Robot Man

Annother one I couldn’t pass up. The colors are just blazing on this one!

A fun WonderCon purchase!

My observations…

First off, BAD weekend for the show. Easter is a day spent with families. Dealers don’t want to travel. Only a couple of out of state dealers. Mostly the local crowd I usually see at shows. Not to mention we got another big storm blowing through here. Will really impact all the cosplay folks and the fun out door activities today. Was weird that unlike its big sister SDCC, you could just walk right up, buy a ticket and walk in. 

Lots of folks just gazing at the big high priced wall books. Seems like every booth had numerous high priced ASM 300’s. Why people pay or ask those prices for a book that is common as dirt is beyond me. I seemed to have all the GA boxes to myself. I fished out a few nice very obscure gems at great prices. Just not a lot of WWII, obscure publishers and scarcer GA. I brought a ton of cash and came home with most of it. Most dealers seemed happy with sales though. But what dealer would admit they didn’t do well? Hard to find many Pulps, my current interest. And what was there was priced insane.

It was pretty pathetic how small the “GA/SA Pavilion was. 5 or 6 small isles with a slight spillover. Looks like a small postage stamp on the floor map. A pretty large Artist’s Alley but I didn’t go because I really don’t know many modern artists and everybody I used to go see had basically passed away by now. I had no desire to shuffle the rest of the show of new toy dealers, T-Shirts, gamers and the great un-washed…

I actually waited in line at the CGC booth to get some pulps graded. There seemed to be a lot of confusion as what to do with them. I figured now is the time to do some. Not many on the census and a lot of them have very few sales. Many real good ones still fit into the lowest tier. For now… I also got this cool pin for my submission.

One of the best parts of the show is bumping into old friends and making new ones. I had a few conversations with my older buddies. We all agreed as to how many of us are dropping lately. Now is the time to keep in touch more often. Another thing that was a little disturbing was how many former old time board members have given up posting here. Most cited hostile interactions here as the reason. Real sad, as I have always enjoyed their posts. I urged them to return. Hopefully, they will.

Was very easily a one day or less show for me. Still what a great way to spend a day and will go back as long as it’s here. 

And here are some usual wall shots of the kind of stuff that interests me.

Ran into my pal, boardie Hap Hazard. He is holding a cool, fat Xmas comic I bought from his brother in law who had a booth. Had a nice conversation and geeked about books. 

On 3/29/2024 at 5:23 AM, CGC Mike said:

I met Bob at a dinner that I hosted for the CBCA during NYCC around 2008.  Him and I both stepped outside for a smoke.  I really enjoyed listening to him about how it was with comics long ago.  I also had to remind him that he had not yet paid for the dinner, as everyone else did weeks ago.  He hated to give it up but, I was able to yank it out of his hand.  LOL  RIP Bob

I remember going up to his store just after he purchased the San Francisco collection. Redbeard, McLaughlin and the boys at The American Comic Book Company had all made purchases and I'd seen the books. I was up in the Bay Area visiting my cousins and stopped by the store. I asked Bob about them and he trotted out several small boxes of them. Wow, they were beautiful. They were of course priced at "Bob's prices". None the less, he had me. After some long mental mental anguish, I pulled out 5 or 6 books I just had to have. He looked me right in the eye and said "pick three". I was a little shocked and I'm sure whined a little. He was animate, no more than 3 per purchase. So I narrowed it down to three paid and left. I ended up with what I wanted though because the next day I went back and got the other 3. He remembered me and was trying to get out of selling them to me until I reminded him of what he said the previous day. I think he was glad to just get rid of me...

I bumped into him at SDCC a few years later and reminded him of the story. His explanation was that he wanted them spread out so many folks could get some. I really think he didn't want to get cleaned out by one dealer asking for a discount. 

We didn't see eye to eye much but we both loved the medium and at the end off the day, that's probably true with most of us.