Originally Posted by
Some Stupid Japanese Name
Today I did something I haven't done in 9 years.
I went to a comic shop and bought a few comics.
It was great.
I was very surprised at the complete lack of long boxes. There were new floppies against the wall, several racks of trade paper backs, and 6 long boxes that said "$1 comics." Where the hell were all the back issues?
Talking to the dude, who was older and turned out to be the owner, eBay killed back issues sales. "You can buy full runs of comics for peanuts now, I'll still take in books and sell the better issues, but pretty much everything else goes into these dollar boxes. It's not worth the space to have issues sit around for the $4 or $5 they may be worth, when I can get rid of them quickly for a buck and have continual turnover."
I had a feeling that was the case, as I've mentioned buying full runs myself for not a lot of money. But what about guys like me that have close to full runs and just need to plug a few holes? "I can get specific issues for you if you want to leave a list, we offer that service." No thanks, I can look at eBay myself.
He was a nice guy and we shot the shit for over 2 hours, so it was a good experience overall. I'm just sad that the internet has killed another marketplace that I really dug. I had hoped to fill some gaps in my Vertigo series, but instead bought a bunch of fluff Marvel and DC books to fill gaps in superhero stuff. He talked me into checking out Jupiter something or other by Mark Millar, and I picked up 8 issues of Matt Wagner's new Mage series. At $4 an issue, I'll definitely be sticking more to the cheap boxes than resent stuff.
There's a bigger CBS a few towns over, I may try there next weekend.
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