Local comic book store celebrates 30th anniversary!

  

The ole’ shop still looks good!

I have the honor and pleasure of writing to you about my local comic book shop and it’s celebration of it’s 30th year in business.

I speak none other than of B & D Comics, located at 802 Elm Avenue SW Roanoke, VA.

Pin given out at the event
7/28/2012

While the storefront still looks just the same and as good if not better than with it’s move there in 1992, the industry on the other hand in which the store depends on, has changed greatly since then.

The store still offers the same great customer service that it has since my very first visit (at the Williamson Road location) when I was only six-years-old.

At the time the person running the counter was Phil Davis, the “D” in B & D Comics. Phil Davis was at the anniversary today in spirit.  The prior owner/operator had moved out of the business years ago but still shared a devotion to comics and their fans. He passed on to God’s light in Spring 2011.

He will not be forgotten. R.I.P. Phil.

Terry is the “B” in B & D Comics.
Courtesy of:
http://blogs.roanoke.com/

Terry Baucom, the “B” in B & D Comics, has and still continues to offer the best customer service to comic book fans in addition to an extensive knowledge and devote passion to the comic books that the business founded itself upon. (If you want to read more about their history, please visit there website: http://www.banddcomics.com/. Please do as I won’t attempt to regurgitate it here.)

http://www.beckadoodles.com

The event was sunny with warm temperatures and people were greeted with smiles and friendly faces. Food and drink was available along with several vendors, some artists and authors. There were plenty of costumed heroes and heroines.

    

In particular a local author, D.L. Silverman, wrote a science fiction thriller, The Dream Shift Chronicles: Broken Dreams, and was a pleasure to meet as well as a fellow author, who wrote the book, Gideon’s Loop, Terry L. Persinger.

An artist illustrating at B & D Comic Shop 30th anniversary

Baroness autographing a copy of “The Baroness and The Duke” comic book.

Heroes and Heroines alike were there in honor of the anniversary including Ghostbusters, Darth Vader, and Dan “the Man” from Street Fighter and even several more.

The Baroness herself was present and offered autographs and pictures for fans. If you were fortunate enough you may have been able to score a copy of the comic book made especially for the B & D Comic Shop titled The Baroness and The Duke.

Very limited, cool comic book from my own local comic book shop that I have shopped at since I was a kid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is probably a very limited produced comic, actually making it quite rare. Beyond that it’s just downright cool that my own local comic shop actually has it’s own comic book.

Back of B & D Comics Shop’s comic book. It’s a part of history, mine.

Thanks Baroness for autographing mine!

Given at B & D Comics Shop 30th anniversary

 

 

 

Also present at the celebration was artist Beck Seashols who illustrates the web comic Sweeten Village. I have yet to have the chance to fully check out any of the things offered by the artists and authors that I met at the event, but my interests are strongly intrigued.

My fiancée was interested in Ms. Seashols web comic and it reminded her of one of her favorite video games, Fairytale Fights.

Fairytale Fights Video Game

My fiancée is also a fan and collector of the Grimm Fairy Tale comic book series and has been for years and Sweeten Village was very peaking to her interests.

Terry Baucom, owner operator of B & D Comics Shop, still being the best comic book shop in the Roanoke Valley.

We also enjoyed our visit inside the comic shop as well. Many people were there and the store was bustling along with business as it should be.

I always liked seeing the older and rarer (usually key books) on the wall behind the counter. They always were so neat to see on display as a child. But you knew you’d never afford the prices, those were adult priced (no, I don’t mean that, I mean only adults had that much money) comics. Or at least thats how I thought when I was a kid. So cool!

Bustling business with comic book collectors, inside B & D Comics Shop.
7/28/2012

Comic book readers and collectors alike, young, old, male and female, were present at the 30th anniversary.

As stated we picked up a few good reads while we were there, a new book and even some back issues!

From left to right:
Batman Versus Bane, Detective Comics #623, Grimm Fairy Tales #75 Cover A

The Batman Versus Bane was something I have been meaning to read and what better timing then after seeing The Dark Knight Rises as of recent.

The Detective Comics 623 was an impulse buy. Just look at the cover, it’s priceless!

I recently was researching about the Ace the Bat-Hound and upon seeing this couldn’t resist it at the price of $1 (that’s the original 1990 cover price! That’s B & D Comics for ya!).

I paused for a moment here and reminisced about 1993.

Of course the Grimm Fairy Tales was for my fiancée. (Still we noticed it says on the cover, “Cover A”. It’s getting ridiculous Zenescope, it really is…)

I took a moment while I was browsing the “wall” of comics where they have had new titles available for as long as I can remember.

In that moment I remembered walking up to this wall and seeing all the comics. The time was mid 1993 after the waning of Bat-Mania from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film had worn thin. By then things were pretty sorry for Batman fans that were kids.

Batman wasn’t even in the recently released DC Cosmic Cards (1992), what a crock!

DC Cosmic Cards 1992

Out of nowhere I noticed the Batman issue currently at the time had this weird half black and white cover flap thing that I thought was cool (a simple but clever gimmick, that worked no doubt).

Batman 497
Knightfall Part 11

I go to grab the comic from the shelf, and it is Batman 497, Knightfall Part 11, The breaking of the Batman. I couldn’t believe what I saw. How could it be possible that this cool entity I knew as Batman, could be presented as such?

Anyone who was a regular of B & D Comics recognizes that “Hot News” backboard image anywhere. I know I do when I see it.

Bane breaking Batman

It didn’t matter, it was there in my face. Screaming my name, saying that I must know what happens to Batman! My eyes quickly focus on the newsstand price tag.

Only a $1.25, I thought to myself, gripping the other various titles I had intended on purchasing in my hand along with my five dollars. (Most books were averaged at the price of $1 or a little more. I usually could get four a week.)

 

 

 

I had to get my Silver Surfer, Daredevil, and Spider-Man. But the extra title I would buy this week was going to be Batman! It was the first time I bought a real Batman comic book. I was enjoying comics for the reason they were meant to be enjoyed, for being comics books nothing more.

Classic Baroness

B & D Comics provided that opportunity for me to have that experience, and I will not forgot it.

Thank you Terry and Phil, and Happy Anniversary B & D Comics!

Thank you B & D Comics!

Read more of recent news stories featuring B & D Comics:

http://www2.wsls.com/news/2012/may/09/roanoke-comic-book-store-sees-boost-avengers-movie-ar-1902977/

Trading Cards Collecting Continued!

Continued from last post

We also collected a lot of non-sports super hero cards.

12 cards to a pack?! Man, they don’t make them like they used to.

The popularity and success of the 1990 Marvel Universe card line caused many other sets and series to be produced from both Marvel and DC. The biggest problem with DC’s first line of cards, Cosmic Cards was one glaring thing.

Cool cover cards like this should have been used as inserts. Maybe a different border on them too, something, sheesh!

 

No, it wasn’t because that they were more cheaply made and less innovative design. It was the fact that they were missing the most currently successful character that DC had, Batman.

But low and behold, you could open all the packs to your hearts content trying to locate a Batman card to go along with all the other DC super hero cards and never a single find one.

No Batman, no Robin, but we got Nightwing!

Only $0.45 a pack? Sheesh, Topps must have really been able to make these cheap. And they are by far the one of the cheapest produced cards in history.

That’s because Warner Bros. had the exclusive rights for ole’ Batsy’s trading card license. So DC decided to just not even include him or even Robin card. However, there was a Nightwing card at least.

Depsite all of that the DC Cosmic Cards also suffered because of it’s daunting 180 complete card set. That’s just to many damn cards to collect!

Compile that with uneven production, and no inserts except for 10 Hologram cards. All that makes for a meager outing when compared to Marvel’s initial launch into the trading card world. They sold well I’m sure, but fell off quickly. They still aren’t very sought or valued today, but that is not always so bad, at least for me.

 

I found my old set and need to fill in a card or two in better condition, and it’s a buyers market out there for these cards!

They should have used cards of the cool comic covers and the like for special inserts instead for normal cards in the set.

That would have been a new idea at the time and probably helped this series retain a little more popularity and value in the long run.

I recently found a few back issues at my local thrift store for $2 a piece and couldn’t resist.

The pinnacle of trading card collecting came with the magazine publication Tuff Stuff’s Collect! magazine.

It was a monthly publication dedicated to pricing non-sports cards. The hobby had grown so much that their was indeed demand for a publication such as Tuff Stuff’s Collect!.

 

 

 

 

 

Upon reading them I found a lot of letters wrote in by subscribers and articles. Many of them had the same points, all of which I found interesting. Here’s a few of them that I will excerpt from randomly:

 

 

From State of the Hobby By Jim Nicewander

“Whatever happened to the hobby we used to know?”

“In their world [sports card collectors 25 years ago as described in 1994] the answer was simple: greed.”

“Sports card collecting became an industry.”

“With sports cards, it seemed that just about every collector became a dealer-in attitude if not in trade.”

“Collectors began to worry less about personal favorites and more about resale value.”

“Today [1994], there are scads of non-sports dealers…There are so many companies producing so many new cards that it’s almost impossible to keep up with them. And if manufacturer is constantly trying to come up with the next hot gimmick.”

“This type of growth is good for the hobby; it means more cards available at competitive prices.”

“So far, they’ve [the multitude of hi-tech gimmicks and manufacturers] only helped to increase the number of collectors.”

I won’t even get into the phone cards collecting that then took place. From what I read, the editor went vacation for his honey moon [From the Editor:Postcard from Aruba; JAN 1995], then he discovered phone cards because he was worried about how the magazine was coming along even though he was on vacation. He had to call using phone cards from overseas.

And viola! He ended up with all these used phone cards and didn’t throw them away (collecting them) and thus wrote about it and then creating attention for a new hobby, or offshoot of the all ready existing one. Back then print media was the way of communication, especially for the latest information. Now it’s all internet, but back then magazines and newspapers took care of things.

 

 

 

From letters to Collect! Polls, Promos, and Price Guides: Comments and Questions from our readers (Tuff Stuff’s Collect! Magazine; March 1995)

Sandy Cugno

Gainsville, FL. said:

“After 25 years of collecting cards and comics and approximately three years of dealing, I would like to offer the following news…”

“The good: Most everybody is happy…move(s) to a more realistic price listings in several guides are also a plus.”

“The bad: Most everybody is unhappy, frustrated, and downright ticked off over a market glutted with product…too many chase cards…too many levels of chase cards…too many extra gimmick cards…”

“I see a preponderance of greedy, unscrupulous dealers overcharging at every opportunity, as the “sports card” mentality becomes more infused in non-sports [cards].”

Rich Hahn

Largo, FL said:

“I enjoy Collect! magazine…”

“[the single-card promos you insert in your magazine (Ty Cobb Cola-Cola Collection)] [dealers] out there [sell] …a $2 or $3 card to a little boy or girl for $35.”

“I go to card shows…and see it all the time.”

“I’ve had to chance to stop a sale by pointing out the “Tuff Stuff’s Collect!” logo on the back of your “Coca-Cola Collection” Ty Cobb and Polar Bear insert cards.”

“[dealers] are in the business to make money…”

Sounds like to me people were unhappy for legitimate reasons. One main one, greed. It’s just as simple as that, every one wanting to cash in on that cow. Then they do and the milk the utter dry.

And even the magazine themselves (Tuff Stuff’s Collect!) were cashing in with making promo cards available with their bagged monthly publications to help them sell their magazines. Then compounding the bigger problem indirectly by providing these promo cards to dealers taking said cards and reselling for a scalping profit.

Elements like that are what I feel, led to further downfalls within the collecting society and still do to a degree today, but that is the nature of life and business as with anything.

“That’ll be $500 dollars!”

one cover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The aftermath from the crash of the mini boom from the comics sales from speculation and big story lines like Batman being broken, and Sup’s Death by Doomsday in the 1990’s didn’t help things either. DC wasn’t alone in this cause of speculation and surplus, Todd McFarlane I’m looking at you with your beginning a whole new trend of Spider-Man bagged, variant covers.

two covers…

three covers?!
for the same book!?
sheesh!

These were everywhere, it was ridiculous! Even the local supermarket had stacks of them.

Thanks to him, Zenescope is still making their product be about the collectability of the of the cover and not enough about the comic itself.

Two covers?!
I mean, I like the artwork, but geez!
Just make one cover already!

One cover

 

After all that, I finally started also becoming more interested in other things, mainly females. But at the same time I still had money to spend on a hobby. That hobby had to be something, and it was Magic the Gathering.

 

 

 

I played MTG when I was in the seventh grade starting with 4th edition. I abandoned the game for several years leaving my cards safely shelved.

Later on a friend in high school took a large interest in the game suddenly and I disclosed to him how I had a stash of cards from when I used to play years ago.

At first he didn’t believe me, but when I delivered my large collection of cards as promised, he then ate his words. We ended up sorting through them and I enjoyed being able to once again trade them, even though they were my old cards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We never played in any tournaments or anything like that, we just enjoyed playing for fun. Many times we would have four way multi-player games where it was every man for himself.

Temporary alliances were always formed but soon broken at the precise time (usually after a strong arsenal, and good hand were established, or when you were going to have to discard something wastefully), sometimes meaning you had to throw a rock in the pond.

But it was always loads of laughter and fun. Those were good card collecting days still, roughly in 1999-2000 up until the end of 2001.

Oversaturation of Wacky Package products?

After that I didn’t really think much of collecting much. The little bit that I did collect was video games and even then I stopped playing those altogether for awhile too. It was a different time in my life but a time of discovery.

After my hiatus from gaming and collecting, I eventually came back to collecting cards with Wacky Package ANS2 in 2006. It reminded me of collecting them when I was young, but being an adult with more money to spend, I enjoyed opening pack after pack and the thrill of sliding each one into it’s sleeve until I had the complete set. It was true bliss to be back collecting cards, collecting anything! I was’t worried about the investment either, I just wanted to collect the set because I enjoyed seeing all the different spoofs. But again, even as we speak today, it has become an industry respectfully. I had to make sure I protected them and of course when they offer you an official collectors album, they can get you hook, line and sinker.

Collect all 24! Store them…somehow!

Wacky Packages is even a culprit for buying into the gimmicky stunts, not that Topps hasn’t (They were responsible for the cheap Batman movie cards). Take for instance their latest Wacky Packages erasers. They are really cool, but how and they hell am I supposed to store these? (Maybe the local craft stores will have a button or bead case that will work? I don’t know!)

 

Again it’s the same issue I had with pogz years ago, and when you can’t collect something the way you would like, you lose interest and fans tend to wane from collecting entirely.

However, I have to agree with some of the points that were stated earlier, I think things like the erasers help and also hurt but in the end are overall good. I still want to get a set, but then what will I do with them? Such is the dilemma of a collector I suppose.

I’ll update if you I do get a set!

Thanks for reading this article. Please check back again soon for more topics on collecting!