Exit Sandman

Late in the afternoon at the Nov 14 2010 Vancouver Comicon at Heritage Hall. Robyn Hanson photo

- by Shawn Conner

When you’ve spent a great deal of time and money collecting comics, there comes a time when you have to confront your arrested development head on. Whether because of storage space, money, or an impatient spouse (even actor Nicolas Cage, at the behest of then-wife Lisa Marie Presley, sold off his collection – including, rumour has it, a rare Superman # 1!), the collector in mid-life will have to decide whether to continue, maintain or just chuck the whole thing.

This weekend, I joined the latter camp.

Down the duck-hole

A couple months back, before a move, I’d tried to get rid of most of my comics. But all the dealers’ tables at the local comics convention, where poor saps like me gather every six weeks or so to buy barter and sell, had all been spoken for, and so I found myself lugging my eight boxes to my new place. I was hoping to avoid this same scenario for my next move, at the end of this month. With that in mind, I had already signed up for a table at the Nov 14 convention.

But the first step was figuring out what to keep and what to sell, and for how much. Pricing comics is an inexact science. Yes, there are guides, like the Overstreet Price Guide (now in its 40th year). But those are more suited to serious dealers who are in it for the long haul. I just wanted to divest myself of a hundred pounds of battling superheroes.

Getting the comics out of storage and into my suite, where I could give them a thorough going-over, was itself a pain. It was also a tad humiliating, as it required the cooperation of the de facto house-manager (and self-proclaimed “goddess”), whose upstairs apartment I had to go through to get at the boxes.

Under her curious, watchful gaze, as well as that of Rebecca, a new tenant who had just moved in and whose basement suite I had to traipse through to get to the back door of my own, I began hauling the boxes out from the crammed storage space under a staircase. Rebecca was on the phone with a friend the whole time, and at one point I could’ve sworn I heard her say, “Oh, there’s this other tenant, he’s getting rid of his comic-book collection. Boxes and boxes. It’s quite strange. Yes, a grown man, can you believe it?”

When, finally, I had transported all my ill-gotten gains into my suite, I plopped myself down. Stacked one on top of the other, the seven long-boxes (and one short-box) towered above me. For the sortation, I had budgeted an hour on this Saturday afternoon before the convention. But I had been kidding myself – this was an all-afternoon task, and one that would, before it was over, confront me with some uncomfortable truths about life-decisions I had made, as well as questions such as: when did Cerebus the Aardvark go off the rails? How badly dated are these old Howard the Duck stories? And, what was I thinking when I bought Flaming Carrot vs. Megaton Man: The Mini-Series?

The future belongs to Boba Fett

A Vancouver Comicon is held every six weeks or so in Heritage Hall, on a Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 4-ish. If you’ve never been (and I don’t blame you; one time when the Red Bull girls showed up you could hear the jaws of a hundred fanboys dropping) it’s something like this: dealers, some private, others who own comic shops, rent tables and hawk their wares. As an added attraction, various comics artists and writers fill other seats, drawing in sketchbooks and signing their books. By 1 p.m., especially in the cooler months, with everyone sweating into their jackets and rushing from table to table desperate for bargain-priced Spider-Man collectors’ items, it has its own distinct hothouse odor.

The Vancouver comicons are smaller, more frequent versions of conventions held in other cities annually. The mother of all of these is of course the San Diego convention, Comic Con International, which even non-comics fans may have heard of. In recent years, Hollywood, realizing that the multiplex is now in the hands of people who like to dress up as Boba Fett, has taken to feting conventioneers. Thus you now have Scarlett Johansson pimping Iron Man 2 to legions of slobbering fans (not that I am above being a slobbering fan myself).

One possible future for the serious collector.

Scarlett Johansson most likely will never visit Heritage Hall. However, the comicons do attract some interesting and talented people. At the September convention this year, the special guest was Greg Rucka, a bestselling novelist who moonlights (or maybe it’s vice versa) as a comic-book scribe. (In recent years, more and more writers from other disciplines have been slumming it in the comics ghetto: not just Whedon and Rucka but also Jodi Poucault and horror writer Joe Hill.)

The guests Nov 14 were all local, and included artist Nina Matsumoto, who has won an industry award for her manga version of The Simpsons; artist/writer Miriam Libicki, now on the eighth issue of her series Jobnik!, which details her stint in the Israeli army; and Robin Bougie**, artist/writer/cinephile behind Cinema Sewer, one of the best underground publications to ever come out of Vancouver, as well as his sex-comics anthology Sleazy Slice.

The creative types were situated just inside the door to the hall, and along the back wall; the rest of the wall space, as well as the the middle, is taken up by dealers, their tables buckling under the weight of comics, graphic novels, action figures, toys, and DVDs. For my comics-filled boxes, on which I had Sharpied either “$1″, “$2″ or “$4″ depending on what I thought I might conceivably get, I had a table along the Main Street-facing wall. To my right was a guy who looked to be in his late twenties. Like me, he was selling off parts of his collection. Unlike me, his comics and sundries were all neatly labeled and priced, as was most of the product at the other tables. And I don’t think he was determined to leave Heritage Hall without any of his stock, as I was.

Some rare comic books and, rarer still, a female.

To help me in this effort was my poor girlfriend, whom I’d somehow suckered into helping. Fortunately, it turned out that she knew the people at the table to our left. Franceska and Mark were even more out of place than we were; they had a table full of T-shirts designed by Francesca, not an X-Men Forever comic to be seen.

Mark and Francesca's T-shirts at Heritage Hall Vancouver Comicon Nov 14 2010. Robyn Hanson photo

Selling the sizzle

And so 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning found me hungover, lugging 30-40 pound boxes of comics from the corner of Main and 15th around to the front door of Heritage Hall. When I arrived, almost everyone was already set up, and it wasn’t long before some of my fellow dealers smelled the scent of fresh chum coming from my table.

Comic nerd at the Nov 14 2010 Vancouver Comicon at Heritage Hall. Robyn Hanson photo

I’d worked one of these things before, maybe 10 years ago, and as at that one, the first hour is brisk. Then the buying frenzy slows down in the second and third hours. In mid-afternoon there’s a bit of a resurgence as prices are slashed, and then it ends in the sad, weary spectacle of men packing up their Batman collectibles and going home.

Unfortunately for sales at out table, most of my motivation in buying the titles I was now trying to sell was admiration for a certain writer and/or artist. But just because Grant Morrison’s stint on Animal Man is one of the highwater marks of comics writing in the ‘90s doesn’t mean someone’s going to give you more than cover price ($1.25) – especially now that so many titles get reprinted in graphic novel form.

The cover to Animal Man #5, a highwater mark of '90s comics publishing.

Just over an hour into the convention I was slashing prices (from $2 to $1) on everything from my complete run of The Astonishing X-Men (with scripts by Buffy writer Joss Whedon) to my near-complete (well, I had to keep my favourite, issue # 18, “A Dream of a Thousand Cats”) run of The Sandman.

Another great comic - "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" from The Sandman #18.

No, the hot items were and are (and ever shall be, most likely) books like the Silver Age Marvels (Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Daredevil comics from the ‘60s) and rare issues that feature the first appearance of some character who would later experience huge popularity. It was one of these that provided the morning’s biggest moment of drama.

Haggling at the Nov 14 2010 Vancouver Comicon at Heritage Hall. Robyn Hanson photo

Because, besides my five boxes of comics from mostly the last 30 years that I was selling, I had brought a handful of issues of older books. One of these was #181 of The Incredible Hulk, featuring the first appearance of Wolverine.*

I had brought this item to a comicon the last time I tried to sell stuff here, with my cousin. It was actually his book, and I’d forgotten about it, or rather, it’s value. When a guy came around and spotted it in my “high-end” ($4 or more per issue) box, he asked if the price tag – $150 – was accurate.

My spider-sense went off – if it had been worth that 10 years ago, what would its worth be now?

No, I said, and sought advice from some of my fellow dealers. One swiftly pronounced its value at $1400. I showed him the specific copy, and he referred me to another dealer. The price for a mint edition of The Incredible Hulk #181 featuring the first appearance of Wolverine was indeed worth thousands – in mint condition. Unfortunately, this one was merely fine – and so worth a fraction of that. I let the guy have it for $200.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a far less nail-biting fashion. Early on, a couple of guys came by and snapped up most of the best stuff, walking away with dozens of comics for a relatively low $50 or $60. A lot of people (okay, guys) bought just a few comics, usually at 50 cents or a buck a pop. (By 2 p.m, everything at my table was either 50 cents or a dollar.)

Priced to sell at the Nov 14 2010 Vancouver Comicon at Heritage Hall. Robyn Hanson photo

The money trickled, rather than flowed in, but at a steady rate. Of course, I could no more just sit there without buying anything than Dr. Octopus could stop kidnapping Spider-Man’s girlfriend, but I kept my purchases under $50. Even after renting the table ($60), buying coffee and lunch, Motrin and water, purchasing a few $5 graphic novels and cutting my cousin in for half of the 200 Wolverine bucks, I was still ahead by over $300. However, I still had nearly four long-boxes worth of goods that I did not want to leave with.

Salvation (of a sort – I’m still not sure whether I let myself get ripped off) came in the form of Dennis, a white-haired, slightly grizzled, Popeye-looking character in jean overalls. Dennis had stopped by my table a few times to cherry-pick a few items. I’d asked around and knew him and his friend Bob, with whom Dennis was sharing a corner spot at the con, to be private dealers who sometimes bought up stock for a steal. After I’d told him what I wanted to do, he’d said he’d come by near closing time to make an offer.

Thirty or forty minutes passed – I sold another bundle of comics, about 40 issues of a crime noir series called Stray Bullets to a fan who was happy to find them. Dennis returned, and the offer he made was $80, lock stock and barrel. “I was going to offer you fifty – I’ll probably just end up throwing half of them out – but that seemed a little low,” he said. It was still only $20 a box – $80 for merchandise that had cost in the thousands. I took all of a millisecond to decide. “Sold,” I said.

Later that day…

And that was it. Five hours after arriving at Heritage Hall, I’d sold off 3/4s of my comic book collection. Years of browsing, buying, reading, coming to conventions like these, all gone in an afternoon.

I felt great.

Oh sure, I’m left with a few lingering questions. Like, how badly did I get ripped off with that Wolverine comic? Why is it a character like Wolverine is popular in the first place, and no one wants my old Animal Man comics? (Although I know I may as well ask why Justin Bieber… just, why Justin Bieber.) Will I wake up one night in a cold sweat, wondering how I could have sold off my legacy, my non-existent son’s inheritance, for a pittance?

Impossible to say at this point. I’ll need perspective – the kind of perspective that lets me see that maybe those old Howard the Duck comics aren’t quite as subversively nuts as I thought they were at 13.

But I held onto them anyway.

*Congratulations if you don’t know this is the name of the bounty hunter from Star Wars. This means you have a life.

**Bougie’s blog is also an NSFW treat; you can also find some of his articles on this site, including The 20 Best Movies Adapted from Comic Books; Dying to Be in the Movies (on-set movie fatalities); and Five New Must-See DVDs.

***Wolverine has evolved from walk-on player to fan favourite to Hollywood superhero franchise, having been in no fewer than four movies (3 X-Men flicks and something called X-Men Origins: Wolverine). The thing about Wolverine is, comic fans seem to love him because he’s vicious and misanthropic, and he has these claws that shoot out of his exo-skeleton, but rarely in comics do you see the blood that would inevitably be unleashed from such weapons. Wolverine – like another ultra-violent Marvel Comics character, the Punisher – is one of those characters that represents a bloodthirstier version of superhero comics yet is still presented as kid-friendly entertainment. A seven-year-old Wolverine came to my door this year for Halloween.