Comics GEEKFEST Report! Howdy! I had a very special gathering here at my farm on Saturday. My good friends Steve Hnat, Bill Daniel, Rich Cartmill, Bob Conway, Diego Romero, Jeff Payne, and Jim Payne joined me in our first annual comics "Geekfest!" We spent 4 hours together looking at comics and original art from my personal collection, and talking about our many years together in the comics world. My original impetus for this gathering was to bring together fans who shopped in Jim Payne's original A-1 Comics store during the 1960's and 1970's. A-1 Comics opened in the basement of the long-defunct Ogden Street Bookstore, on East Colfax Ave. in Denver, in 1968. That makes it one of the earliest comics shops to ever be created. Jim Payne owned the shop, in three different locations, until June of 1977. After Jim suffered a small stroke in early 1977, however, he decided that he either had to shut his store or sell out. He approached me with a unique proposition, which resulted in me trading him about 1,000 great comics from the original Mile High/Edgar Church collection for his store. Aside from owning A-1 Comics, Jim also was the primary catalyst for the creation of the legendary Colorado Springs Comic Club. When I started selling comics at the monthly Colorado Springs City Auditorium Antiques Fair in February of 1970, I quickly became familiar with about 50 fans who actively collected comics in the Colorado Springs area. I also became aware of the fact that the basement of the Colorado Springs Police Building (which was located right across the street from the City Auditorium), consisted of a large meeting room which was open for free use by non-profit organizations. I was only 15 years old at the time, but I somehow managed to convince the manager of the police building to let us use his space on Sunday evenings for meetings of our proposed comics club. Bob Conway (the very first Mile High Comics customer!) helped greatly me in this endeavor. The one thing that was missing from our club, however, was a unique reason for fans to turn out. After all, since the Antiques Fair ran all day on Saturday and Sunday, anyone who wanted to buy any of my comics could visit me there. Jim Payne turned out to be the magic key to the success of our proposed comics club, as he agreed to once a month drive the 80 miles from his home in Denver, to Colorado Springs. Jim's visits were incredibly exciting to all of us, as each time he would bring us a new batch of rare comics to buy during comics club meeting. Out from his old station wagon would flow boxes full of old 1940's and 1950's DC's, Timelys, Fawcetts, MLJ/Archies, Dell's, Charltons, and yes, even very early Marvel comics. Just as an example, Jim sold me my very first copy of X-Men (1963) #1, and my Daredevil (1964) #1. Each cost me about $8. Suffice it to say, our comics club meetings were great! GeekFest April 2009 Jeff Payne, Bob Conway, Bill, Steve, Diego Romero, Jim Payne, and Rich (click on image for larger view) Fast forward 39 years, and there are now only a few fans left who were customers of A-1 Comics. I'm the only one that I know left who shopped with Jim at the first Ogden St. Store, while Bob Conway was there in Colorado Springs to buy comics from Jim at the comics club. Rich Cartmill, Steve Hnat, and Bill Daniel (who are all now long time Mile High Comics staff members) all shopped with Jim at his last store location, at 308 S. Broadway. All are pictured in a photo that I took at the Geekfest, along with Jeff Payne, Jim's son and constant companion. Were it not for Jeff Payne doing all the heavy lifting of all those cartons full of comics, I doubt if Jim could have made the drive to our club meetings. Jeff also drove Jim (who is now well into his 80's) to our Geekfest meeting. Diego Romero is also in the photo, although he lived in Berkeley, California at the time that Jim operated A-1 Comics. Diego patronized the incredibly great Comics and Comix store in Berkeley, operated by my good friend John Barrett, as well as the Best of Two Worlds store run by Rory Root and Bob Beerbohm. Diego (who is a now one of the most famous Pueblo potters in the entire world) was in town to deliver some original art to me, so we happily included him in our Geekfest. Diego had lots of stories to tell about his misadventures (along with his brother Mateo...) in being chased out of the Berkeley stores for being too avid of a comics fanboys. Mixing his stories in with all of ours made the 4 hours that we all spent together simply fly by. I had so much fun on Saturday that I really do hope that we can have Geekfest 2. Those really were the good old days! Moving on to business, a great many of you have already noticed that our prices for old comics on the Mile High Comics website were slashed to upwards of 75% off on Saturday morning. For those of you who have yet to check out our lowered prices, you are in for a treat! Not only are all of our older comics steeply discounted (including the big collection that we posted last Wednesday), but we have also temporarily lowered the prices on all of our comics published between 1982-present. About the only back issue comics and magazines that are not steeply discounted on our website right now are brand new issues, and the Dallas Stephens consignment comics. Otherwise, darn near the entire 8-million comics inventory exhibited on the Mile High Comics website is on steep discount sale. This great sale also includes all of the back issue comics and magazines just listed in our New-In-Stock, and $50+ New-In-Stock areas. One important consideration about all of our comics on our website being on sale right now is that there is no codeword in effect. The only discount that you can achieve below the listed prices is the 20% off you can earn by being an active member of our N.I.C.E. new comics subscription club. For the time being, casual visitors to our website (of which we get about 10,000 per day...) are being offered the same incredibly low prices as those of you who read this newsletter. I don't do this very often, as I genuinely do want to favor those of you who shop with us regularly, but it also serves an important purpose for us to occasionally factor the codeword discounts that we regularly offer you directly into our prices listed on the website. In all honesty, however, I do have to say that seeing just how low our prices are when they are dropped to 75% off can be a bit shocking to me. I really do worry these days about how we're going to restock the thousands of back issues that we are selling at such low prices. Especially in the instances where members of N.I.C.E. just kill our margins with that additional 20% off... My final item for today is a quick reminder about the trade paperback and hardbacks sale that we currently have in effect. All of our Marvel and DC trade paperbacks are at 40% off right now, while all of our other trade paperbacks are discounted for you at 30% off. All of our hardbacks are also discounted at a minimum of 20% off. In addition, we have over 500 books steeply discounted at 40%-50% off. As always, you can mix trades, hardbacks, and back issue comics together in a single order to earn free shipping. Free shipping minimums are $50 for the USA, and $125 for International destinations (no express carriers). A small per book surcharge is added for trades and hardbacks going to International destinations, to cover the extra shipping weight... Well, that's it for today. I do have to say in closing, however, that I am still basking in the glow of our wonderful Geekfest meeting of Saturday. I have personally collected comics for over 40 years now, and I have to tell you that I still love every aspect of comics collecting. I do not think that there is a hobby in the world more fun than collecting comics! Please have a great week, and if you can, try to connect with a few of your comics collecting friends from long ago. As I was reminded so well on Saturday, sharing comics memories can be great fun! Happy Collecting! Chuck Rozanski, President - Mile High Comics, Inc. Advance Previews of next weeks comics from Archie Comics PS: I'm asking Lynne to include our Popular Titles Links for you at the end of today's newsletter. Pam's inventory team added over 20,000 comics into our website listings last week above and beyond that one huge collection, so we filled a great many holes in our most popular titles. Our most popular comics do tend to sell out quickly, however, so placing an order with us right away helps guarantee you that we still have those issues in stock that you are most seeking. 'Nuff said. Quick Links to Popular Marvel Titles Amazing Adventures (1970) Amazing Spider-man (1999) Avengers (1963) Avengers (1997) Avengers/Invaders (2008) Black Panther (2005) Captain America (1968) Captain America (2004) Captain Britain and MI 13 (2008) Classic X-Men (1986) Conan (1970) Daredevil (1964) Daredevil (1998) Deadpool (1997) Deadpool (2008) Defenders (1972) Doctor Strange (1966) Doctor Strange (1974) 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) Quick Links to Popular DC Titles Action Comics Adventure Comics Adventures of Superman All Star (1976) Batman (1940) Batman Family Brave and the Bold (1955) Dark Knight (1986) Detective Comics Fables (2002) Flash (1959) Green Lantern (1960) Green Lantern (2005) 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 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) Current Newsletter