DC Lego Variant Covers - Hitting Shelves in November

Dc will continue its use of variant themed covers this coming November, following on the heals of the Octobers Halloween/Horror Variant Covers.

The Lego theme is being used to celebrate the LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham video game being released in November. The Lego renditions on each cover mirror the covers from each issues #0 which were released in September 2012, I have included an image of Batman #0 for comparison.

Action Comics #36

Aquaman #36

Batgirl #36

Batman #36

Batman & Robin #36

 

Batman/Superman #16

 

Catwoman #36

 

Detective Comics #36

 

 

 

Flash #36

 

Grayson #4

 

Green Lantern #36

 

Green Lantern Corps #36

 

Harley Quinn #12

 

JLU #6

 

Justice League #36

 

Justice League Dark #36

 

New Teen Titans #4

 

Sinestro #7

 

Supergirl #36

 

Superman #36

 

Superman/Wonder Woman #13

Wonder Woman #36

These variant should be very popular and hard to find. Our suggestions. Is to request them from your local comic shop or begin hunting them down throughout November.

I also hope they make some Lego figures to go along with the covers.  Who doesn't want a Frankenstein Lego figure in their collection?

Good Luck on Your Hunt!
#jointhehunt

Comic Shop Review - All-In-One Collectibles, Randolph,NJ

Most comic book and collectibles shops are all very similar, they carry the same basic things; comics, toys, gaming stuff and supplies. Each comic has these items to varying degrees. Every so often we visit a comic shop that carries the usual stuff but also has a specialization that makes it stand out above the rest. All-In-One collectibles is the kind of shop that stands out because of its focus on one type of item. I would consider All-In-One as the headquarters of Heroclix figures. They have more of these little figures then any store we have ever visited. At least four full cases filled with them and they are divided into the different lines.

Full case of Heroclix figures

We seldom mention how much we like this line of collectibles, used primarily for gaming these little figures also have high collectible value. Some if them are very rare but the best thing about them is the multitude of characters offered, both from DC and Marvel comics. There are all the main characters, almost all lower level characters and impressively many not so common characters from comics and moves. If you haven't check these out yet visit Heroclix online.

Now lets look at All-In-One collectibles in terms of huntability.

Comics - Has a very small selection of new comics, store must do mainly list pulls. No area for back issues except for one small box of recent issues.

Toys - Plenty of new and old toys spread throughout the store, recent lines all the wall back to Toy Biz Marvel line. These Toy Biz figures are becoming increasingly hard to find, it is impressive when you see them in a shop.

Other stuff - plenty of gaming items, an entire area of sports cards and memorabilia (autographed, etc.), plus the whole home of the heroclix thing. Seeing all the other stuff made us understand how All-In-One got its name. Really a one stop shop for collectibles.

Comic Shop Grade = B

Although they lack a big comic inventory the amount of different collectibles they sell on top of the fact that tey might have the worlds largest Heroclix collection make it worth a visit, bring your sports collecting friends with you.

As you can tell we like stores that are the best at at least one thing, All-In-One is the best at what they set out to be the best at.

Good Luck on Your Hunt!
#jointhehunt

Great Allentown Comic Con - A convention like days of old!

We attended the Great Allentown Comic Con today, it is not our first time there. We go back each year simply because not only is it a good place to hunt for comics and collectibles but it reminds us of conventions we used to attend when we were younger.

Back in the 1980's/early 90's comic convention were not by any means the mega events they are today. They were not held in huge convention centers either. Usually they would be in a hotel or some other small venue, possible a school gymnasium or local VFW (yes I have been to shows held in all of the above). The Great Allentown Comic Con is held in the Merchants Square Mall, which is like a flea market filled with collectible shops. This is one of the reasons we go back each year, it reminds us of shows from the past.

The show from a huntability standpoint is great. Both in the show area and in the flea market area. I combined the two because we make purchases at both when we attend the con.

There are not an over abundance of dealer, although I suspect with the increase in attendance this year there will be more next time. The dealers have good deals on back issues and older toys, what we all hunt. Plenty of dollar boxes, discount trades and even a dealer who has almost all .25 comics and he has a lot. Toy prices are better then online and at others shows, the dealer tables are less expensive here then at the big shows, so guess who the saving trickles down to, US! The show also has many higher dollar Golden and Silver Age books so I you are looking for those hard to find issues, you might find it at GACC.

The spoils of the hunt!
So with all this talk about how great the Great Allentown Comic Con is ( I know why they use great in the name), what did we pick up today. The quick answer is a lot.

$2 Bins
We went through the $2 bins first, figured we would make our way down in price bins. Picked up four The Flash volume 2 issues (Wally West series), # 169, 180, 246 and Annuals 9. Still working on completing the entire run. Really enjoy this series.


Variant covers
One of the vendors had variant covers for only $5, which sounds good not great, right. Turned out to be awesome as he had a New 52 Flash #1 Ivan Reis cover, this is really hard to find. Also grabbed a The Flash Brightest Day #6 variant. $10 well spent.

$1 Bins
We next spent a good amount of time hunting through the $1 bins from various vendors, we had our sites on specific comic prey and it was the Justice League of America. We have been piecing together the original run of this series for a couple of, picking up issues here and there. At GACC we scored 12 issues from the $1 bins and there was an even better discount, 6 for $5. We grade Justice League of America #252, 251, 250 (great cover), 242, 218, 217(was wearing t-shirt with this cover at the con), 214, 213, 203, 202, 192, 181( Whitman variant cover, more on this in a future post).

Quarter Bins
I love the .25 cent bins it is a good place to not only hunt for comics you have been searching for but to gatherer issues you may never have read before, chance to try something new. Bought 32 issues at .25 each or $8 for all 32. You can't beat that unless you travel back in time to when comics were actually .25 a piece. Here is the long list of what we gathered on our extensive quarter bins.
JLA Year One #7, Justice League Europe/International #21, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, Impulse plus + 1 #1, Impulse #20, 19, JLX Unleashed #1 (Amalgam issue), DC/Marvel Access #1, 2, 3, Metamorpho #1, Mister Miracle Vol. 3 #1, 4, 5, 6, 7, Power Man & Iron Fist #119, 120, 121 ( going to start collecting this title again, both have new shows coming out soon)

The Mall
After we left the convention area we walked around the regular everyday mall area, bought a bunch of toys including an unopened JLU 3-pack and some Flash happy meal toys, all at really inexpensive prices. One of the toy dealers in the mall is a really nice guy and works with you on price.

We also walked around the auction area, they have one each month. We came across a memory while looking at the items up for auction (see picture below). I used the same Batman and Robin alarm clock to,wake me up for school from first grade to fifth grade. Haven't seen one since then. One thing you can't predict sometimes at a convention is the memories that you'll not only create but also recall from the past.

My childhood alarm clock!

Overall GACC was a huge success on so many levels.

How can you not go to comic conventions? The value for hunting is better then anywhere else.
Make plans to attend the next installment of the Great Allentown Comic Con or just to visit the Merchant Square Mall one afternoon

Good luck on you hunt!
#jointhehunt

Sci-Fi City - On the Hunt in Florida

Recent, we reviewed the Orlando based comic shop Sci-Fi City. As a follow up we wanted to look at the spoils of the hunt.
We have been on many hunting trips as we gatherer more and more treasures for our collection. We have rarely had as much success on a single hunt at a comic shop then we had at Sci-Fi City.

First off Sci-Fi City sells their back issues for cover price, which is awesome. We went through boxes of older comics which went as far back as the Silver Age, yes the Silver Age. For those older comics they round up to a $1.00

Jack Kirby
We picked up two issues Of Jack Kirby's New Gods. Issues #8 and Issue #9 are great examples of Kirby's work with DC comics. The story goes that Kirby had a falling out with Stan Lee so he moved to Marvels competition DC comics. DC gave Kirby free range to do what he wanted, so he created a new universe with all new characters. We are huge fans of Kirby's work adding two more issues to our Kirby collection for a buck apiece made this trip worth it for us all by itself. We did buy more.

Late 1980's/Early 1990's issues
We have made it pretty obvious in recent posts that we are huge fans of the comics that were produced during the late 1980's through the early 1990's. They were much lighter then they are today, and there was an infusion of comedy throughout comics, especially DC titles.

We picked up another Crisis Cross-Over, we are always on the look-out for Crisis Cross-over because Crisis is still our favorite large scale story arc. This one was the New Teen Titans #13, paid cover price $1.25.

Also picked up more of the Hawk & Dove run as we continue our way to completion. Hunted down issues 6-12 for $1.00 each.

We also continued to fill in X-Force picking up issues 4, 6 and 7,$1.25 each. We like Rob Liefeld art, always have, always will.

For us when we are hunting finding Annuals always presents a problem, not sure why but we never seem to be able to find them. Not true this time, we got as the 1990 Justice League of America Annual #4. Love the cover.

Finally our back issue search landed us a Punisher War Journal #15 guest staring Spider-Man. This is an early Jim Lee cover.

Variant Covers
We have really enjoyed DC comics title wide monthly variant covers. June was bombshell cover month. These variants come in much smaller quantities then the regular covers and are extremely difficult to hunt down. Finding a couple more and at cover price (some stores mark them up) was another score! We added Superman/Wonder Woman #9 and Earth 2 #24, my daughter is a big Hawkgirl fan. If you are interested in all the Bombshell covers we recently posted about all of them.

If you are in the Orlando Area take a trip to Sci-Fi City it is worth every minute of it, you will spend a bunch of money and time there.

Enjoy your hunt!
#jointhehunt

Rennigers Flea Market - On the Hunt in Florida

If you ate a true hunter/gatherer you are always on the look-out for things to add to your collection. This week we are blogging from Melbourne Florida. Our first stop on the hunt in Melbourne was the Rennigers Flea Market.

Flea markets are a great place to get some REAL deals. I mean some old items cheap or some items you never knew existed at a price you can't believe.

At Rennigers we found vendors with dollar comic boxes and toy dealers with dollar bins. There were about 40 dollar boxes filled with comics from the 1990's. There were about 10 toy dealers along with many other dealers that had a couple of toys scattered on their table.

We ended up spending about $25. Walked away with 21 comics to add to the collection, a Captain Cold happy meal toy and 3 DVD's. My daughter, who is turning in to an excellent hunter, bought some Star Wars figures and costum badges from here favorite shows.

Run down of what we picked up in the dollar bins:

Cable #1 (1993),  Guy Gardner Warrior #15, 26, 30, 35 (1993-1995),  Justice League America Vol. 2 #60, 88, 107, Annual 6 (1992-1996), Legion of the Superheroes #288 (1982), Elongated Man #1, 2 (1992), Mister Miracle Vol.3 #6 (1996), Salvation Run #2, 6, 7 (2008), The New Teen Titans #14 (1985), Lobo #1 (1990), Brigade #1 (1992), X-Force #2 (1991), Invaders #2 (1993)

As I have mentioned many times before I enjoy the humor that was found throughout DC comics in the early 1990's, so I picked up the Elongated Man issues, which I didn't even know existed and the Guy Gardner Warrior ones, I have started putting this run together.

Was able to fill in some more of the Justice League Vol. 2 run. I just figured it is so closely related to the Justice League Europe( lots of crossovers) that it just makes sense.

Cable #1 and Lobo #1 seemed like steals for a dollar. Both characters were very popular in the mid-90's. I think of these as key issues during comics big boom. Both heroes are in that gray not really a hero but not a villain area.

The New Teen Titans issue is a Crisis tie-in. Crisis of Infinite Earths was one of my favorite DCU events, it changed the complexion of the entire universe. Some heroes died others were elevated to stardom. If you never read it pick it up next time your shopping. I am looking for all the cross-over issues.

Salvation Run stars the a Flashes rogues and I have been on the look out for the 7 issue limited series.  I highly recommend it if you are a fan of the villains.

 X-Force is filled with Rob Liefeld goodness. I really enjoyed the art back when these first came out. such detail. I also recently picked up a copy of issue #1 at Special Edition:NYC. Think I might piece together an entire run. Plus X-Force #2 is the second apperance of Deadpool. We all love Deadpool.

Same goes for the Invaders, I picked up a copy of #1 recently so why not start another title search, one book at a time.

I has never heard of the Brigade but it has. Liefeld cover and looked like one of the great attempts at heroes by Image. We'll get deep into Image in a future post.

Finally the Legion of the Superheroes was just because. Never read the title but have heard so many good things about it. Time to give it a try.




We also picked up three DVDs for .75 each. Batman Begins, Catwoman and the Hulk. We are planning on watching every Superhero movie ever made this coming summer. We are starting with the 1966 Batman and ending with Guardians of the Galaxy. We will be creating a video blog to give our reviews so keep an eye out for more updates.

Good luck in your Hunt
#jointhehunt