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So what ever happened to Lighthouse, anyway?

Started by lighthouse,

49 posts in this topic

lighthouse

lighthouse

Posted
Posted

I've heard many theories on the subject... some of them more bizarre than others...

 

Why I remember one time I was searching YouTube for Summer Glau fight scenes and I came across a 27-minute long reaction video of a teenage girl reading every single xkcd comic in succession... I agree, little one.. #204 is comic genius...

 

But in retrospect, does anyone really care what happened to Lighthouse?

 

I think the more important question is "What the heck happened to Lighthouse's store full of comics?"

 

 

 

So herein lies the tale...

 

 

 

April 2008 found me in the Pacific Northwest, opening the door of my 10x35 storage until for the first time in over two years.

 

I started looking at possible options for the stock a couple years earlier. Bulk sale to a dealer. Sale to an insane collector who thinks 130 copies of Peter Parker: One Small Break is a "collection". Arson fraud. Chuck Rozanski. You name it... But ultimately the decision was made to do some good with the inventory.

 

I had contacted a half dozen charities about the store stock. My first choice was Comics 4 Kids, but without their 501©(3) paperwork in order, it just didn't make sense. In addition to the tax issues, I wanted to be certain of what would happen to my donation. So I contacted other charities. Most of them expressed interest right until the point at which I gave them an idea of the volume I was talking about. Donating 200 comics can be done almost anywhere. Finding someone to take over 5 tons of comics and trade paperbacks? That's another matter entirely.

 

I eventually settled on a group called Operation Gratitude. Founded by Carolyn Blashek out of her home in 2003, the group now sends over 100,000 care packages each year to soldiers stationed overseas. The packages are filled with everything from Girl Scout Cookies to sunscreen to dvds to letters from elementary school students. When I contacted Carolyn about the donation, my primary concern was "convincing" her that comic books would be of interest to today's troops. I pitched the long history of comic books in foxholes, of Batman and Superman's roles in lifting morale in WWII. Turns out I didn't need to. She recognized the interest right away, and even brought up the possibility of soldiers handing comics off to local youngsters in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

There were, however, two significant logistical issues. One, the comics were 900 miles away from the charity's donation site (the Army National Guard Armory in Van Nuys, CA). Two, some of the comics in the stock would not be appropriate for shipment to Islamic countries.

 

I decided a week would be enough time to do the job. My boss was a Marine (I use the past tense not because a Marine ever stops being a Marine, but because he passed away last year) and told me to take as much time as I needed; he would juggle everyone else's schedule. I flew to Portland and a former employee (not the Goth Princess) drove me to my storage unit. Two truck rentals were arranged, a one-way to SoCal and a local to handle the items not making the trip.

 

When the door opened... this is what I saw

 

DSC00331.jpg

 

Fixtures, tables, trash, empty Diamond boxes... you name it...

 

For the next three days, I loaded both trucks simultaneously, one with items headed south, one with trash, local donations, more trash, more local donations, more trash, government cheese, giant inflatable gorillas, microwave popcorn...

 

In my excitement over the process I decided I would take pictures as each row of boxes landed in the truck. Yeah, that lasted about four pictures. But here's one

 

DSC00334.jpg

 

I took a bunch of pictures of the truck full of trash, full of fixtures to be donated, full of trash, full of gorillas, full of hand-me-down Greggy Short-Shorts™... but in retrospect, those are pretty boring.

 

As the sorting went on, I realized there was more "good stuff" left in these junk boxes than I realized. I had it in my head that I hadn't left anything worth more than $25 in the storage unit. Reality was I found a Batman 6, random high grade 50s westerns, a nice Overstreet 6, high grade early Werewolf By Nights, you name it. Seems in my haste to buy and process collections back in the day, I would set aside piles of stuff "to be gone through later" and later just never came. So in going through the storage unit, I would find a long box that was half unbagged 80s GI Joes in mid-grade and half 12c Flash... My original plan when getting to the unit was to save maybe 1 long box total for myself, take all the porn comics to the local landfill, and donate the rest. I wound up keeping about ten long boxes (and no, none of that was porn). I keep imagining an archaeologist digging in Oregon in a few hundred years and finding a treasure trove of Cherry reprints, Coley Running Wild, and Threshold variants.

 

And yes, yes... you are shocked to find that at some point I had procrastinated to my own detriment... Heck, I originally planned this post for July 2008... Oh well...

 

So boxes like these went to the Middle East...

 

DSC00341.jpg

 

I figure it's about a 1 in 10 shot that the soldier who received a bunch of 12c Flash books actually bothered to find out what they were worth. But in my mind, the value to the morale of the troops (and to their lives if they were able to trade some of these for intel about IEDs) was far more important.

 

Box after box went in the truck. Trash and trash and more trash wound up in the other truck. My former employee assisted me for a couple days. He was kind enough to take payment in trade. He's got a Spider Jerusalem tattoo on his scalp, I'm pretty sure he was happier with comics than cash any day. I remember us sweeping porn comics off the floor of the truck and over the edge into the landfill. Ah, good times...

 

It rained a couple days during the process. I felt silly trying to "protect" comics that were headed to the sandbox, but protect them we did. I suspended a tarp between the truck tailgate and the storage unit. Those books stayed dry.

 

After a while, the donation truck looked like this

 

DSC00356.jpg

 

It was funny. My buddy and I looked around, and decided the inventory in the truck would be in the top 50 back issue inventories of US comic shops. Sad commentary on collecting, but unfortunately true. I had forgotten how many bulk trades I had. You can only pawn off so many copies of One Small Break after all. The "good" inventory of trades had made the trip with me when I moved back to Texas, the ones left behind were the equivalent of Greggy's VG undercopies.

 

More loading, more loading, more loading.

 

At some point during all of this, I had an appraisal done. Had I had an insane amount of time, I am sure I could have had the appraisal based on Overstreet guide. Heck, there were 34 long boxes just of Marvel and DC bronze. But as it was, it turned into more of a bulk assessment. None of this was traditional "quarter stock". That stuff was pawned off on a bulk dealer years ago. Part of the stock was 3 nearly complete sets of the Onslaught storyline. I can just imagine guys in Iraq trying to trade with each other to get the whole story.

 

Anyway, more loading... more loading...

 

DSC00365.jpg

 

The truck was getting pretty close to full, and was nearly the load limit for the Penske. At least I wouldn't have to worry about a high center of gravity.

 

And finally... pretty much done...

 

DSC00374.jpg

 

All told we took 6 loads to the landfill and made 4 trips to local charities, donating fixtures, tables, anything that wasn't a comic book or tpb. When I finally returned the local rental truck, the storage unit looked like this

 

DSC00373.jpg

 

The drive south was fairly uneventful, though it was snowing in the Siskiyou Summit when I went through. I could just imagine the news story had my truck gone off the mountain and landed in a ravine. They'd be digging through the wreckage wondering what the hell was going on.

 

I slept in the truck that night. Call it paranoia, but I was not about to have my truck full of donations to get jacked. Far too much work to try to do a good deed to let it all get ruined by some crackhead who wants a joyride.

 

I rolled into the National Guard Armory around noon. Carolyn wasn't there that day, but a local Colonel was manning the donation site. He had been warned I was coming, which was good. He had not been warned that I hadn't palletized my shipment. I have to give him credit though. It was obvious he was irritated, but there was an internal monologue going on about the good of the troops, and he rounded up a couple guys to assist. We transferred the books onto pallets and they were offloaded. They wound up stacked just down the fenceline from about 15 pallets of Girl Scout Cookies. It seems the cookie folks are the biggest donors to Operation Gratitude.

 

Here is how comics should be protected... heavy artillery and barbed wire...

 

DSC00375.jpg

 

I got to meet many of the nice volunteers. They make up 50,000 packages for their Patriotic Drive (Memorial Day, 4th of July) and another 50,000 packages for their Holiday Drive between Thanksgiving and Christmas. All the packages are sent in flat rate Priority Mail boxes, and everything is packed by hand. There was a virtual army of nice folks folding and taping and stuffing and filling. Cash donations go to cover the postage. Item donations wind up in the boxes. And volunteers give their time to make it all happen.

 

 

I drove away from the Armory feeling pretty good. But a few weeks later, I felt even better.

 

That's when the pictures started showing up on the Operation Gratitude website, of soldiers in the field opening their care packages. About 80 pictures record the shipments from the 2008 Holiday Drive, a rather small sample given that 50,000 boxes were sent. But even still, there were pictures of my former comics.

 

These first two you would only see comics in them if you really, really, really knew what you were looking for... But they are there

 

4016f.jpg

 

3998f.jpg

 

In these next two, there's no denying it.

 

Not sure if this gentleman is just not a fan of Legion Worlds

 

3992f.jpg

 

But it's clear this young lady is a big fan of Incredible Hulk

 

4066f.jpg

 

 

 

 

When I got back to work, my boss asked me to do a write-up in our company's newsletter about my donation. Obviously it's not every day someone gives away 50,000 comic books and 1200 trade paperbacks to charity. But I declined his request. In fact, only three people at my work even know I did it. I didn't make the donation for publicity. I made it because I wanted to do some good.

 

Operation Gratitude wanted to do a write-up as well, and I politely declined there too. While there might have been some benefit in them having the story on their site, their larger need is cash donations at this point. Many corporations have jumped on the bandwagon of care packages for the troops, and they get plenty of cooling headbands, sunscreen, cookies, dvds, etc now.

 

So the real question became whether to tell my story to the comic community or not.

 

And I thought about that for a long time...

 

I thought hard about posting this story around the time of Comic-Con 2008. I even asked a few of the board members here about whether it would do any good. Would it come across the right way or would it get buried in a bunch of hatred over missed packages? I've repaid every debt, I've compensated everyone who needed monetary compensation (that I know of, and if I am wrong about that, please do let me know). I went through the best of times and the worst of times here on the boards and in my private life. And I am grateful for the people who still consider me a friend.

 

So would the story be received? Or not?

 

I wrestled with that question for weeks around Comic-Con 2008. And eventually decided against telling it.

 

I revisited the question again in 2009. I live in San Diego now, and I work Comic-Con professionally, so I have seen many board members at the event the last three years. I asked a few of them about whether to tell the tale and the results were mixed. Plenty of drama on the boards, they said. Lots of people who just want to complain, they said. It's not the fun place it was in 2002, in 2003, in 2004...

 

A few months ago, at Comic-Con 2010, I decided I would tell the story after all. And then, like the procrastinator I sometimes am, it took me a few months to get it done. Couldn't find the old pictures, the usual stuff. And no one was expecting it to be told, so there was no deadline to meet. But time does keep on slipping...

 

And here I am with my tale, on the final day of 2010...

 

 

 

There are a number of worthwhile charities out there. And whether you choose to donate cash or comics or time, there are plenty of ways you can improve the world around you. It is extremely easy as a comic collector to wind up with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to your collection. Many of us look up and suddenly realize we have far more than we ever intended to have. Some folks hand out comics instead of candy at Halloween. Some drop them off at local hospitals for kids to read while they wait for news. Some give them to libraries or to schools. Some donate them to museums for exhibits on popular culture. At one time or another I have done nearly all of these things, but certainly nothing like what I did in April 2008.

 

Collecting is inherently selfish. It is intensely personal. We develop private battles with ourselves as we take on new goals. We develop public battles with others over who has the most toys. Every once in a while, It's not a bad idea to step back, look at the embarrassment of riches you have obtained, and give something back.

 

It's not my place to preach. I am, after all, the poster child for "best of times, worst of times". But if my tale inspires just a few of you to do some good, then it was worth the telling, and it was worth the inevitable wisecracks that will follow in reply.

 

I wish all of you the best, and a happy and healthy 2011.

'House

 

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jonjesper

jonjesper

Posted
Posted
I revisited the question again in 2009. I live in San Diego now, and I work Comic-Con professionally, so I have seen many board members at the event the last three years. I asked a few of them about whether to tell the tale and the results were mixed. Plenty of drama on the boards, they said. Lots of people who just want to complain, they said. It's not the fun place it was in 2002, in 2003, in 2004...

 

or 2007 where you went on the Probation Thread and have remained for the past 3 years, now going on 4 after this eve...

yeah, still not as fun a place as 2007...

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Jeffro.

Jeffro.

Posted
Posted
I revisited the question again in 2009. I live in San Diego now, and I work Comic-Con professionally, so I have seen many board members at the event the last three years. I asked a few of them about whether to tell the tale and the results were mixed. Plenty of drama on the boards, they said. Lots of people who just want to complain, they said. It's not the fun place it was in 2002, in 2003, in 2004...

 

or 2007 where you went on the Probation Thread and have remained for the past 3 years, now going on 4 after this eve...

yeah, still not as fun a place as 2007...

 

 

Any probation recommendations or other discussion, please utilize the probation discussion thread.

 

:bump: 12/14/10 PROBATION LIST UPDATE :bump:

 

THE HALL OF SHAME

 

The following Board Members have been elected by the community to the

Probation List's "Hall of Shame" for gross misconduct as members in the

Marketplace Forum:

 

Refreshed for ease of sales reference.

 


  •  
  • Herald2Galactus
    (Inaugural Member & 1st "Hall of Shame" Member)
     
  • gilbertotorres
    (added 11/5/08 - 2nd "Hall of Shame" Member)
     
  • ComicSupply
    (added 10/28/08 - 3rd "Hall of Shame" Member)
     
  • CAP freak
    (added 5/21/09 - 4th "Hall of Shame" Member)
     
  • AlleyBat aka BucOne aka WolfHulk aka Roxx Gang aka MarkWeb aka lastyle7 aka royig aka Punkkitty aka bamaboy aka Greenpep
    (added 5/23/08 - 5th "Hall of Shame" Member)
     
  • TFL
    (added 6/2/09 - 6th "Hall of Shame" Member)
     
  • Dr. Frankenstein aka muscleshark
    (added 5/3/10 - 7th "Hall of Shame" Member)
     
  • TheDanimal
    (added 8/12/10 - 8th "Hall of Shame" Member)
     
  • MachineGunned aka William Townsend aka Chester Jordan
    (added 8/31/10 - 9th "Hall of Shame" Member)
     
  • Joker-Fish
    (added 11/3/10 - 10th "Hall of Shame" Member)
     

THE PROBATION LIST

 

The following Board Members are currently on "Probation" for failure to complete

a Marketplace Forum transaction in good faith after one month's time:

 

 

  • aaron568 (added 11/6/08)
     
  • BATMANFAN (added 2/9/10)
     
  • bkwon12 (added 10/08/09)
     
  • brasseye (added 7/2/09)
     
  • bronzejunkie (added 3/26/07)
     
  • Chrissr (added 12/22/09)
     
  • clobberintime (added 11/7/07)
     
  • comicmankev (added 3/27/07)
     
  • comicseekers (added 9/14/10)
     
  • DarkKnight2K4 (added 4/24/08)
     
  • donavan74 (added 3/27/07)
     
  • erbdom (added 12/08/09)
     
  • ffxmen14 (added 4/12/10)
     
  • Gaijin2010 (added 9/24/10)
     
  • Ghastly (added by majority vote 12/3/07)
     
  • Henchman (added 4/25/08)
     
  • HGComics (added 10/7/09)
     
  • htown79 (added 8/4/10)
     
  • kevin109 (added 4/19/10)
     
  • Lighthouse (added 6/13/07)
     
  • Marc Wolfe (added 9/15/08)
     
  • matewan1990 (added 3/3/08)
     
  • mishu2nite (added 3/3/10)
     
  • mjacobs8 (added 1/24/09)
     
  • Nascar (added 6/2/07)
     
  • NEXTLVL (added 10/12/08)
     
  • rza808 (added 12/29/08) Please read for update!
     
  • Sid (added 8/8/07)
     
  • SilverSlinky (added 11/20/09)
     
  • SIXX_VAN_ROSE (added 11/7/08)
     
  • SpiderJay300 (added 9/15/07)
     
  • Superman20 (added 12/18/07)
     
  • Taz007 aka Thesavros aka Rudolph (added 7/15/09)
     
  • TVanderZwaag (added 6/23/09)
     

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Boozad

Boozad

Posted
Posted
I've seen him on the FaceBook.

 

Stalker.

I prefer the term, "observant."

 

Voyeur.

No, I don't use binoculars.

 

That's not what she said.

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sufunk

sufunk

Posted
Posted

Ouch! Not exactly a warm "welcome back"!

 

I'm new so i don't know about past transgressions like others obviously do. Whatever happened here on the boards with failed transactions aside, it was a good thing you did with the troops. Supporting our troops overseas should be a top priority for everyone so I give you kudos for that at least.

 

 

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goldust40

goldust40

Posted
Posted
Ouch! Not exactly a warm "welcome back"!

 

I'm new so i don't know about past transgressions like others obviously do. Whatever happened here on the boards with failed transactions aside, it was a good thing you did with the troops. Supporting our troops overseas should be a top priority for everyone so I give you kudos for that at least.

 

 

Agreed. One cannot possibly say otherwise. But given the context of everything (not to mention referring to oneself in the third person), the post, despite its honorable intentions, is disingenuous, especially the moralizing at the end of it.

 

Indifference is the correct reaction. Not to the message, but to the messenger.

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Flaming_Telepath

Flaming_Telepath

Posted
Posted
I thought hard about posting this story around the time of Comic-Con 2008. I even asked a few of the board members here about whether it would do any good. Would it come across the right way or would it get buried in a bunch of hatred over missed packages? I've repaid every debt, I've compensated everyone who needed monetary compensation (that I know of, and if I am wrong about that, please do let me know). I went through the best of times and the worst of times here on the boards and in my private life. And I am grateful for the people who still consider me a friend.

 

Just a heads-up for those who weren't around at the time...

 

Whilst I am all for paying debts and striving for forgiveness, I'd like to point out that the above passage minimises what actually occurred with Lighthouse...and how many times...to such a ludicrous degree that I'm unsure whether we're talking about the same person.

 

If I'm wrong, I apologise in advance, but I also have some recollection of a lawyer having to become involved for one of the large deals to be put right? (shrug)

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Old Fashion PB and J

Old Fashion PB and J

Posted
Posted

I personally dont find this to be the place to bring up the probation list. If he were buying or selling I would say otherwise, but not in general. I feel that is harrassment, I felt this way with TFL as well. But what do I know, I forgive people too easily.

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thehumantorch

thehumantorch

Posted
Posted
I thought hard about posting this story around the time of Comic-Con 2008. I even asked a few of the board members here about whether it would do any good. Would it come across the right way or would it get buried in a bunch of hatred over missed packages? I've repaid every debt, I've compensated everyone who needed monetary compensation (that I know of, and if I am wrong about that, please do let me know). I went through the best of times and the worst of times here on the boards and in my private life. And I am grateful for the people who still consider me a friend.

 

Just a heads-up for those who weren't around at the time...

 

Whilst I am all for paying debts and striving for forgiveness, I'd like to point out that the above passage minimises what actually occurred with Lighthouse...and how many times...to such a ludicrous degree that I'm unsure whether we're talking about the same person.

 

If I'm wrong, I apologise in advance, but I also have some recollection of a lawyer having to become involved for one of the large deals to be put right? (shrug)

 

Nic, I'm with Mutie Fan on this one. Regardless of history, Lighthouse has

done something very kind. I don't want to buy comics from him but I

appreciate his act of generosity and I enjoyed reading his original post.

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