I happened upon a DC Showcase #55 (1st silver age Solomon Grundy) which was cgc graded 9.2. The asking price was well below its value and as I had been looking for this issue, I didn't think I would find it in such a high grade. I couldn't afford it, but I bought it anyways knowing finding another one in such a high grade with a decent asking price would be hard to do. This was at Minneapolis Comic Con. Needless to say I don't regret buying it

What's yours?

Nice score on that issue of Showcase!

I just googled that one...Dr. Fate, Hourman, and Alan Scott Green Lantern. Looks like a fun comic.


I don't think I have bought a lot of old comics at conventions. To me, my best scores have always been discovering weird comic I had never heard of. A few of the really memorable obscure gems I discovered at cons include...

Sonambulo
- A 1950s luchador goes into an unnatural sleep that functions like suspended animation and wakes up in the modern era with the ability to see the dreams of others. Now he operates as a noirish private eye specializing in matters of the occult, utilzing his tagline "Show me your dreams."


Rice Boy
- A bizarre little fantasy epic with very engaging and colorful characters in a dreamlike landscape.
http://www.rice-boy.com/art/cover.jpg
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Cursed Pirate Girl
- The name pretty much tells you who she is, but describing the character and her adventures does nothing to tell you about the main reason to be obsessed with this comic - those pictures! That art! The lines! The word balloons that seem to churn and sway like the deck of a pirate ship!
http://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/phot...73._SY540_.jpg
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Hawk & Dove #15

Okay, yah, I bought it for cover price... but I'd missed the comic in the stores, and it was the very first comic I ever bought at a convention, the 1991 Chicago Comicon. Simply finding that book, the first hole I'd ever had to endure in a run on any title, was the deal of my life.

-J

Sadly UK Comic Conventions are more about the Cosplay and merchandise than about the actual comics. The last Comic-Con in Birmingham was a waste of time. Only three stands out of 60+ even selling comics. I picked up a cheap copy of Watchmen then went home.

There is a small comic mart near me every couple of months, and I did pick up DC Showcase Batman #1 quite cheap. Sadly there was little there last month. I bought a John Byrne Fantastic Four TPB for eight quid, that's about as good a deal as I've got.

I hardly ever buy actual comics at a comic convention, unless it's an independent comic that I'm checking out. I try to save my money for art. I did snag an New Frontier Absolute Edition for really cheap once.

Art-wise, I've got Amanda Conner Power Girl, David Marquez Nick Fury, and Ethan Van Sciver Kilowog sketches that are all pretty awesome. Nick Pitarra drew a great little Laika on my Manhattan Projects trade, and I have a Hellboy movie poster on which Mike Mignola drew a little Hellboy and Guillermo del Toro drew a little Guillermo del Toro.

I usually go to get interesting trades at significantly less than cover. My best score I think was the Marvel Zombies Omnibus for 60% off of cover price. I was then able to take it to the other side of the floor and get it signed by Arthur Suydam

I snagged a copy of Incredible Hulk #102 for a little less than $100 back in the day. 102 is basically the second Hulk #1.

Ah, years ago before eBay... I remember finding all sorts of gems. Mostly, I found cool inexpensive comics (as in "quarter box" comics, sometimes "dollar box" comics). Here are some:

Red Wolf comics featuring that great Gil Kane art. I remember pulling it out of some super-inexpensive section of comics. I recall it in particular because the guy selling these comics used to own the local comic book store before selling it to somebody else, but he still owned some long boxes of old comics that nobody wanted to buy. I think I was his only customer in hours and I only bought like 25 cents worth of comics.

Oz Squad #3. This was one of those strange indy comics that was really hard to find on a monthly basis (especially since I don't think it came out monthly). I had found issues one and two at my local store, but never saw another issue, and so I thought that's all there was. Then, hunting through back issues, I found this gem at some low price. The guy behind the counter was kind of like "Oh, I didn't know we had this. I though we were holding this for the owner", but whatever, I got to buy it. This was like decades ago. Fortunately, more recently, they put out a volume collecting the whole series.

Karate Kid, the complete series. At one point, I was determined to complete my collection of comics featuring the LSH... long before everything in the world was reprinted like crazy. And Karate Kid was much harder to find than any issue of Adventure Comics because nobody wanted to bring it to a convention because it wasn't worth anything. Still, I found a guy with a full set, so I finally got them all.

More valuable comics: Well, of course, I'd buy any reasonable Legion appearance in Adventure or Action that I didn't have. But here are some other interesting comics:

Avengers #1 for $100. Technically this wasn't at a convention, it was at a local collectibles (meaning coins and stuff, not really focused on comics) store. And this was before things were reprinted like crazy, so this was the first time I found out what happened in this very first issue.

The issue of Mystery in Space that had Adam Strange fight Kanjar Ro with help from the Justice League, wherein Kanjar Ro blows up his home planet so he can get Superman-level powers (because that's how Superman got HIS powers).

Scored a George Perez sketch of whoever i wanted for 50.00 by winning a raffle. Well....I lost the raffle but Ro-Gan won and then gave it to me.

Nice portrait sketch of Quasar framed and gorgeous.

Oh, also was able to snag a Herb Trimpe Hulk sketch a few years before he died. Just a great dude all around.

I was able to get Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 1 for half off the cover price at a comic and toy show about a week ago. A few years ago I got a Captain America Omnibus from the Brubaker run for about half the cover price. I haven't had any real luck looking for single issues on my wants list though.

My first good find at a comic show was a brick of Superman and the Legion of Superheroes for $70 not too long after the release of the set.