MegaCon Report - DEFENDERS, FANTASTIC FOUR, HULK Restock! Howdy! I have to admit that I was not as enthusiastic this year about attending MegaCon as I have been in years past. This had nothing to do with the convention itself, as show promoter Beth Widera (and her family...) create one of the very best comics conventions in the entire country. After all of the traveling that I have done over the past five weeks, however, I was feeling a bit worn out on Thursday. That being the case, the prospect of yet another weekend spent sorting through long boxes was not exactly high on my agenda. Being very dedicated to my work, however, I grabbed my inventory books and headed out for Orlando. As is the case with most conventions, I hit the ground running. I purchased over 3,000 comics on Friday alone, mostly from one dealer who offered me substantial discounts on all of his Silver Age and Bronze Age comics. Saturday turned out to be even better, as I scored about 3,000 new comics (issues printed the past year), as well as another 2,000 Bronze Age issues. Yesterday (Sunday) turned out to be the best day of all, as a gentleman who has sold us great deals in the past showed up with five long boxes full of Silver Age comics. I ended up spending $6,300 for the comics that he had in the back of his truck in the parking lot behind the convention center, before my day at the convention even began! The rest of the Sunday was equally productive, as four other dealers with whom I have dealt for several years offered me a broad spectrum of older comics for which they did not have customers, but for which we have numerous clients signed up for Want List notification e-mails. All told, I have purchased about 15,000 comics at the show, with the vast majority having been published prior to 1982. With so many wholesale deals available to me at MegaCon, you might get the impression that comics sales were in decline. After all, why would other comics dealers be so eager to wholesale to me if their own sales were going great? The answer to that question is a bit complex. As a general rule, dealers bring two (or more) inventories to a convention. They have their show stock, which is what you see in the long boxes on the table, and they also have a few issues set aside in storage under their tables either as restock, or to wholesale. A great many of our suppliers are readers of this newsletter, so they know which shows that I am planning to attend. When packing for the convention, they sometimes also put together several boxes of extras that they can afford to wholesale to us. While they generate revenues from these items are significantly below retail, these canny dealers know that most of their expenses for the convention will be covered before the dealer's room even opens. Having their costs already covered by our purchases then leaves them more latitude to bargain, and to offer better prices, to their retail customers during the convention. We usually have to accept mixed bags of all sorts of different comics in these deals (such as the big grouping of Archie FLY COMICS (1959) that I got in one deal on Saturday...) but we have such a huge client base that we can sell even relatively obscure comics if given enough time. Ashley and Emily (click on image for larger view) All of the above having been said, I want to let you know that every single comics dealer with whom I spoke said that they had robust sales during MegaCon. That's actually a bit of a surprise, as MegaCon has become so much of a show filled with young women who are fans of Manga and Anime that comics seemingly had become peripheral to the main Japanese media focus. In a bizarre twist, however, many of the comics sales at MegaCon this year were made by young women, to young women. Honestly, I've never seen anything like it in my life. To illustrate my point, I am including a couple of photos for you. In the first, Ashley Imbese and Emily Leto are standing in Dino Leto's booth. Dino spent much of the convention helping with various events, so he was very seldom at his booth. As a result, Ashley and Emily ran his booth the entire weekend. Meanwhile, Melissa Kelmar and Kali Quintard were at the show all by themselves, searching for inexpensive comics for their personal collections. They ended up buying over 50 different issues from the bargain boxes being managed by Ashley and Emily, as well as a significant number of other comics from other dealers. Does anyone else out there realize how unusual this is? Women avidly buying comics from female comics dealers. What a concept! And please understand that Melissa and Kali were not at all unique. I saw quite a few more young women buying comics for themselves, completely independent of husbands and/or boyfriends. Just being able to see this very dramatic shifting of the traditional male-dominated comics convention demographic made visiting this year's MegaCon well worthwhile for me. Quite clearly, if all the comics dealers were reporting good sales in a show filled with young women, the purchases that these ladies were making must have been making some significant impact. Whatever the case, everyone agreed that this year's MegaCon saw vastly improved comics sales over years past. Melissa and Kali (click on image for larger view) While comics sales were great at MegaCon, our own website also took off over this past weekend. I knew that adding yet another 20,000 great back issues into our inventory over the course of last week would be helpful, but I must admit that I was still rather surprised when our sales surged by over 20% above our sales of the weekend before. Since we've now added a total of about 120,000 scarce back issues into our inventory over just the past six weeks, however, I really should have expected that our sales would dramatically rise. With my robust buying at conventions now accentuating the positive benefit of Pam's purchasing of comics and magazines from our online buying list, our website selection of back issue comics and magazines is becoming incredible. With another 20,000 back issues from the huge 350,000 comics California deal that I shipped home last week going online by Friday, our sales should really kick up even more this week. In case you're wondering, last Friday we added (mostly) Marvel issues, with the preponderance of the titles beginning with the letters D-H. Examples would be DAREDEVIL, DEFENDERS, DOCTOR STRANGE, EXCALIBER, FANTASTIC FOUR, and HULK. Today, 4,000 more issues will be added between Marvel I-M, including over 1,000 IRON MAN issues. If all goes as planned, this run of Marvel titles A-Z will be finished by Friday, and then we'll start another immense run of DC's. Quite literally, our website selection of back issue comics and magazines is improving for you by the day right now... I'm going to stop typing now, as I have to start sorting some of the Silver Age and Golden Age issues that I purchased over the weekend. I am going to pick out about 1,000 key issues, and send them by 2-day FedEx back to the warehouse. Will and Pam should be able to get all of those great comics available for you on our website by the end of the week. In the meantime, I am asking Lynne to include the array of Popular Titles quick links with this newsletter, so that you can easily check up for any issues that you might be seeking. While I can tell you about the issues that I am buying, you need to know that Pam adds about 1,000 comics per day into New-In-Stock from her online buying program of which I have no prior knowledge. I scan through our New-In-Stock listings each and every day just so that I can see which comics that Pam has been purchasing. Based upon that daily experience, I can tell you that I never cease to be amazed at just how many great comics that Pam has been buying from private collectors. With two of us both picking up great comics, things are going really, really well here at Mile High Comics right now! Happy Collecting! Chuck Rozanski, President - Mile High Comics, Inc. Advance Previews of next weeks comics from Archie Comics PS: Don't forget to include the 30% off 40YEARS codeword with your order! (please keep in mind the codeword does not apply to new comics, Dallas Stephens comics, trade paperbacks, hard covers, graphic novels, statues, or supplies) Quick Links to Popular Marvel Titles Alias (2001) Alpha Flight (1983) Amazing Adventures (1970) Amazing Spider-man (1999) Astonishing X-Men (2004) Avengers (1963) Avengers (1997) Avengers/Invaders (2008) Black Panther (2005) Captain America (1968) Captain America (2004) Captain Britain and MI 13 (2008) Champions (1975) Civil War Classic X-Men (1986) Conan (1970) Daredevil (1964) Daredevil (1998) Deadpool (1997) Deadpool (2008) Defenders (1972) Doctor Strange (1966) Doctor Strange (1974) Elektra (2001) Exiles (2001) Fantastic Four (1961) Ghost Rider (1973) GI Joe Hulk (1962) Hulk (2008) Invaders (1975) Iron Fist (1975) Iron Man (1968) Iron Man (2004) Journey Into Mystery (1972) Marvel Team-Up (1972) Marvel Two-In-One (1974) Master of Kung Fu (1974) Mighty Avengers (2007) Ms. Marvel (2006) New Avengers (2004) New Mutants NYX (2003) Peter Parker (1976) Powerman/Iron Fist (1972) Punisher (1987) Punisher Max (2004) Runaways (2005) Secret Invasion (2008) Sgt Fury She-Hulk 2 (2005) Silver Surfer (1968) Silver Surfer (1987) Spider-Man (1963) Spider-Woman (1978) Strange Tales (1951) Sub-Mariner (1968) Tales of Suspense (1959) Tales to Astonish (1959) Thor (1962) Thor (1962) Thunderbolts (1997) Tomb of Dracula (1972) Ultimate Fantastic Four (2003) Ultimate Spider-Man (2000) Ultimate X-Men (2000) Ultimates (2002) Ultimates 2 (2004) Ultimates 3 (2007) Ultimatum (2008) Web of Spider-Man (1985) Werewolf By Night (1972) What If... (1977) Wolverine (1988) Wolverine (2003) Wolverine: Origins (2006) X-Factor (1988) X-Force (2008) X-Men (1963) X-Men (1991) X-Treme X-Men (2001) Young Avengers (2005) Quick Links to Popular DC Titles Action Comics Adventure Comics Adventures of Superman All Star (1976) Authority Batgirl (2000) Batgirl (2008) Batman (1940) Batman & Robin Adventures Batman Family Birds of Prey (1998) Brave and the Bold (1955) Catwoman-The Series Catwoman (2001) Challengers of the Unknown (1958) Dark Knight (1986) Detective Comics Fables (2002) Firestorm (2004) Flash (1959) Flash (1987) Green Lantern (1960) Green Lantern (1990) Green Lantern (2005) Green Lantern: Rebirth Jack of Fables (2006) Jimmy Olsen (1954) Justice League of America (1960) Legion Of Super-Heroes (1980) Lois Lane (1958) Mad Magazine Our Fighting Forces (1954) Phantom Stranger (1969) Plop (1973) Secret Society Of Super-Villains Sgt. Rock Showcase (1956) Super-Team Family Superboy (1949) Superman (1939) Superman Family (1974) Tarzan (1972) Teen Titans (1966) Warlord (1976) Watchmen (1986) Weird War Tales (1971) Witching Hour (1969) Wonder Woman (1942) World's Finest (1941) View the Free Bonus Book Listing Current Newsletter