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Subject: Ramblings About Comics and Stuff #18: How to Dump Your Comics | Author | Messages | 
Jim Johnson
Posts: 461
 | Posted: 11/11/2005 7:56:44 PM | Well, I’ve got a lot of different things on my mind, and none of them make for a single, cohesive theme. Therefore, let’s cue up another cheap and easy list of bullet items:
• A final note about Halloween 2005: those who have read some of my previous columns might recall that each Halloween, in a small and humble effort to reach the youthful, comic-deprived masses, I offer the trick-or-treaters that come to my house a choice between the usual piece or two of candy, or a comic book. I’m happy to report that out of a record 88 costumed customers who showed up at my house this year, 34 of them skipped the Snickers and selected the Superman. And that alliteration isn’t fictional; those were really their choices. Now, giving away 34 comics doesn’t sound like much, I realize, but I was encouraged for a couple of reasons; normally, in recent years, the number of comics I’ve given away has been in the 20 – 25 range, so there was more interest this time. And this wasn’t just because there were more kids coming to the door; proportionally, the number of comic choosers was 39%, as opposed to 30 – 35% in past years. I’ll let John Jackson Miller provide a more detailed numerical analysis, if he so chooses.
• Okay, a final final note about Halloween: I’m sure the above numbers may be skewed by the sneaky little devils (one really was dressed as the devil) who tried to come back multiple times. One kid actually came back four separate occasions; on his final attempt, he convinced me that he kept returning out of his fondness for previous comics he had gotten, more so than greed. Knowing that even I, as a kid, never went back to the same house that many times out of selfishness, even for Smarties, which I was and still remain addicted to, I figured this kid had at least some genuine sincerity and eagerness. So I gave him a second comic, and let him know that he didn’t have to wait until Halloween every year to score a comic book or two; he really could find comics year-round at local retailers.
• Lest anyone out there think that I’m a collector-turned-philanthropist and that I’m itching to just give away all my comics, it just ain’t so. Check this out; it isn’t about Halloween, but it’s a plenty scary move, for me at least. I recently decided to venture into the speculative arena of selling slabbed comics. Maybe venture isn’t the word; it’s more like experiment. Or maybe dabble. Yeah, I like that word, dabble. I had several issues of various X-Men related titles circa 1997 – 2001 certified by Comics Guaranty Corporation, and later put them up on eBay, to see for myself just how lucrative the market for slabbed comics is. Hey, it only took me five years to get around to it. The results? Well, I made a few bucks, but I’m not going to give up my day job. I sold a CGC 9.8 copy of Uncanny X-Men #385 (Wizard World variant) for $59. I’m pretty happy about that. A 9.8 copy of X-Men (2nd Series) #100 (Leinel Yu variant) fetching $42 wasn’t too bad, either, nor was a 9.8 copy of the variant edition of Uncanny X-Men #377 grabbing $39. But most of the other books graded below that (9.6, 9.4) didn’t even make back the cost of getting them slabbed. So now I know for myself that this whole CGC thing isn’t necessarily the guaranteed money-maker many think it is. I think I’ll leave this kind of thing to the experts. Chuck Rozanski, Brian Hibbs, and all you other premiere retailers, you need not fear any competition from me. Your empires are safe.
• As much as I love the hobby and collecting, I find as I get older that I’m losing the desire to accumulate more “stuff;” and this includes comics. I still buy 15 – 20 new comics every week, and I bag and file everything I read. But I don’t feel that irrepressible urge anymore to seek out back issues and fill holes in my collection. I consider myself more of a reader than a collector, nowadays. Other than finding ways to unload comics I just didn’t enjoy, (like the aforementioned Superman comics I give away on Halloween, or the more-valuable X-Men issues that I sold), I’m not looking to dump my collection, but I’m not seeking to expand it, either, beyond the current books that I normally buy. Every 5 – 10 years or so, I go through my collection and pull out the stuff that I’m pretty sure I’m never going to miss, like some of the titles from the 80’s independent boom, or the glut of 90’s X-titles. I mean, Geriatric Gangrene Jujitsu Gerbils #2? Wasn’t #1 bad enough? Just what was I thinking when I bought these, anyway? What were any of us thinking, for that matter? Anyway, this periodic culling helps keep the monster from outgrowing the one wall of the hobby room that it’s chained to. If I never did this, I’d still have that wonderful run of Dazzler taking up valuable shelf space.
• Before the days of eBay and online comic stores, getting rid of undesirable comics was tough. Back in the early 90’s, during one of the more extensive purges of my collection, one of the easy targets was my set of New Universe titles. Knowing that I’d be lucky to even give these away, I took them up to the hospital next to my apartment complex and offered them to the gift shop or children’s wing or any area that wanted them. For free, of course. But every person I talked to at the hospital looked at me like I was from another planet; one of them asked why I was trying to unload comics at a hospital, acting as though that I had just brought my lawnmower to a scuba gear shop for repair. It never dawned on them that maybe the kids there in the hospital might enjoy reading comics. So, since I literally couldn’t give these away, I ended up taking them to a store I sometimes frequented and whose owner I knew, dumped them on the counter, told him to take good care of them, and walked out. Oddly enough, he ended selling many of these issues. Go figure.
Creative ways to get rid of your comics. Heh. Guess there was a theme of sorts, after all. Try some of these methods, or develop your own. Results may vary. Offer void where prohibited by law. Seeya.
- JJ
"You can live your life in a thousand ways,
But it all comes down to that single day
When you realize what you regret,
Which you can't reclaim but you can't forget."
www.facebook.com/QuiGonJimm
www.twitter.com/QuiGonJimm |
Jim Johnson
Posts: 461
| Posted: 11/11/2005 7:56:44 PM | Well, I’ve got a lot of different things on my mind, and none of them make for a single, cohesive theme. Therefore, let’s cue up another cheap and easy list of bullet items:
• A final note about Halloween 2005: those who have read some of my previous columns might recall that each Halloween, in a small and humble effort to reach the youthful, comic-deprived masses, I offer the trick-or-treaters that come to my house a choice between the usual piece or two of candy, or a comic book. I’m happy to report that out of a record 88 costumed customers who showed up at my house this year, 34 of them skipped the Snickers and selected the Superman. And that alliteration isn’t fictional; those were really their choices. Now, giving away 34 comics doesn’t sound like much, I realize, but I was encouraged for a couple of reasons; normally, in recent years, the number of comics I’ve given away has been in the 20 – 25 range, so there was more interest this time. And this wasn’t just because there were more kids coming to the door; proportionally, the number of comic choosers was 39%, as opposed to 30 – 35% in past years. I’ll let John Jackson Miller provide a more detailed numerical analysis, if he so chooses.
• Okay, a final final note about Halloween: I’m sure the above numbers may be skewed by the sneaky little devils (one really was dressed as the devil) who tried to come back multiple times. One kid actually came back four separate occasions; on his final attempt, he convinced me that he kept returning out of his fondness for previous comics he had gotten, more so than greed. Knowing that even I, as a kid, never went back to the same house that many times out of selfishness, even for Smarties, which I was and still remain addicted to, I figured this kid had at least some genuine sincerity and eagerness. So I gave him a second comic, and let him know that he didn’t have to wait until Halloween every year to score a comic book or two; he really could find comics year-round at local retailers.
• Lest anyone out there think that I’m a collector-turned-philanthropist and that I’m itching to just give away all my comics, it just ain’t so. Check this out; it isn’t about Halloween, but it’s a plenty scary move, for me at least. I recently decided to venture into the speculative arena of selling slabbed comics. Maybe venture isn’t the word; it’s more like experiment. Or maybe dabble. Yeah, I like that word, dabble. I had several issues of various X-Men related titles circa 1997 – 2001 certified by Comics Guaranty Corporation, and later put them up on eBay, to see for myself just how lucrative the market for slabbed comics is. Hey, it only took me five years to get around to it. The results? Well, I made a few bucks, but I’m not going to give up my day job. I sold a CGC 9.8 copy of Uncanny X-Men #385 (Wizard World variant) for $59. I’m pretty happy about that. A 9.8 copy of X-Men (2nd Series) #100 (Leinel Yu variant) fetching $42 wasn’t too bad, either, nor was a 9.8 copy of the variant edition of Uncanny X-Men #377 grabbing $39. But most of the other books graded below that (9.6, 9.4) didn’t even make back the cost of getting them slabbed. So now I know for myself that this whole CGC thing isn’t necessarily the guaranteed money-maker many think it is. I think I’ll leave this kind of thing to the experts. Chuck Rozanski, Brian Hibbs, and all you other premiere retailers, you need not fear any competition from me. Your empires are safe.
• As much as I love the hobby and collecting, I find as I get older that I’m losing the desire to accumulate more “stuff;” and this includes comics. I still buy 15 – 20 new comics every week, and I bag and file everything I read. But I don’t feel that irrepressible urge anymore to seek out back issues and fill holes in my collection. I consider myself more of a reader than a collector, nowadays. Other than finding ways to unload comics I just didn’t enjoy, (like the aforementioned Superman comics I give away on Halloween, or the more-valuable X-Men issues that I sold), I’m not looking to dump my collection, but I’m not seeking to expand it, either, beyond the current books that I normally buy. Every 5 – 10 years or so, I go through my collection and pull out the stuff that I’m pretty sure I’m never going to miss, like some of the titles from the 80’s independent boom, or the glut of 90’s X-titles. I mean, Geriatric Gangrene Jujitsu Gerbils #2? Wasn’t #1 bad enough? Just what was I thinking when I bought these, anyway? What were any of us thinking, for that matter? Anyway, this periodic culling helps keep the monster from outgrowing the one wall of the hobby room that it’s chained to. If I never did this, I’d still have that wonderful run of Dazzler taking up valuable shelf space.
• Before the days of eBay and online comic stores, getting rid of undesirable comics was tough. Back in the early 90’s, during one of the more extensive purges of my collection, one of the easy targets was my set of New Universe titles. Knowing that I’d be lucky to even give these away, I took them up to the hospital next to my apartment complex and offered them to the gift shop or children’s wing or any area that wanted them. For free, of course. But every person I talked to at the hospital looked at me like I was from another planet; one of them asked why I was trying to unload comics at a hospital, acting as though that I had just brought my lawnmower to a scuba gear shop for repair. It never dawned on them that maybe the kids there in the hospital might enjoy reading comics. So, since I literally couldn’t give these away, I ended up taking them to a store I sometimes frequented and whose owner I knew, dumped them on the counter, told him to take good care of them, and walked out. Oddly enough, he ended selling many of these issues. Go figure.
Creative ways to get rid of your comics. Heh. Guess there was a theme of sorts, after all. Try some of these methods, or develop your own. Results may vary. Offer void where prohibited by law. Seeya.
- JJ
"You can live your life in a thousand ways,
But it all comes down to that single day
When you realize what you regret,
Which you can't reclaim but you can't forget."
www.facebook.com/QuiGonJimm
www.twitter.com/QuiGonJimm | 
John Jackson Miller
Posts: 1007
| Posted: 11/11/2005 9:38:28 PM | Jim, Jim, Jim. How many gallons of ink have we expended talking about how newer comics in anything but the highest grades have trouble making their money back? Supply and demand, big guy. First one into the newer-comics pool gets the premium, then it goes downhill from there.
It's why there's just about as many downs as ups in the magazine's tracking of average CGC prices. The older stuff gets a little dearer a month and an issue at a time as people realize that, no, there may not be a 9.9 Spidey #1 ever -- where on the other side, people realize that another cubic rood of McFarlane Spidey #1s have just been slabbed and released to market and bid those suckers down.
Best,
John Jackson Miller
Comics & Fiction at Faraway Press
Comics circulation resarch at The Comics Chronicles
Webcomic: Sword & Sarcasm |
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