Comic Book Candy

Every headline touting a long-lost comic collection found in grandma's attic is sure to give retailers a slight headache. Whenever genuinely rare comics go for big bucks in auction , phone calls to comic shops from consumers with stacks of worthless comics from the 90's and dollar signs in their eyes are bound to follow. It would be a humorous situation if it wasn't such a time consuming (and frequent) occurrence to explain that no, your Death of Superman is worth less than the bag and board you put it in. Modern comic book readers know better than to believe the prevalent myth that comics are a sound monetary investment. Most fans have come to accept that these are a disposable form of entertainment (if you haven't, the sooner you come to terms with this, the less bitter you'll be later on). Recently I've seen more longtime readers  bringing collections in to sell back to the stores they bought them from, mostly siting concerns for space and wanting store cred...

As mentioned in my previous post, I have a problem with leaving comic book stores empty handed. If there's nothing new out that interests me, I'll dig through the back issues, see if I can find something to fill a gap in my collection, or just pick up a random issue based on the goofy cover. This can be a rewarding experience, but it's often an impulse to make the fruitless trip feel "worth while", and most of the time these issues end up getting filed away, unbagged and unread. This feeling of obligation is also present when I come across comics in an unexpected place, minus the buyer's remorse. One might see a secondhand book store as a likely place to find comics, but when you do find them, they are poorly organized and often have the price stickers stamped onto their covers. (Why why WHY do book stores feel the need to devalue their product?) But upon visiting chain store  Half-Price Books to (ironically) shop for CD's, I discovered that they dabble...