DvilleBookstore

Great looking set of books Richard! Good luck with the sale!!

We set up at the show for the first time in three years and I will tell you it was not a horrible show sales wise for us. We sold some nice keys and some box stock too but overall, it was a grind. There was some quality books in the room. Rick from Rick's Comic Crypt always has a nice wall of keys, from silver age to modern age and fairly priced table stock. Rob from Monster's Lair and Boyd from Black Cat Comics shared a corner booth across from us. Boyd had stocked up on some cool golden age romance and horror comics as well as lots of silver age keys. Rob brought a good selection of modern to silver age keys and variants for his wall and had just about the only $1.00 boxes in the room, with a good selection of modern marvel and dc books that were already bagged and boarded. Bob Storms from High Grade Comics made the trip and set up with an inventory that is only brought out for shows in this region so it has not been picked through, as well as a fantastic wall of silver age and golden age keys, including a very nice presenting Detective Comics #31. There was a handful of other dealers in the room with an assortment of modern age keys so no one can say that there wasn't comics in the room but I am not sure how many comic buyers decided to show up. This show has plenty of problems and I am not sure Wizard can or will fix them. One of the reasons we chose not to set up at this show the past three years was because it was a two day show, Friday and Saturday, on Halloween weekend. I thought going back to a three day show would be a good thing but it was not. This show needs to be a two day show, Saturday and Sunday, with a $20.00 entrance fee and booths need to cost $500.00. None of this will happen though. There is also a LOT of competition in Texas for shows and I think that hurts this show as well. In three weeks, the buyers have Fan Expo Dallas and at the end of October is Alamo City Comic Con. Both shows are cheaper to get in to, will have a better selection of dealers and will have more comic guests. We were asked several times if we would be attending those two shows, which we always do. So overall, as a vendor, it was slow but eventually worth our time and effort to set up. It was great to see quite a few people from the Austin area that we have not seen in a while. As a comic buyer, I would suggest that you not completely give up on the show but it is good for only one day.

Cool that Duncanville is back this year -- last they told me, they were boycotting all the wizard shows because of the high table rates. Will groupon it for Friday probably. The biggest problem we have had with Wizard World Austin the past few years is it being on Halloween weekend and the fact that the show was on Friday and Saturday only. That never made sense to me. We have limited how many Wizard shows we do in any given year and the primary reasons are booth cost and the pop culture crowd. I have always thought the Austin show was overpriced for the crowd they get, especially if the show is just two days. I have always loved doing a show in Austin because of the city's vibe and the people we meet but Wizard is the only game in town. Wizard is a straight up pop culture show and we are trying to be a comic dealer which makes the booth costs hurt even more. If they don't get the comic collector's through the door, then the comic dealers struggle. We have tried to off-set that by carrying pops and action figures but we still want to sell comics. We are trying it this year and we are hoping they can get our target audience through the door. We have also decided to concentrate on shows in Texas for the rest of this year and into 2017 so I felt we needed to be in Austin for this one. Hope it works out for all of us!

I am in there. Andy McMahon.