Comic Book Show Haul

This has been a busy summer for me with work, hence the lack of new content on this blog and most of my others as well. However I'm still out there collecting the things that bring me joy and this includes comics. A few weekends ago I attended my old LCS' quarterly show up in Concord, NC with my older brother. I hadn't planned to go as I was all tapped out of expendable funds, but I guess my brother was eager to hang out with me so he offered me 20 bucks, no strings attached to go. How could I turn down that offer? Seeing how I was essentially spending my someone else's money I found myself being a little more picky with my purchases. Was it a coincidence that I had one of my most productive hauls?

I typically like to stick to the $.50 boxes at shows as I can still find a lot of what I'm looking for, but as I'm filling in holes in my various Spider-Man collections it's getting harder and harder to find books I still need in the cheap boxes. Thankfully I was able to find this issue of Web of Spider-Man for #7 for less than cover price!

Shortly before calling it a day, I came across a dealer that had a great sale going on, but didn't do a very good job advertising his sale. Any book that was marked $4 or less was $.50 and any book marked $5 to $8 was $2. At this point in the show I didn't have much of that 20 bucks left so I stuck to the $4 or less books and I couldn't believe some of the stuff I found. Most of the issues of Amazing Spider-Man I lack I won't find for cheap...but on this day at least I was able to score several books I needed.

Before I collected Spider-Man, I was all about Captain America. I've got a very nice run of the first volume, but anytime I can find Bronze age issues of Cap in my price range I'll bite. Aren't these Mike Zeck covers so good? And for $.50 each too!

I've only recently started to go back and build up my Bronze age Iron Man collection so I was thrilled to find some earlier issues, especially for $.50 each!

I've found myself piecing together small runs of Daredevil as well, especially when John Romita, Jr. was handling the art. I found a few other issues, but elected to grab more books of Spider-Man, Captain America and Iron Man instead.

ROM is another title that I've been slowing building for years. I was able to find these two issues in those boxes on the floor, underneath the dealer's tables. I'm getting too old to go through those boxes on the floor, but I can usually good deals if my back and knees can hold out long enough!

The last book to round out this trip was an issue of Man-Thing. This character has always intrigued me and I've loved when he would appear in other books, but I've never bothered with his own title until recently. Earlier this summer at the annual Heroes Con that is held in my hometown of Charlotte, NC I was able to pick up issues 1-3 of Man-Thing. Seems pretty perfect I was able to find issue #4 next.

My older brother is the one responsible for getting me into comics so anytime we have a chance to hang out together and talk comics it's always a good time. Toss in some good deals and it just makes the time even better. 

Heroes Aren't Hard to Find: Charlotte Mini-Con 2018 Haul (part 1)

Last Saturday (01/28/18), I made the trip to uptown Charlotte, NC to my old college campus of CPCC at the Grady Cole Center. The best comic shop I've ever had the pleasure of shopping at, Heroes Aren't Hard to Find, organizes the Charlotte Mini-Con each January along with the much larger HeroesCon during the summer. It's been awhile since I've been able to attend a comic book show, so I was glad to have made time in my schedule to attend (i.e. - my wife was gracious enough to let me attend!). 

Part of the fun of this event and others is that I get to spend some one-on-one time with my brother. Comics are something that we both enjoy so it's cool to get to share that with him. He is the one afterall that is responsible for getting me hooked on all of these colorful, costumed super heroes. While my reading and collecting comics has come and gone as I've grown up and started a family, my love for the characters has never ceased. I'm predominately a Marvel fan (again, thanks to my brother) and I enjoy most of Marvel's books from the Bronze age. 

In fact, when I go to shows and conventions I rarely look at the "wall books" and sniff out the $.50 boxes. That's were I generally plant myself, though as I'm getting older I start to feel the aches and pains in my body towards the end of the day / the next day after sitting on the floor, leaning over going through so many boxes!

On this trip to the Charlotte Mini-Con, I was able to find several tables that had great deals. I pulled out my phone and fired up the CLZ comic app and I started to dig to see what I could find. For starters I'll share the books I was able to find of one of my favorite characters, Spider-Man.

While my collection of Amazing Spider-Man is meager when compared to many other collector's, it remains one of my favorite titles to search out and try to fill in the holes. It's getting harder and harder to find AMS in cheap boxes so at some point in the near future I may have to set my sights on $1 boxes. *gasp!*

Only found one book I needed from the regular Spider-Man title, issue #51. This one has a foil cover and is a flip book. I found a small chip on the edge of the foil and almost put it back, but it was cheap, filled a hole so why not?

I remember when Web of Spider-Man #1 came out. I remember seeing it on the shelves at Heroes in Charlotte...however back then I wasn't reading comics. Of course by the time I "discovered" Spider-Man, most of his titles, including Web were already well along in their numbering. I've only recently started to buy issues of Web of Spider-Man so I was thrilled to find such a large run...especially for cheap!

At the time of this post, I'm still behind on reading my new books. I'm currently about half way through Civil War II, but before that I completed the Secret Wars mini series. While it wasn't my favorite Marvel event story, one thing that did come out of Secret Wars that I enjoyed was the Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows storyline. 

While I'm not a huge advocate of reversing the One More Day events, I did like reading a married Peter Parker. Toss in his daughter and super-powers and it makes for some fun stories, at least in my opinion. While I bought the Renew Your Vows mini-series, I didn't pick up the series when it became an ongoing series. I kinda regret that and I've been hoping to find back issues at an affordable price. While I only found the first two issues last weekend, I'm glad to have found them and I'm eagerly awaiting to read them.

One of the first Spider-Man stories I read was the now famous (or infamous?) clone story in Amazing Spider-Man. I loved every minute of it and have enjoyed the subsequent stories that took place afterwards. When the Scarlet Spider was given his own series, I wasn't currently buying new books so I've been trying to piece this series together for awhile. I don't usually see this title in $.50 or $1 boxes that often so I was more than happy to gobble up 4 issues that I didn't have, including the last issue of the series, #25.

Anything Venom always seems to be in demand. I found this one lone book of his The Hunted mini-series and according to my CLZ app, I didn't have it. Now I do.

Those are just the Spider-Man related books that I picked up. I'm still working on part 2 where I'll show off the other books that I was able to find on the cheap end. Thanks for stopping by!