I'm Back!

Well, the move is over. We are not close to being done unpacking, but all my books are on shelves and in order. They haven’t been that way in many years. I can now go through them, get everything priced and actually use the eBay store and website that I have been paying for.

We went to the Pittsburgh Comicon this weekend. Nobody was looking for much. I had a chance to talk with Howard Chakyn for a bit, and that was cool. He really has a lot on his plate right now with Hawkwoman, New Avengers and some other stuff. Nice guy.

I have been trying to complete my Hellblazer run for a while now. I picked up a couple of recent issues that I had missed. My grail was issue 126. Not an important issue. I just could not find it. Anywhere. For three years I have looked through every box at WizardWorld Chicago and Philly and every local show. Lots of 125s and 127s. I even got issues 1, 2 and 4 of Trenchcoat Brigade, so I was happy. One last booth to look at. The last box ended with Hawkman, so I had to brave my way through the throng to get to the other side of the table. I stick my hand in and hit something in the 130s, so I slowly went backwards. 129, 128, 127…. I stopped and took a breath. I have been so disappointed for so long. But there is was. But Dan and Jason, who have also been looking along with me, were no where in sight. They didn’t see me go behind the table and kept going. I had intended to purchase a Bowen bust at the show and bought two from the dealer to celebrate completing the set.

The busts I got are:

Hobgoblin – very cool and a great paint job. 100 times better than the Green Goblin bust

Absorbing Man – outstanding bust. His head is not as pointy as it looks on the box and the ball and chain are not fixed to the bust. The chain is individual links and the ball hangs free. Really cool

The best part of the show was talking to the owner of 4 local stores. They are a 45 minutes to and hour away from me, so I won’t be direct competition for him. He had offer to help me out back in November. So I asked him about help with the Diamond application. My concern is references. As an attorney, I really didn’t think that I could put clients as references. He came back with an idea that is better than I could have dreamed of. I really think that this is going to work. Now I just have to find the customers.

My wife is now scouting locations for the store for me. Up until now it has kind of just been something that was “Out there”, but it is looking to be closer to reality every day now.

I post the locations I have been looking at as soon as I get some more info