Heard about a comic stash...

So a friend of mine told me he was in downtown Phoenix a few days ago at an electronics reclamation store and he ran across several boxes of comics buried in the backroom amongst all the other stuff they had for sale there. He knew I collected comics so he gave me a heads up in case I wanted to go check em out. Today was that day. Would I find an Amazing Fantasy 15 or Fantastic Four 1 like Ronnylama and Tnerb jokingly suggested, or more likely would I find the junk I expected?

I arrived at the store which was in a seedy part of town (thankfully it was daylight), parked my truck in the dirt parking lot, and walked through the front door with bars on it (and the windows). I was immediately overwhelmed with the smell of what reminded me of my grandmother's house mixed with an auto repair shop garage and dust. The older man and woman who worked there were nice enough and left me to my own devices as I took a look around what turned out to be a huge warehouse full of all kinds of...well, stuff. Lots of old electronic equipment and small box after small box of various machine parts.

As I walked around I tried to soak in all the odd things I was seeing in this warehouse including dusty old musical instruments, old photography equipment, stuffed panda bears with real working fish tanks for stomachs, credit card machines, a dirty litter box in the corner, a wall of military patches, barber chairs, outdoor lighting, and a bunch of stuff that I had no idea what it was. Finally I came upon a row that had like 20 small boxes of comics on the top! This was it...what the heck could they have hidden here? Find out next week when I continue this journal...

OK, that would be pretty messed up after I got you all sucked into this story, right? So, Im looking at the first box and its got all these oddball Image and Independent titles from like the last decade or whatever, and a few DC and Marvel oddities from the same time period...not exactly what Im lookin for. The first thing I noticed about the books tipped me off to what I was really looking at...all the backing boards had a store stamp for Atomic Comics. This was a local store...actually they had 3 stores here...that closed its doors several years ago. I always wondered what happened to all their inventory. Im sure they sold all the good stuff online or to other comics shops and then all the leftovers, well they landed here. Then it hit me...this reclamation store, this is where businesses go to die once they go out of business. Hey look over there...stacks of old DVDs with Blockbuster stickers. Yep, suspicions confirmed. Kind of sad really, but interesting to see all this old stuff.

I still took the time to look through the rest of the boxes. You never know right? Maybe somebody missed something. Oh, here are some XFactor books...nope, issue 7 was as close as I was gonna get to issue 6. Dang. I got really excited when I saw Hulk 289, 288, 286, 281...come on this is one of those junk issues thats gotta be here, but no...there is no issue 271. Sigh. Well, I didnt find any gems, but I gotta say I did have fun on the journey. Now I feel like heading to the flea markets and looking on Craigs List in search of comic treasure. Nah, I think I will get ready for ECCC instead!

Til next time...

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