Richard Kelsey wrote to ask…
You have been to every Comic-Con and probably a lot of other comic conventions. Is shopping still a part of the convention experience for you? Is there still a comic or other type of collectible that you try to find when you go to a convention? Or is that no longer a factor for your trips to conventions?
If the latter, when was the last time that you shopped and found something at a convention and what was it?
Once upon a time, I bought lots of stuff at every comic convention I attended. Of course also, once upon a time, I had empty space in my home. For reasons of Nowhere To Put Stuff, I had to curtail my purchasing. Also, as I became more active in the business, I was placed on a lot of comp lists and as I wrote columns and blogged, I was on more lists to receive review copies. So some things I might once have purchased came to me free and some, I just decided I could live without.
I stopped filling in missing issues in my comic book collection. At some point, I reached the stage where anything I wanted but didn't have was going for a price I wouldn't pay. Many of you are nodding your heads in understanding. So I wasn't buying old stuff and the new stuff I wanted and didn't receive gratis could be easily ordered online. My purchasing at conventions went way, way down…some years, to Zero.
An awful lot of what I did buy at the Comic-Con in San Diego when I did buy, I bought from Bud Plant's wondrous display. For a long, long time, Bud Plant Books had the biggest/best spread of new books filled with comics or new books about comics. I also bought a lot of stuff from Bud via mail order…which I preferred because I didn't have to carry it around the con for hours, then back to my room, then down to my car (assuming I had a car there that year) and then into my house. A couple of years there, I walked around Bud's booth, took notes and then placed an order they would ship to me when they got back to their base of operations.
Bud finally stopped exhibiting at San Diego. 2017 was his last year there and with great luck, that was the year I decided to take along a certificate I had from him for credit. I'd found it some time earlier in a folder in my file cabinet and thought, "Hey, I ought to take this down to the con and use this up." And then I forgot and I forgot and I forgot until finally in '17, I remembered.
I have no idea why but I had around $250 worth of credit on it. I took the slip to his booth and asked one of Bud's salesfolks if there'd be any problem honoring it. It was dated 1993. The fellow's eyebrows hit the ceiling but he checked with Bud and Bud said sure, of course, fine. I then wound up buying about $600 worth of books and paying the difference so I think — I hope — Bud made a profit on my redemption. That was the last purchase of anything notable (anything except food and beverage) I recall making at a convention. It was also the first in quite some time.
