look?

Update: finally sorted my longbox chaos after 3 failed attempts

My longboxes were a mess since I moved to Denver in March, every time I needed a 90s issue I'd dig for 20 minutes and give up. Tried organizing by publisher first, then alphabetically, even by event order, all of it fell apart fast. Took me 6 weeks total but color coding sticky tabs by era finally worked, anyone else got a system that sticks?

The guy who lent me his entire 90s X-Men run came back for it 8 years later

I met this dude at a garage sale in Portland who just handed me his whole Uncanny X-Men collection, like 120 issues, because I said I loved the cartoon. He said he was moving and didn't want them to get ruined. Fast forward 8 years, I'm re-reading issue 266 for the third time and my doorbell rings. It's him, holding a coffee cup, asking if he can get the box back. I had dog-eared half of them and left a slice of pizza in issue 300. He just stared at me for like 10 seconds and said, "we both made choices here," then took the whole box and walked off without another word. Has anyone else had a comic loaner come back from the dead?

My uncle's 'read the credits first' advice saved me from a huge spoiler last week

So my uncle who's been collecting since the 80s told me years ago to always flip to the back of a new issue and check the credits before reading. I always thought that was super weird. But last week I grabbed issue #47 of a series I'm binging and there was a new artist listed it said 'special guest appearance by' on the splash page. I almost flipped back to the start but I didn't. So if I'd started reading I would've seen that guest before the story revealed it. That would've ruined the whole payoff. Anyone else got weird habits from older collectors that actually work out? What's yours?

That long box trick cut my pull list sorting time in half

I got tired of digging through 30+ comics each Wednesday to find what I wanted to read first. Someone on another forum mentioned sorting pull lists by publisher, then by release date, using colored divider tabs. I spent 15 bucks on tab dividers at a local shop near Portland and set up my long box that way. Now I can grab the new stuff in under two minutes, has anyone else got a sorting system that beats alphabetical?

Single issue vs trade paperback, which do you actually read?

I used to only buy floppies every Wednesday, but after my longbox hit 900 issues in 2022 I switched to trades for space. Now I feel like I miss the weekly buzz with my shop crowd, but I get more story in one sitting. Anyone else stuck on one side or the other?

Hit issue #300 in my collection and it felt like a whole new hobby

I was sorting my long boxes last Tuesday and counted 300 comics total, mostly X-Men and indie stuff I grabbed at conventions over the last 5 years. That number blew my mind because I never set out to collect that many, it just happened from dollar bins and trades. Anyone else pass a milestone number and suddenly see their habit differently?

PSA: The day I realized comic book fans gatekeep harder than anyone

Last Saturday I went to a local con in Portland and wore a Superman shirt, nothing fancy just my favorite one. Some dude in his 40s walked up and asked me who my favorite Superman writer was, then laughed when I said Jeph Loeb. He spent 10 minutes explaining why John Byrne was the only real choice and told me I wasn't a "real fan" if I didn't own the Byrne run. Like bro, I just like wearing the shirt, I've read maybe 20 issues total. It made me wonder, do you guys ever feel like some fans turn simple fun into a weird competition? Has anyone else had that awkward moment where a stranger grills you over something casual?