Classic comic book buying stories! Share your classic stories to the comic shops!

[Manga4life]

I thought it would be fun if everybody shared their favorite stories about trips to the comic book store, you know, memories that you've created and rare finds that you'll never forget.....stuff like that. I have a ton but I'll share one specific story to kick things off within this thread, this is a story about when I went from just a casual reader to a hardcore collector.....

I had a massive sports card collection from years and years of collecting cards, I probably had thousands upon thousands of sports cards scattered throughout the 4 major sports and I had a friend who was a comic book collector and had about 300 comic books that he kept in his room and read once in a while. One day he decided that he wanted to get rid of them and start collecting sports cards as a hobby, it was funny because a month or so previous I decided I wasn't going to be buying sports cards anymore and I was totally bored with the hobby so we began negotiations. Now, I was no stranger to the comic book store mind you, I've been buying comics here and there for about 7 years and had 2 shoe boxes that had about 40-60 comics in total, but by no means was I a collector. We decided that it would be a full on swap, my trading card collection for his 300+ comics, he obviously got the better deal in the swap seeing as how my card collection was absolutely massive and I had many cards valued at $100 or more, but I didn't care, I wanted to collect comics and I just wanted to unload the cards and forget all about them. I had $200 burning a hole in my pocked from saving up shoveling drive ways and mowing lawns the Summer before so I decided that the money was going to go toward comic books and lucky for my the big comic book store down the street from me (15 minute walk) was having a 50% off sale on their back issues, which is something they did twice a year. Since a majority of the comics my friend gave me was X-Men and Spider-Man I put a heavy focus on those titles and ended up buying about 70 comics that day, it was so much fun digging through the back issue bins and picking out which comics I wanted and there were TONS of collectors there going through the back issue bins too and many of which were filling up long comic boxes while marking off their checklists. It was so much fun, comics were so popular back then and collectors were everywhere, these guys were rabid about getting all the back issues they wanted and it was cool actually seeing people with checklists as they tried to complete their collections. From that weekend on I was a comic book collector, it's been almost 20 years since then, and I've been buying comics as a whole since I was 7 years old, but that weekend will always live on as the "genesis" of my true collecting days and I'll never forget it.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

I remember at one comic book shop a dude decided to shit all over. I was told this by everyone who shops at said store when I came in days later. That this dude started to smell bad , the owner told him to go to the bathroom where he decided to shit all over the floor there. The owner kicked him out for good after that experience.

[Jeff Brady]

Okay, so I went to the comic shop one time, and picked up my books, paid, and walked out. CLASSIC!

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Okay, so I went to the comic shop one time, and picked up my books, paid, and walked out. CLASSIC!

A comic shop where someone didn't take a shit ? What world are you living in ?

[Romero]

I don't think anything interesting has ever happened to me at a comic book shop. I know I have really only ever been to one shop where the worker was anything like the Simpson's Comic Book Guy, except he had greasier skin and worse hair. That shop didn't last that long. Otherwise, everywhere else has been cool.

[HasbroSlayer84]

I remember some fun times like the time I went to the comic store in 2005 and there was a line a mile lolng for New avengers no1. It felt like an event. But my favorite was for the release of Justice league no1 last year, there were hundreds of people with prizes and free stuff, they had even free food like bagels and coffee and doughnots. It was fun.

[the4thpip]

I remember at one comic book shop a dude decided to shit all over. I was told this by everyone who shops at said store when I came in days later. That this dude started to smell bad , the owner told him to go to the bathroom where he decided to shit all over the floor there. The owner kicked him out for good after that experience.

The feel good story of the year.

[finfangfool]

A while back the local comic shop at the time (the Funnybook Factory) had an annual half-off sale in the summer on the anniversary of the opening, and 20-30 comic geeks would pile in to the store and wait for the sale to begin (around 8 PM) while socializing and snacking on whatever the owner Tom had put out for us. It felt nice, like a mini comic-con for our geek community. There's still a community feel like that at my current store, Triple Play, but it's mostly gamers and that's not so much my thing.

[HasbroSlayer84]

I remember me and a friend went to a comic book store in 2002 and they had a copy of Witchblade no1 and The Darkness no1 together on the wall for a combined price of $15. I bought them because back then both books were still hot and were valued at much higher. I read them that night and went back the day later for other issues and completed 1-20 of both in a month

[supamike]

Greatest comic book buying story ever. The year was 1992.Superman was battling Doomsday and issue #75 was hitting the shelves that Friday.Where i was living at the time new comics came out on Friday.As soon as school got out me and about 4 other friends made a mad dash for the mall where out LCS was.It was located inside a bigger building that was basically a flea market that was only opened on the weekends. I can clearly remember us running through the mall as fast as we can getting yelled at by various Mall policemen!We get there and have to wait another hour before the flea market opened and we could get to Scotts Comics,our LCS, As soon as they opened the doors it was another mad dash to the shop! He was handing out tickets for Superman #75 with a maximum limit of 1 Direct edition and 1 newsstand.I couldnt wait to get my hands on it!!Its clearly the most memorable comic book buying memory i have.

[Manga4life]

Yeah, "The Death of Superman" was huge at my LCS too. I wasn't an avid collector at that point, but I was buying comics a couple of times a year and I remember being one of about 40 or so people waiting in line outside of my LCS for the book. I remember they let people in at 9am instead of the normal 10am and made an event out of it, there was food and a table full of discounted comics and toys, plus they were giving around free stuff via raffles and doing other such things. I got the black bag version if I remember correctly, than I got a regular news stand version that came in no bag and may have even been a reprint for all I know, but I wanted to read it without opening the bag so I got it. My dad also got me a Superman shirt with the bloody logo that the store had for $12, I wore that thing for like a solid year until I grew out of it.

[chicainery]

Yeah, "The Death of Superman" was huge at my LCS too. I wasn't an avid collector at that point, but I was buying comics a couple of times a year and I remember being one of about 40 or so people waiting in line outside of my LCS for the book. I remember they let people in at 9am instead of the normal 10am and made an event out of it, there was food and a table full of discounted comics and toys, plus they were giving around free stuff via raffles and doing other such things. I got the black bag version if I remember correctly, than I got a regular news stand version that came in no bag and may have even been a reprint for all I know, but I wanted to read it without opening the bag so I got it. My dad also got me a Superman shirt with the bloody logo that the store had for $12, I wore that thing for like a solid year until I grew out of it.

Very cool! I remember the Sunday after that comic came out vividly. I wasn't a big fan of Superman comics at the time, but a classmate in my Sunday school class was and he brought his issues to church with him the Sunday following the release of #75. His excitement was contagious and I started following Superman comics immediately after, as well as getting the back issues leading up to his death.

The most exciting thing that ever happened at a comic book shop that I knew about was when a local shop caught on fire. They decided to move locations, and even though they were only moving about half a mile away, they decided to have a big moving sale. The sale was in a big tent outside the burned location. Prices started at about 25% off, but ended up at 90% off before it was over. I picked up a few McFarlane-drawn Amazing Spider-man issues that I didn't have and bought the first few issues of Daredevil volume 2 for really cheap. Now I'm a huge fan of Daredevil and I'd have to think buying those issues for pennies on the dollar was a main reason why.

[Manga4life]

I've had plenty of classic moments when visiting comic book shops, 99% of them are good but once in a while you have a bad experience and the following story is a recount of that experience. I figured I'd post it here since I was discussing this experience in another thread on the forum and I forgot this thread existed, lol....

Nobody likes a know it all comic book store owner, especially the kind that makes you feel uncomfortable when buying a comic book. I remember back when I was a huge fan of Crossgen I would visit a local store in the Boston area and the guy always made comments to me about Crossgen and how bad he felt their books were, which I found odd because wouldn't he want me to spend as much as I can on the product regardless of which publisher I was buying from? Any which way, he was a balding, fat, short, glasses wearing, huge adams apple, beady eyed, nerd-man, who felt that what he liked was superior to everything everyone else liked, it was so annoying to shop there but I did because he was right down the street from my girl's house and it was just easy to drop in there while visiting her.

One day I let loose on him and told him exactly what I thought of him and never went back in because he told me that I was "wasting money on comics that suck compared to Dark Horse and Vertigo.", which were the two companies he seemed to prefer by his conversations with me and with other customers. He mentioned that "Crossgen is poorly written and the only people buying their comics were people who were new to comic books or who couldn't handle read storytelling", which led me to go off on him like a cat in a room of mice. It felt good.

[Manga4life]

I was talking to my friend the other day about how he got into Top Cow in early 1998 and spent a pretty penny trying to get some of those early issues of Witchblade and The Darkness back in those days and how he wanted to get as many variant covers as possible. He would hop a bus and train all over the state it seemed to get as many issues as he could and to try to find all the variants, he was a completionist who had a love for finishing his collection no matter how broke it made him and with so many alternate covers back in those days he was damn near broke at the end of every week. I remember one trip he found a copy of Witchblade #1 (regular cover) for $50 and since he had #2-18 he wanted to grab it so he did, but then we hit another comic store and they had a Witchblade #1 in either an acetate or chromium cover and he decided to get that too after a trip to the ATM machine and $70 later. That one day he bought two comics for a total of $120, and for a 17 year old with a limited income (part time work) that was a lot of money for him to spend on only two books. But it was worth it to him and he loved it.

[Jeff Brady]

If only that was interesting.