c/comic-book-fans

Went to a comic con in Portland and spotted something wild about the crowd

I was at the Portland Retro Comic Con last Saturday and wandered through the artist alley. What caught my eye was how many fans were carrying stacks of the same 3 indie comics instead of the big DC or Marvel stuff. One guy had like 15 copies of this small press book called "Lucky Dog" which I guess is about a groomer? lol. It made me wonder if people are just burned out on the mainstream or if indie comics are actually getting that much better. Has anyone else seen this shift at their local shows?

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william_jackson65•1d ago

Picked the 90s X-Men omnibus over the Claremont run at my local shop and finally got to read the full Age of Apocalypse

I chose the thicker book with the shiny cover instead of the older collection and ended up loving the weird alternate universe stories more than I expected, anyone else prefer those big crossover events over the classic arcs?

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carr.brooke•3d ago

I finally realized the guy at the comic shop was right about back issues

Overheard a guy at my local shop in St. Paul last Saturday telling a kid that bagging and boarding your comics doesn't matter if you just throw them in a box sideways. He was going on for like 5 minutes about how gravity warps the spines over time. I got home and checked my longbox of issues from 2016 and sure enough, half of them have that curve at the bottom. I've been storing them wrong for years. Anybody else notice this or is this guy just being too picky?

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johnson.jesse•5d ago

Serious question, is back issue hunting better than trades or am I doing this wrong?

I tried collecting single issues for a full story arc for the first time last month. Hit up three different shops in my area and spent about $40 tracking down seven issues of a series. Two of them had creased covers and one was missing the back page. Meanwhile my buddy just buys the trade paperback for $15 and moves on. I thought digging through bins would feel more authentic but honestly it just stressed me out. On the other hand, there's something cool about owning the original printing with the ads and letters pages. Has anyone else switched from floppies to trades and felt like they got a better deal?

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jakeb25•5d ago

Unpopular opinion: The Walking Dead comics are actually better than the show

I know everyone always talks about how the show went downhill after season 5 or whatever, but I just got done reading the full comic run for the first time. Found the compendiums at a used bookstore for $30 each, three of em. What surprised me is how much faster the story moves in the comics. Negan shows up way earlier and the whole arc with the Whisperers is totally different. The show dragged stuff out for seasons that the comics wrapped up in a few issues. I get why people like the show actors and all, but the pacing in the comics just felt more real somehow. Anyone else feel like the books get overlooked because the show got so big?

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nancy524•5d ago

Found a guy at the comic shop who had never heard of the Claremont run on X-Men

Was at A Comic Shop in Orlando last Saturday flipping through some back issues. This kid maybe 19 or 20 next to me asks what I'm looking at. I said the Dark Phoenix Saga trade. He goes "who wrote that?" I said Chris Claremont. He just stared at me. I asked if he knew the 16 year Uncanny run. Nope. Nothing. I ended up pulling out my phone and showing him the cover of X-Men #129 just to prove this stuff existed before the movies. He bought a copy of God Loves Man Kills after I talked it up for 10 minutes. Has anyone else bumped into a fan who skipped the 70s and 80s entirely?

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the_dylan•9d ago

Why does nobody talk about reading a comic backwards?

I flipped through an old issue of Uncanny X-Men from the 80s in reverse order last week and noticed the artists intentionally hid small details in the background that only make sense if you look at it that way... Like a stray character walking off panel or a joke in the corner that builds to a payoff earlier in the story. Has anyone else tried this and noticed weird stuff the creators planted for reverse readers?

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loganl22•9d ago

Hit 500 issues in my collection last weekend and it hit me different

I was just organizing some boxes in my basement and decided to count everything. Ended up at 503 total after I found a stack I forgot about in a tote. Most of them are from the 80s and 90s, a few golden age ones my dad passed down. What number did you hit that made you stop and think about how long you've been doing this?

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david_rivera4•10d ago

TIL comic book fans treat back issues like stock investments

Last week at a shop in Phoenix, this guy spent 15 minutes arguing with the clerk over a $3 price difference on a 1993 X-Men issue. It hit me that some fans aren't just collectors, they're basically day traders with polybags.

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vera_murphy•11d ago

Tried single issues vs trades for a year each - trades are way better for reading

I spent 2023 buying floppies week to week and felt like I never got a full story. 2024 I switched to trades and now I can actually follow the plot without waiting 30 days for the next part. Anyone else find trades easier to read?

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jakeb25•11d ago

TIL some collectors store comics in pizza boxes for protection

I was at a con in Portland last weekend and a guy showed me his graded comics packed in clean pizza boxes. He said it saves money on expensive bags. Has anyone else seen this storage hack work out?

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norag66•12d ago

Why does nobody talk about people who call every indie comic a 'graphic novel'?

I was at my local shop in Denver last weekend and this guy kept pointing at issues from a $3 bin calling them graphic novels. I mean, a 22-page pamphlet with staples is not the same as a bound book that tells a complete story. It bugs me when fans mix up format and quality. Does anyone else have a pet peeve about comic terms getting used wrong?

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kimreed•13d ago

Overheard a guy at my LCS say he only reads comics for the variant covers

He told me he hasn't actually read a full issue since 2019, he just buys 3 or 4 covers of each book for their resale value, and it made me wonder if I'm the weird one for actually caring about the story over the art on the outside.

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sageross•14d ago

TIL that most indie comic artists make less than $100 per convention weekend after table fees

Was chatting with a guy at a show in Portland last month who had some gorgeous prints and a self-published graphic novel. I complimented his work and asked how the weekend was going. He said he'd made $180 total but paid $150 for the table and $40 for parking. So basically he was negative before buying food. I see so many aspiring artists dreaming of doing cons full time and I never realized how tight the margins really are. Has anyone here actually made a living off smaller shows or is it just like a side hustle that breaks even?

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foster.charles•15d ago

Longtime collectors vs new readers is getting weird at conventions

Went to Wizard World Austin last month and noticed something. Old guys like me are just flipping through long boxes for keys from the 80s, but the younger crowd is standing in 45 minute lines for a sketch from a TikTok artist. It's like two different hobbies now. Anyone else feel the divide getting bigger?

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king.stella•15d ago

Had my first comic book fail last week at a local con

I finally brought my prized first print of Saga #1 to a small convention in Detroit to get it graded. Got to the booth, pulled it out of the bag, and realized I left it sitting in direct sunlight on my nightstand for like 3 months. The spine was completely faded, looked like a totally different book. The grader just looked at me and said 'sorry, that's a 6.5 at best.' Has anyone else accidentally ruined a valuable comic with something this dumb?

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julia_patel•16d ago

Why does nobody talk about how comic book fans trash older art styles? I've had people tell me Jack Kirby's stuff looks 'ugly' and 'primitive' in Facebook groups.

I saw a thread where like 30 people said Silver Age art is unreadable, but then they praise Frank Miller's Dark Knight which has chunky blocky figures too. Are we gatekeeping the past or do you think older art actually aged poorly compared to modern hyper-detailed stuff?

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jordan_anderson90•17d ago

That comic shop argument over continuity really got under my skin last Saturday

I was at Cosmic Comics on Broad Street last weekend, and this guy spent 20 minutes yelling at the clerk because a 2018 variant cover had a detail that didn't match a 1992 issue. I just wanted to buy my weekly pull list, but I got stuck listening to him list every error for like, 4 different comics. Has anyone else had to just walk away from a fan who takes the timeline way too seriously?

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margaret99•17d ago

Spent $85 on a comic grading membership and it burned me more than it saved me

I finally signed up for one of those comic grading services, the basic tier for $85, thinking it would help me sell my old issues for a fair price. I sent in a 1985 Uncanny X-Men 200 I thought was in near mint shape. When it came back graded at a 7.0, I lost about half the value I was expecting. On the other hand, my buddy swears by grading because it kept him from getting ripped off on a key issue he sold last year. So now I'm torn - is grading worth the gamble when your own eye might be off, or is it just a way to burn cash on books you plan to keep? Has anyone else had a big swing in either direction with a grading investment?

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tarar27•17d ago

Rant: That guy at my LCS who explains every single joke in a comic

I was at my local shop last Saturday flipping through a new issue of The Flash and this dude behind me starts explaining the punchline before I even got to the panel. He did it like 4 times in 10 minutes. I finally just turned around and asked him why he thinks I need a running commentary on every gag. He got all defensive and said he was just helping me understand the deeper layers. I get being excited about a book but has anyone else had a fellow fan kill the mood by over-explaining everything?

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vera_murphy•18d ago

That guy at the local shop finally convinced me to drop Batman for a month

I always thought sticking with one hero was fine, but a retired collector at Cosmic Comics in Tampa told me to try 5 issues of something totally random like 'The Immortal Hulk'... after 3 issues I saw what he meant about getting stuck in a rut. Any of you found a character that broke you out of a reading slump?

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ray189•22d ago

Hot take: I used to hate variant covers until last month

For like 3 years I was that guy who rolled his eyes at every variant cover drop. Thought it was just a cash grab for collectors who never read the books. Then last month I was at my local shop in Austin and the owner showed me this Skottie Young variant for a book I already loved. The art actually told a different story than the regular cover, not just a different drawing. Now I get why people chase them. It made me wonder, do you guys actually read variants as part of the experience or just flip them?

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leo612•23d ago

My buddy roasted my comic grading system and I had to rethink everything

So I've been collecting comics for like 8 years now and I always graded my own stuff with this weird 1-10 scale I made up in my head. I was real proud of it too until my friend Dave who works at a shop in Portland looked at my stack and straight up said "your 9.0 is someone else's 7.0, you're just guessing based on how you feel about the cover art." That hit me hard because he was right. I'd been calling a beat up copy of X-Men #266 a 9.0 just because I loved the Gambit debut so much. After that I sat down with the official CGC grading guide and realized I had no clue what spine ticks, color breaks, and page quality actually meant. Now I grade everything against their standards even if I'm not sending them in for slabbing. Has anyone else had to completely rebuild their grading system after getting called out like that?

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jordan_anderson90•25d ago

The way people call every minor character a 'deep cut' is driving me nuts

I was at my local shop last Saturday and some guy said he was a real fan because he knew who 'The Wall' was from Marvel. That's not a deep cut, that's a character who had a 12-issue run in the 80s. I've been reading comics for 22 years now, and a real deep cut is something like 'Forbush Man' or 'The Great Lakes Avengers' when they first appeared. People just throw the term around to sound smart (and it backfires). Have any of you caught someone pretending to know obscure canon stuff that's actually pretty well known?

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iris_davis90•26d ago

Just found out that the original Spider-Man comics sold for 10 cents in 1962, which is equal to about $1.05 today!

I was reading an old issue at my local shop in Portland and the cover price just hit me differently when I did the inflation math, has anyone else thought about how cheap comics used to be back then?

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