Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic store in your future, Comics

Comic Store In Your Future – and Chromium Covers Of The Past

Published Fri, 12 Apr 2019 08:30:04 -0500

Last updated Wed, 15 Jun 2022 16:22:14 -0500

Rod Lamberti of Rodman Comics writes weekly for Bleeding Cool. Find previous columns here.

As I mentioned in the previous column I was going to go and check out a collection of comics over the weekend. I ended up buying the whole collection. All seventy comic boxes. Granted not all of them were long boxes, some were short. Some were water damaged. Some comics were heartbreaking to find. I figured Booster Gold #1 was in the collection because other issues were from his first series scattered throughout the boxes. I found it. Something bad had happened to it. The cover was almost completely ripped off. Same with DC Comics Presents. I was hoping to find issue 26 of the series, the first appearance of the New Teen Titans. I found it. It had a hole through it. Found a lot of Spawn first issues and was excited. Then looked up what they were going for. Which is not much. Spawn #1 is being reprinted for this year's Free Comic Book Day.

As someone was nice enough to ask me "So, with all the work you have now, you took on more?" Basically. With Free Comic Book Day/Star Wars Day/Rod Deals less than a month away and all the other things going on this month it was already a busy month. Though buying material and not having it ready for sale is not a good option. Spent Saturday and Sunday night going through each one of the boxes and finding even more comics. One of the boxes had old comic sleeves. Luckily I knocked it over before throwing away what I though was nothing but old yellowed sleeves. There were 12 cent comics at the bottom of that box. Not near mint by any means though still oldies.

This collection I was told was from a store that had closed long ago. Most of the collection is made up of 90s comics. I remember the 90s had a lot of gimmick covers though I had not seen any from that decade for a while. There were even a few covers that I had never seen before.

As I went through them I thought about how much over ordering on some of the gimmick covers there were. Then I noted I have done the same thing over the years. I bought into the Marvel lenticular covers that had the way complicated order-so-many-more-than-a-previous-issue and then we will let you order these from year ago. The ones that were so popular they made non-lenticular second printings for. Then, all of a sudden, all but the Thanos lenticular cover was available for open order to any store.

DC's foil covers from last year, I ended up over ordering on.

History had repeated itself.

Here are some pictures of some of the comics from the collection I bought. Prepare for a trip back to the 90s! For those that were not collecting in the 90s prepare for covers that might remind you of today's covers.

Venom: Lethal Protector #1 foil cover. A red shiny cover. Reminds me of the DC Harley Quinn foil cover. Brought some of the Venom Lethal Protectors into the store Sunday and already sold one for $14.99 even before I had a chance to bag and board it and price it.

Turok #1 Chromium cover from 1993. There are a lot of these. Be a lot I mean hundreds. These might be 2020s Free Comic Book Day comics. Meaning instead of buying Free Comic Book Day these might be part of our overstock of comics we use. Have to see how this year's Free Comic Book Day goes with our coupon idea. Get a coupon when visiting us for Free Comic Book Day and get a free Star Wars comic with a purchase on the next return visit with in the month we will be trying this year.

Bloodshot #1 Chromium cover also from 1993. Hopefully Bloodshot's upcoming movie will fire up interest in all the things Bloodshot.

Chain Gang #1 from DC. Shiny! I did buy this back in the day.

The Ferret. One of the oddest, to me at least, gimmick covers. I keep thinking kids book, due to the odd cut out of the book.

Hero Special Edition. "The best and worst of 1993!" I am curious what they ranked as the best and worse and what their choice was for comic of the year.

New Titans #100 from DC. Another gimmick cover. Oh good old New Titans. Titans Hunt is one of my favorite story arcs. Then they kept changing everything every issue instead of exploring all the changes they had done. This issue Starfire and Dick Grayson almost get married. Though Raven kills the minister before it all goes down.

Night Thrasher #1 from Marvel. Marvel did like red shiny covers back in the day.

Out of the Vortex from Dark Horse Comics. Shiny silver title! Dark Horse tried getting into superheroes more and I do not think it worked.

The Protectors "bullet hole" cover. The cover does indeed stand out.

Shaman's Tears. So shiny it shows my reflection while trying to take the picture so I have to try to angle it so I am less noticeable. Mike Grell wrote and did the art for this and I have always been curious about it though I have never actually read it.

The Spectacular Spider-Man #200 holo-grafx foil cover. I have to say, I like this one. Seeing Sal Buscema's art on the cover brings back good old comic book reading memories from when I was a kid. His run on the Hulk was cool as heck to me.

Solitaire from Ultraverse. Black bagged. Bagged comics are still a thing.

Superman foil cover for issue 82. Also from 1993. I admit as a youngster I thought this a cool cover. I find it even cooler than the last Superman foil cover they did, Superman issue 4 from 2018. Yes, issue 4 is from 2018 while issue 82 is from 1993. Hard to believe more new people do not get into comics.

Marvel's Nightstalker black cover. From? You guessed it 1993. I was very surprised, I do not remember ever seeing this cover before.

Wildcats Trilogy #1 foil cover. After seeing this the theme song from the Wildcats cartoon keeps going through my head. Wildcats, Wildcats, Wildcats, just over and over Wildcats. That was the cartoon theme song.

Wildstar #1 from Image. Shiny cover. If my memory is correct this is the first Image comic I ever bought because I was a fan of Ordway's art.

Ninjak #1 foil cover from 1994. Now this is strictly from my memory. If I recall correctly this was the last foil gimmick cover of the era. All the sudden they just stopped with the gimmicks. If I am wrong feel free to correct me.

Wizard, the guide to comics. Issue 23. For better or worse it was a guiding force for speculation in comics in the 90s. The Wizard top ten comics did get people hunting for those issues. Valiant for a time enjoyed a lot of basically free advertising from Wizard. Even the trading cards included in Wizard were in demand at times. Wizard did last for a long time. I remember the last few issues came out years ago and having some on hand here at the store. I also remember reading the last few issues and thinking what a mess.

In the 90s, I of course did not own a store. Though I do not ever remember variants that were only orderable based on how many of a regular cover was ordered. Such as today's for every hundred copies ordered a store may order one of this variant. Did how publishers sell variants evolve? And not for the better?

When Image first started Image's future was thought to be very bright. They were thought of as the comic company that might change it from the big two (Marvel and DC) to the big three. Spawn used to be a top selling comic. Spawn is not even close to that now. Currently with their most popular title the Walking Dead slipping in sales Image does not look in the best of shape. The upcoming Walking Dead #200 should give the title and Image a boost at least.

Going through the collection was fun. I could have done without finding comics that could have been gems being so damaged but it happens. I enjoyed the trip down memory lane. The days of less responsibilities and much more free time. Realizing that I have repeated the mistakes of the past and how much once again the speculation market is pushing sales in comics does worry me.