Say Uncle
Our old chum Chris Owen popped by for a drink yesterday and we got to chatting a bit about comics and the dilemma facing the people that bought investment books these past couple of years. Luckily the batteries in our…
Comic Book Daily
Discussing the minutiae of comic book collecting.
Comic Book Daily
Discussing the minutiae of comic book collecting.
Read MoreSay Uncle
High Floors
A guy brought in some rag copies of some pretty good Silver and Bronze age books and I did what any sane shopkeep should do: I bought them up. These things are low grade, so low I would have turned…
A Jury Of My Peers
Sidetracked again, this time by Orthodox Easter. Well, maybe not by the day but most certainly by my weakness of trying to be a good guest. My wife thinks I give into peer pressure way too easily but when I’m…
Weather Related
We’ve picked our date for our annual eBay Canadiana Auction: it will go live Friday, May 19th and finish up Monday, May 29th. This will be our 3rd Canadiana auction and will easily be our biggest and best yet; we…
It’s What’s Inside That Counts
As I was gathering thoughts for this week’s post I realized the post was going to be, as all the past posts were, a celebration of what’s inside the comic. So these posts are kind of anti-grading posts. Come to…
Auction Focus
I’ve talked to a few people that attended the Toronto Comic Con this past weekend and they allsaid the show was super busy. This is the spring version of the much larger Fan Expo that goes on in late August,…
Spring
When the missus and I were dating way back when she mentioned she liked Vivaldi so I went out and bought her a Vivaldi Four Seasons CD. She thanked me and then mentioned she didn’t have a CD player… Anyway,…
Jim Somerville’s Maelstrom
The original Aircel comics from the mid-to-late 1980s are some of the best-known from the Canadian Silver Age. Barry Blair’s titles Samurai and Elflord continue to have fans more than thirty years later and other series, like Dragonring, Stark: Future,…
That’s So Yesterday
A couple of weeks ago I was stressing about a box coming back from CGC. On shipment tracking, it was showing “delayed” for days and I was starting to get antsy. There was good reason to be nervous: inside the…
Cover Me
I’ve been thinking a lot about comic book covers lately. I’ve been trying to figure out, in some measurable way, what makes a comic book cover work, what makes it sought after as a collectible. As most cover connoisseurs know…
The waiting is the hardest part
This time of year I wake up and the first thing I do is check the two-week weather forecast. Southern Ontario is a cold place and I’m hoping to see some cracks in the weather out past St Patrick’s Day!…
The Art of Creating
A few days ago Chris Owen and I were sharing a pint and having a chat about the two things we’re experts at girls and comics. While the girl discussion fell into silence after a few seconds we really caught…
It’s Alive!
I was going through this week’s “heading to eBay auction” pile and was having fun looking through stacks of Jiggs and Maggie, Nancy and Sluggy, Black Hood, Steel Sterling and other cool and obscure characters of yesterday. It dawned on…
Bottom Feeders
Is it happening? Are we in and around the bottoming out of the comic market? I’m not sure but my Spidey sense says maybe. I’ve noticed a few sales on our eBay auction this week that point to things stabilizing.…
The World’s Toughest Milkman
David Boswell and Reid Fleming are topics that I have wanted to write about for some time. The reason why I haven’t already profiled the “world’s toughest milkman” is that I had been unable to procure a specimen of the…
Love is in the air
This week Chris and Walt are joined by Shekky as the three amigos convene for their annual Valentine’s Day Poem Off. We can honestly say, with no hyperbole, that this was the worst set of poems we’ve ever read on…
The Baker Has Left the Building
A crowded day for posts as we try to fit in a couple of Valentine’s Day-themed posts in before the big day. Tomorrow I’ll post my regular Time to Collect article. Our pal Alex Sorensen just can’t leave well enough…
Love Ain’t Cheap
The Mighty Alex Sorensen sent us this great study on the high-end Romance Comics market. I know a big auction of Romance Books just finished up on Heritage; hopefully, Alex can critique it a bit as to how it fits…
Smokin’
It’s early days in 2023 and I’m already trying to get a sense if there are any patterns developing. The harder I look the less I see, in other words, the more data I get the more it becomes obvious…
Kickstart My Heart
This week Chris wanted to explore in depth Walt’s comments about Kickstarter in his latest blog. Chris is well-versed in the crowdfunding scene and gives us some perspective. Please let us know what you think of the show by adding…
Giving it a Good Kick
I read over on CBR that Kickstarter broke a record in 2022 for the number of successful comic projects launched: the numbers were 2,205 successfully funded projects out of 2,805 submissions, a 78% success rate. I also read that this…