Well the obvious place to start is with the Tariffs, I don’t know enough yet on how it will affect our retail store, Big B Comics, in Hamilton (Big B sells little into the USA but we buy quite a bit out of the USA), I’m also not sure how our weekly eBay auctions will be affected, from what I understand it depends on the commodity and where it’s made, our largest auction segment is old comic books which were originally made in the USA, again, we’ll need more details. I’ll remain optimistic on all fronts, first, that there is some trade settlement soon and second, that some opportunities may arise out of this that I don’t see at the moment, and always again, lets get more details.
Warehouse update: Here’s a pick of my lovely neighbor driving some skids back into the warehouse on his toe motor, I gave him a nice bottle of American Bourbon, which as of Tuesday will no longer be sold in Ontario! I swear I walked around those skid and felt like they never left, like the move out last October never happened. As I mentioned last week, the landlord has been gracious enough to allow me to sort some comics in that warehouse for the month of February, the clock is ticking.
Back to the grind, I attacked the “going to eBay auction” pile as I always do, this time with a bid of caution, hoping these gems are unaffected by those heady trade winds. I spotted my Cover of the Week right away, Laugh Comics #57 from June 1953. Comics.org does not credit the cover artist, I know Montana was drawing the Archie title at that time but I don’t think this is him. Also, can we squeak this in as an innuendo cover?
I’m not sure what to make of our Splash Page of the Week, its not really a Splash Page though, its more of a Pin Up. This is by Steve Ditko from the pages of Amazing Spider-Man #23. I think it is a statement, Spidey is a hit, he’s arrived, he’s here to stay! Sadly I don’t think I can name every character in those squares, which might make me a square…
Our Ad of the Week also comes from Amazing Spider-Man #23. At first glance it is an uneventful in house Ad for all the titles Marvel was putting our but on closer inspection it tells a tale. Us younger generation fans, those born at a time during or just after these books came out have no real sense of how fleeting, how new, how green, how not sure of itself Marvel was in 1965, there are 17 books shown on this Ad page and right off the hop I can could 7 that are tied to the 1940s and 1950s, I’m talking the Western and Teen Humor titles at the bottom of the page, heck even 4 of the 10 hero books were actually repurposed 1950s anthology titles that did not start out as hero books. One can also argue that Sgt Fury was more a throwback to the war comics of the 50s. Seeing this ad tells me that Marvel accomplished a lot in its first 3 years but it certainly had further to go.
Our icecollectibles weekly eBay auctions continue to roll, last night we had a great session of lots close and one of the highlights for me was this Creepy #32 CGC 9.2 signed by Adams and Ellison, such a great cover by Frank Frazetta. Our copy sold for $397 USD, nice buy.
