It was a good day for a drive, but Mrs. MRP had to work, so I decided to go comic hunting today. I saw someone post from a 2nd & Charles elsewhere in the country that they were doing create your own "Mystery Box" with comics, i.e. select 50 comics for $15 and their pick had a lot of Bronze goodness in it, so I decided to drive down to the one near hear in the greater Dayton area to see what they had. Nothing. No make your own mystery boxes, no pre-packaged mystery boxes, and a pretty poor selection of overpriced back issues. I asked one of the clerks and they said it varies store by store, but they don't get enough comics coming in to be able to bulk them in like that. In fact in the 10 years I have been stopping in there, their comic section has shrunk down to 1 fixture of back issues and 1 small section of shelves for trades. I did pick up 2 things while there-a $1 clearance back issue of Superman and Vol. 7 of the All Star Comics Archives (issues 29-33 most featuring some early Toth work) for less than half cover.



On the way back from there to my house, I stopped at Bookery Fantasy. A comic shop that no longer does new comics, but focuses on back issues, pulps and movie lobby cards, with a smattering of vintage paperbacks. They've started something new-instead of putting out new arrival back issues as they get them, they are debuting new stock every 1st and 3rd Friday of the months. They put out new arrivals from collections they have bought and processed and from long boxes they pull form their storage unit. Most priced to move, and fresh stock of 99 cent comics along with the more collectible stuff. They just started this last month, and today happened to be the first Friday of the month, so there was plenty of stuff for me to dig through. I talked to the owner to wish him a happy anniversary (this year is the 40th anniversary of the opening of the shop) after I had dug through bins, and he was telling me they had 20 people lined up at the door waiting to get in this morning when they opened. They had lots of stuff from Golden to Modern at decent prices. I only got 2 priced back issues, and 2 priced vintage paperbacks, but grabbed a bunch of 99 cent paperbacks and 99 cent comics to go with them.

The two priced back issues I got were $5.95 each, a new to me red dress cover Archie book...



and another issue of Hot Stuf' and indy anthology series published by SalQ productions in the 70s. It ran 8 issues, and with #6 here, I have half the series now. I rarely see these in the wild and they often are a bit overpriced when I do, this one was also $5.95



The price paperbacks were $5 each, one was Vol. 23 of the Avenger, the other a Lovecraft anthology I didn't have...



I'm trying to put together the first 25 volumes of the Avenger. I needed 2, this was one of them.

I also picked up a bunch of other Lovecraft anthologies for 99 cents each...



I wasn't sure if I had the Tales of Cthulhu Mythos volume-there's 2 volumes with very similar covers I know I had one volume and not the other but couldn't remember which, but for 99 cents I grabbed it just in case.

I grabbed some other 99 volumes as well-a sword & sorcery anthology, a Gardner Fox novel, a flip book with a Lin Carter novel I didn't have and a Harlan Ellison anthology...



Mixed in with the 99 cent novels they had some digest sized comics featuring Trzan and Jonah Hex, so I grabbed them...



the rest of the stuff was dug out form 99 cent boxes.

I couldn't pass this one up considering it was Independence Day weekend and it made me nostalgic for the innocence belief I had when celebrating the Bicentennial as a kid in '76...



then found some Silver Age Red Circle heroes in Mighty Comics...



some Batbooks...



a pair of the big thick $8 msrp issues of Dark Horse Presents Vol. 2 that I didn't have...



and to round things off, some misc. DC issues...



So not a bad haul. Plus I got to gawk at some cool stuff out of my budget's reach-some of the Gnome Conan hardcovers from the 50s, a pre-Batman issue of Detective, a couple of Weird Tales issues with Lovecraft and Howard stories appearing for the first time, plus lots of Silver and Bronze keys and other GA stuff.

-M

Welcome back , cat. Nice books.

Welcome back, @supercat! You were missed!

Well look what the @supercat drug in.

I’m bursting with excitement of your return! Nice way to announce your comeback!

sounds good. I’ve only added one, I think, but I actually have another scheduled to arrive in a few days. I’ll wait until it is safely in hand. No surprise that they’re both Gretsch guitars… I’ll at least let that cat out of the bag.

Look who's back Same cat time Same cat channel. Great little haul @supercat

-M