c/comic-book-fans

Spent $80 on a signed first printing of a 90s indie comic and it taught me a lesson

Picked up a copy of Bone #1 signed by Jeff Smith at a shop in Portland for $80 thinking it was a steal. Got home and realized the sig was printed on the cover, not hand-drawn. Has anyone else fallen for a fake autograph at a comic shop?

Appreciation post: the comic shop clerk who handed me a stack of $1 bin books

I went into my local shop last Tuesday just to grab the new issue of something and this clerk named Dave saw me aimlessly flipping through the expensive stuff. He comes over and says "you look like you need some fun finds" and dropped like 15 random $1 bin comics on the counter for me to look through. I ended up buying 8 of them for under ten bucks and discovered a series I never would have tried otherwise. Has anyone else had a shop worker just totally save your wallet and change your reading habits?

Hot take: Comic book fans gatekeep the original runs way too hard

I finally read Miller's Daredevil run after a friend told me I had to start there, but honestly I got more out of the Waid run from 2011. The older stuff felt dated and slow. Has anyone else started with a newer run and found it clicked better for them?

Shoutout to that guy at my local shop who told me to stop bagging my comics

I was keeping all my floppies in those poly bags with the tape on the flap, thinking I was protecting them. He said moisture gets trapped in there and can actually damage the paper over time. Switched to just using boards and leaving them loose in a short box 3 months ago, and my books from the 90s that I rebagged look way better already. Anyone else get bad advice from old collectors that they later found out was wrong?

Why does nobody talk about how comic book fans treat new readers at conventions?

Last Saturday at Denver Comic Con I watched a guy in a $300 Thanos cosplay yell at a teenager for not knowing the difference between Ultimate and 616 Spider-Man, and instead of stepping in the crowd just laughed, so I walked over and handed the kid my spare copy of Kraven's Last Hunt and told him to ignore the gatekeepers - has anyone else seen this toxic gatekeeping ruin someone's first con experience?

Picked up an old ASM run instead of the new Absolute Spider-Man

I was at my local shop in Queens last Saturday with $40 burning a hole in my pocket. Decided to grab a beat up copy of Amazing Spider-Man #300 instead of the new hotness everyone was lining up for. The guy next to me thought I was crazy for passing on the new series. But getting that old McFarlane cover in my hands felt way better than waiting in a hype line. Anyone else still grab older books when everyone's chasing the new stuff?

Looked up how much a first print of Amazing Fantasy #15 goes for now

I was messing around on eBay last night and saw a 1.0 graded copy sold for over 300 grand. That thing was worth maybe 50 bucks when I was a kid reading reprints at the drugstore. Has anyone else been shocked by what old books are pulling now?

That guy at the shop told me to bag my singles and I shrugged it off

Last year a dude at the local comic store in Raleigh said I should put all my key issues in Mylar bags with full backings. I thought he was just upselling me on overpriced supplies. Stuck with the cheap poly bags I got off Amazon because they were half the price. Fast forward to last month when I pulled out my copy of New Mutants 98 and noticed the bag had turned yellow and left a faint stain on the cover. Lost about 30% of its resale value right there. Now I'm going back through my whole longbox and rebagging everything. Mylar is like $2 a bag but it beats watching your books get ruined over time. Anyone else learn this lesson the hard way?

My Wednesday comics pull sheet went completely missing mid-week

I usually keep a little notebook with my pull list but someone at the store grabbed it by mistake and now I'm trying to remember if I pre-ordered that new Ultimate Spider-Man issue. Anybody else have a system for tracking pre-orders that won't get swiped?

Three issues of Deadpool #1 I bought for $80 at a con last year

I fell for the hype at Phoenix Fan Fusion 2023 and grabbed three copies of Deadpool #1 (1997) thinking they'd spike after the movie. Paid $80 total from some vendor who kept talking about the spec market. Checked eBay last month and they're going for like $12 each now. Anyone else get burned on spec buys from conventions?

Overheard a guy at the shop say 'comic fans are just grown kids' and it got me hot

Honestly, I was standing in line at Golden Age Comics on 45th last Saturday and this dude behind me tells his friend that comic book fans are basically just adults who never grew up. Ngl, I almost turned around and said something but I just kept my mouth shut. Like, yeah, I read X-Men and Invincible every Wednesday after my cleaning route but does that make me a kid? I run a whole house cleaning business with 3 employees and pay taxes just like him. It's wild how people see a comic in your hand and suddenly think you're immature. Has anyone else dealt with random strangers judging you for what you read?

Was sure modern comics were a money grab until a teenager changed my mind at the shop

I'm 42 and I've been reading comics since I was 8. For years I swore anything after 1995 was just reboots and variant covers trying to empty my wallet. Then last Saturday at Cosmic Comics in Austin this kid maybe 16 was flipping through a new Moon Knight run. He asked me what I thought of the old stuff and I went on my usual rant. He just nodded and handed me issue #1 of the current run and said 'try it with an open mind just this once.' I read it in the shop and man the writing actually had heart. The art wasn't crammed with crosshatching and the story flowed. I ended up buying the first three issues and now I'm catching up on runs I skipped for 20 years. Anyone else had a younger fan show them something they wrote off too fast?

Reading comics in store vs. buying floppies online...

I used to always read a new issue standing in the shop for 10 minutes before deciding, but now I just pre-order everything digital after missing out on a big storyline last spring. Which way do you think gives you a better feel for the story, flipping through paper or scrolling on a screen?

Took me 6 months to realize I was organizing my longboxes wrong

I had my comics sorted by publisher then title, but every time I got a new run I'd have to shift half the box. Spent a whole Saturday last month redoing everything alphabetically by title regardless of publisher. Then yesterday I realized I could just label the outside of each box with a range and stop trying to keep room for future issues. Has anyone else wasted way too much time on a system that just didn't work?

Shoutout to the shop owner in Portland who had a whole wall of Silver Age issues just sitting out for anyone to flip through

I stopped by a little comic shop off Hawthorne last weekend and the owner let me dig through a box of old Fantastic Four comics from the 60s, no glass case or anything. He said he likes when people actually handle the books instead of just looking at them online. Has anyone else found a shop that just trusts you with their older stock like that?

I heard two long-time collectors arguing about pressing comics, one says it ruins the history.

One guy at the shop said pressing a comic flattens out the original newsprint feel and kills the collector value, but the other guy swore it's the only way to get a 9.8 grade. Which side do you fall on, do you press your keys or leave them raw?

I used to HATE Frank Miller's Dark Knight Strikes Again, but 3 years later I totally get it

For years I trashed that book because the art looked messy and the story felt all over the place. Then I listened to a 45-minute podcast breakdown on how Miller was intentionally copying newspaper comic strips from the 1930s, and it clicked for me. Now I see it as a satire of superhero comics and politics, not a serious Batman sequel. Has anyone else gone back and changed their mind about a comic they hated at first?

Just realized I spent 45 minutes debating who would win a fight between Batman and Iron Man with a guy at the comic shop last Saturday

He was team Iron Man for the tech, I was team Batman for the prep time, and we both walked away still convinced the other was wrong, so how do you settle a fan debate like that when neither side will budge?

Knew I was a real collector the day I finally alphabetized my long boxes instead of just stacking by series

Debate with my brother over reading digital comics at a diner last week

My brother said reading comics on a tablet is just as good as holding a physical issue, and that floppies are basically dead weight. I argued that the smell of the paper and the act of flipping pages is part of the experience for me. What side do you fall on for collecting comics in 2024?

That one week in '92 when everything went right at the shop

I worked at a comic shop in Portland back in high school and we had this one insane week where a guy walked in with a longbox full of early Action Comics issues. His grandma was cleaning out his uncle's basement and told him to just get rid of them. We bought the whole box for $200 and there was a Superman #1 in there that graded out at like 6.5. The owner took us all out for pizza that Friday and I still remember the feeling of flipping through those books before they got sent off. Has anyone else ever stumbled into a find that felt too good to be real?

Went to a con and found out Stan Lee only wrote 8 issues of Fantastic Four himself

I was reading through a display at the Boston Comic Con last weekend, and the accompanying notes said Stan Lee stopped scripting after issue 8 or so. Has anyone else run into wild stats like that about the early Marvel days?

That gatekeeper at my local shop who acted like reading the first 4 issues was mandatory

I walked into Heroes & Villains in Austin last week looking for a jumping on point for a newer series. The guy behind the counter told me I had to start with the original 1960s run or I wouldn't "get" the character. Been reading comics for 20 years and I skipped right to a modern trade and it was fine, better actually. Has anyone else had a shop employee kill your momentum with that kind of attitude?

Pro tip: A kid in a local shop changed how I look at variant covers

I was in Third Eye Comics in Annapolis last Saturday just flipping through the new arrivals. A teenager maybe 15 or 16 was standing next to me and he picked up a Batman #150 foil variant. He looked at it for a second then put it back and grabbed the standard cover. I asked him why and he said he used to chase variants just for value but realized he never actually read those issues twice. He said he had a whole box of covers he barely remembered the stories from. That hit me different because I have the same problem. I've got like 40 variants sitting in bags that I bought for the art but never cracked open. Now I'm trying to only buy variants if I actually love the art enough to frame it, not just because it's rare. Has anyone else shifted how they collect after realizing something like this?

The time I laughed at a friend for collecting variant covers

I used to think variant covers were a total cash grab, but then I saw the Mike Del Mundo art on the Immortal Hulk #1 variant in person at a con last year. The colors and detail blew me away, and now I have 12 hanging on my wall. Anyone else get won over by a specific artist's cover work?