About two months ago I made a trip to Phoenix, Russet was working so she and the dogs didn't make the trip. I used to be the president of a science fiction film club, and they were having their annual banquet. I like to attend when I can, and I could, so I did. I also have been cleaning out a storage locker, including removing a few hundred comics, and I loaded them up in my car to dump at the dealer from whom I'd bought a vast majority of them.
This is what my car looked like when I did my fuel stop just west of Demming, NM:
This is my beloved 2015 Subaru Crosstrek, which can theoretically make the trip on one tank of gas, but I'd be sucking fumes when I arrived, and I was taking a new route and was not about to take the risk. Take note of the disparity in space between the top of the front tire and the bottom of the wheel well and the distance on the rear tire. That's over 2,000 comic books in the back. The rear seats were folded down, I even had a box in the front seat! Granted, you also have the lever arm of the bike rack and my bike. It didn't affect the handling of the car for the drive, a total of approximately 500 miles, but it was also good weather all the way: no rain or anything else.
I dropped the comics off at the dealer the next day, and a few days later, cleared out a closet at my parent's house of more comics and dropped off a similar volume. I went through all the boxes and pulled some old favorites, but nothing of any extraordinary value, just some sentimental stuff like Cathy Hill's Mad Raccoons. I knew some things were of exceptional value and left them in for my dealer to deal with: they knew how much they were worth and knew how to market them for the best value. And I've been buying from these people for over 30 years and trusted them.
I got an email from them last week saying a check was on the way, and had a bit of a shock when I opened it: it was for a smidge under $300! The vast bulk of that amount was for an original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, second printing. But there were also some valuable Detective Comics, Batmans, Joker #1, etc. I was surprised that my original The Tick run didn't sell, I would have thought that the new Amazon series would have spurred a renewed interest. Oh, well. It may sell later. And the check is safely ensconced in my savings account, waiting for me to start working and to add to it.
But the best thing is that rather than the bulk of the rest of the collection going to be pulped, they're going to schools and are also being shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan for the troops, and the Viz manga volumes are going to a local manga group.
I still have a small amount of comics around the house, but they're very select and mostly collected graphic novels. I was able to get an autographed set of hardbound Mage: The Hero Discovered by Matt Wagner, along with a nice chat with him, at Denver ComicCon a few years ago. I also have several autographed volumes of XXXenophile by Phil Foglio along with his Buck Godot and What's New With Phil & Dixie, I believe I have an original first printing of The Watchmen and an autographed set of Batman: The Dark Knight four issue run here some place. Stuff that's special that I'll re-read every now and again. I'd like to re-collect the Usagi Yojimbo graphic novels along with the Knights of the Dinner Table volumes, but that'll wait.
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