Ever a time folks lined up for a new comic outside of store (Not LCS)? 1 1

[Buzzetta]

8 hours ago, romanheart said:

I don't know about a line-up but back in the 90s the following titles had a lot of buzz to get a copy:

1) Legends of the Dark Knight

2) New Spider-Man title art/story by McFarlane

3) After my time, but the Death of Superman had a lot of hype

Yeah I was going to say that the Death of Superman had a lot of people lined up to get that book. 

[Buzzetta]

7 hours ago, Robot Man said:

As a kid I remember lining up outside of a record store to buy a new Beatles album or concert tickets but not for a comic book...

Before businesses embraced the internet we ALL lined up for concert tickets and sporting tickets.  

I remember waiting in the early hours of dawn in the Bronx to get a bracelet to see if I had a decent number in the lottery to have the chance to buy 1998 Yankee Post Season tickets. 

Yes, I am serious and not exaggerating.  That is what we did.  We went to the Bronx and stood online to get a bracelet.  Once you had a bracelet you had to wait to see what the magic number was.  If you had 3054 and the number called was 3055 then bracelet 3054 would be the last person to have the opportunity to get tickets after the turnaround.  If you had 3067, then have fun at the World Series. 

  

Edited June 14, 2019 by Buzzetta

[dupont2005]

2 hours ago, kav said:

Side question: has anyone ever seen people line up outside LCS for a book?  I cant remember anyone doing that, even for howard the duck.

I’ve seen it within the last few years. Not a lot of people, but on Wednesday when a hot comic is due to come out there would be half a dozen people hanging out in front of the LCS waiting for it to open 

[ADAMANTIUM]

31 minutes ago, Buzzetta said:

Before businesses embraced the internet we ALL lined up for concert tickets and sporting tickets.  

I remember waiting in the early hours of dawn in the Bronx to get a bracelet to see if I had a decent number in the lottery to have the chance to buy 1998 Yankee Post Season tickets. 

Yes, I am serious and not exaggerating.  That is what we did.  We went to the Bronx and stood online to get a bracelet.  Once you had a bracelet you had to wait to see what the magic number was.  If you had 3054 and the number called was 3055 then bracelet 3054 would be the last person to have the opportunity to get tickets after the turnaround.  If you had 3067, then have fun at the World Series. 

  

Did you at least get the season tickets or world series?

[goldust40]

I remember the line for Dark Knight Returns 1 was round the block when it was released in 1986, from St. Giles Circus through Denmark Street onto the Charing Cross Road. It did help that Frank Miller and Lynn Varley were doing a signing that day at Forbidden Planet. Still have both signed copies.

Apart from that, yes, Death of Superman. Usually a small line that barely got outside the store, and customers were restricted to two copies (it was the original speculator era).

Edited June 14, 2019 by goldust40

[Buzzetta]

46 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

Did you at least get the season tickets or world series?

Was able to get Game 1 to the ALCS - Took my dad.  (I think I went to another game for that series as well)

Getting my dad, who watches every game on TV, to attend a baseball game with one of his sons is like getting a dog to go to the vet after you say, 'vet'. 

 I have an album of ticket stubs btw... while I was looking for this I came across the ticket stub that David Cone signed while sitting in the bleachers with us, my Hurricane Katrina notifications, and what was one of the most precious, the ticket stub from the first Post 9/11 game at Yankee Stadium.  

Edited June 15, 2019 by Buzzetta

[ADAMANTIUM]

3 minutes ago, Buzzetta said:

Was able to get Game 1 to the ALCS - Took my dad.  (I think I went to another game for that series as well)

Getting my dad, who watches every game on TV, to attend a baseball game with one of his sons is like getting a dog to go to the vet after you say, 'vet'. 

 I have an album of ticket stubs btw... while I was looking for this I came across the ticket stub that David Cone signed while sitting in the bleachers with us, my Hurricane Katrina notifications, and what was one of the most precious, the ticket stub from the first Post 9/11 game at Yankee Stadium.  

FUN!!!

[Robot Man]

1 hour ago, Buzzetta said:

Before businesses embraced the internet we ALL lined up for concert tickets and sporting tickets.  

I remember waiting in the early hours of dawn in the Bronx to get a bracelet to see if I had a decent number in the lottery to have the chance to buy 1998 Yankee Post Season tickets. 

Yes, I am serious and not exaggerating.  That is what we did.  We went to the Bronx and stood online to get a bracelet.  Once you had a bracelet you had to wait to see what the magic number was.  If you had 3054 and the number called was 3055 then bracelet 3054 would be the last person to have the opportunity to get tickets after the turnaround.  If you had 3067, then have fun at the World Series. 

  

Best line I ever waited in was The Rolling Stones 1972 Exile on Mainstreet tour at the Hollywood Paliadium. The Stones at their peak (google it). Spent the night waiting for Ticketron to open with about a hundred people. What a party. The cops came by and just looked the other way. Made a lot of friends that night and nearly everyone got their tickets!

[Ken Aldred]

1 hour ago, goldust40 said:

I remember the line for Dark Knight Returns 1 was round the block when it was released in 1986, from St. Giles Circus through Denmark Street onto the Charing Cross Road. It did help that Frank Miller and Lynn Varley were doing a signing that day at Forbidden Planet. Still have both signed copies.

Apart from that, yes, Death of Superman. Usually a small line that barely got outside the store, and customers were restricted to two copies (it was the original speculator era).

I must’ve missed that type of activity completely while I was in London. Quite easy to pick up a copy or two of DKR 1 in one of the fairer-priced stores such as Showcase, without a markup.

Batman 428 was generally limited to 2 per customer at cover price.

Edited June 15, 2019 by Ken Aldred

[Ken Aldred]

8 hours ago, TwoPiece said:

I think my younger brother has lined up outside for a video game before. What a dummy.

Given the number of units that some video games sell in a day or two after release, I’m not surprised that there are players so keen to get started.

I’d rather wait a while until they’ve come down a lot in price. Cheap entertainment for me.

Edited June 15, 2019 by Ken Aldred

[Crops068]

9 hours ago, TwoPiece said:

I think my younger brother has lined up outside for a video game before. What a dummy.

I sold through hundreds of copies of games in 1-2 days easily when I worked in retail PC sales in the early 2000s.  Gaming nerds/IT guys are crazy animals, I am one I would know.

Every major game release generally does the "midnight" release, that has evolved from midnight to simply 9pm.  It used to cost a company $10k per single sale violation of a break in release date, not sure that is still in place.

I have never waited outside a LCS for a comic release (almost went up before opening to wait for Walking Dead 192 but ended up getting it put on hold the night before so I didn't have to), nor have I ever seen a line outside one for a release either.  I remember the Death of Superman debacle, but I had it on my pull list, that shop stiffed me on it though so there is that.

[jpepx78]

Well, British kids probably wanted any comic instead of a particular new comic during WW2.
When England declared war against the Axis Powers there were voluntary civilian evacuations to the countryside or other countries from high risk British cities beginning in September 1939. Only about half of all school-aged children were evacuated initially but the evacuation levels increased with the threat of invasion with the fall of France to Germany and the bombing of London (the Blitz) in 1940. 3.5 million people, mostly children were evacuated but there were some children that did not evacuate.

In this first picture, kids in the Eltham district in southeast London were queueing up and waiting for the newsagent to open to buy comics in August 1943. Rationing was a part of everyday life during WW2 so people had to wait in lines for many items. Comics would be very popular and cheap entertainment since playing outside could be dangerous with the threat of bombings and V-2 rocket attacks in 1944.

In 1992, people lined up to buy Superman #75 where Superman gets killed off by Doomsday. In the second picture, buyers lined up to buy Superman 75 at Beachead Comics in Allentown Pennsylvania on November 20 1992. The store’s order of a 1000 copies of Superman 75 was sold out in a few hours to several hundred buyers. I wonder how many people made money selling their copies?

 

Edited June 15, 2019 by jpepx78

[kav]

I'm still waiting in line for Return of Jedi premiere-

[BlowUpTheMoon]

 

[BlowUpTheMoon]

 

[kav]

58 minutes ago, BlowUpTheMoon said:

 

They must be lining up for liefeld book that has FEET

[Crops068]

8 hours ago, kav said:

They must be lining up for liefeld book that has FEET

No such thing

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 6/14/2019 at 7:49 AM, bc said:

I doubt this ever happened back before the days LCSs because comics were sold in many more locations back then. Many convenient stores, grocery stores, book stores, new stands and gas stations sold comics. There was no need to line up because of the numerous places to buy the books as compared to later years when the ONLY place to get books was from your LCS.

I love convenient stores. It is the inconvenient stores that I shake my fist of impotent rage at. 

But this answer is correct. There was very, very little in the way of "advance notice" for comics for people to line up for, as outside of fanzines (and the comics themseves), there wasn't any advertising for them. Even house ads were for comics that were often already on sale, or about to be in the very near future. As well, because standard practice was to overprint 2-4 times what you expected to actually sell, you almost never had sellouts after WWII. 

Disposable entertainment. People probably would have thought you were crazy to line up for something you were expected to throw away when you were done with it.

[oakman29]

On 6/14/2019 at 8:08 AM, Bookery said:

Nope.  Pre-LCS, there was no one to promote a specific issue... there really weren't any "event" comics back then.  There was no Previews.  I bought comics in the '60s.  You went to the drugstore, and you saw what was there.  At most, you would have a month's heads-up about the next issue in the previous issue's ad.  But hype for a comic was pretty much limited to the cover blurbs.  And no magazine or TV show commented about specific comic book issues (comics were kids' products, and super-heroes especially were considered just about the lowest form of literature... networks and slick magazines wouldn't have noticed or cared about anything that happened in the stories).

Right! You very seldom even get a back to back issue. 

 

[oakman29]

On 6/14/2019 at 5:31 PM, Robot Man said:

Best line I ever waited in was The Rolling Stones 1972 Exile on Mainstreet tour at the Hollywood Paliadium. The Stones at their peak (google it). Spent the night waiting for Ticketron to open with about a hundred people. What a party. The cops came by and just looked the other way. Made a lot of friends that night and nearly everyone got their tickets!

I saw the Stones in their 82 farewell tour at the Forum.

Only they  didnt retire, sons of a ......