This Nerd Will Not Be Defeated

What do you do when your storage locker can no longer fit all your stuff? Well, you could get a bigger storage locker. Or, if your locker is full of comic books, you could rent a table at a comic book and toy sellers’ convention and try to sell off your collection.

That’s what I did last spring, sort of. After sorting through thousands of comics, magazines and other collectibles, I took what I deemed as expendable to the Vancouver Comic and Toy Show at the PNE Forum. By the end of the weekend, I had done quite well — I’d sold enough to cover my expenses for working the show and a year’s worth of storage fees. With, perhaps, a little leftover for cat meds.

But, as I continued to pay a monthly fee for my 5’x11’ crypt at the end of Terminal Avenue, I began to think about Tibetan monks. Specifically, how Tibetan monks don’t think their lives are incomplete without a complete run of Watchmen comic books. In fact, they are probably happier.

I decided to work another show. But this year I had a different approach — everything must go. There would be no sacred Hellcows.

It was time to do away with my collector’s mindset once and for all.

Day 1: Friday, April 4

2:30 p.m.: As I’m pulling a trolley loaded with boxes of comics out of Main Mini Storage, I see a guy doing exactly the same thing. I recognize him as a local comic bookstore employee. He too is going to be working this weekend’s show.

He mentions that at one time he had reduced his collection to 50 short boxes (a typical “short box” holds just over 100 comics, bagged and boarded for their protection) but now he’s back up to 90.

I tell him of my dream — to live simply, as monks do, without monthly storage fees. The way he looks at it, he says, is that he works these shows to pay the fees to store his collection to work these shows. Hmmm. Am I looking at this all wrong?

5:30 p.m.: It’s a glorious spring night on the PNE grounds. The sky is the colour of Mr. Fantastic’s tights and the cherry blossoms are Barbie pink. The show doesn’t open to the public until Saturday morning at 11 a.m., but early load-in begins at 4 p.m. on Friday and the parking lot is already full when I arrive.

I park in the spill-off lot and struggle up an incline with an unsteady cargo of boxes on a listing dolly to get to the vendors’ entrance. I am optimistic that I will be home by eight, in time to watch a movie or relax with a book.

6:15 p.m.: As I watch my fellow exhibitors set up, it’s hard not to feel embarrassed by my poor retail skills.

Not only do I have no shelves, display cases or signs, but just about everything I’ve brought needs to be priced or repriced. This is a process that, when done right, means researching the value of each individual comic so as not to rip your own self off by selling cheap.

Despite the work that needs to be done, I am still optimistic about getting home at a reasonable hour.

9:17 p.m.: Home at last. Even after three hours’ prep I’m not nearly ready for tomorrow.

Day 2: Saturday, April 5

8:30 a.m.: As I discovered last year, some vendors like to cherry-pick the most desirable comics from fish like me before the doors open to the public. I had shooed off a few of them the night before but, this morning, they’re coming around again.

One guy really wants my Giant-Size Man-Thing #4 (no jokes please). Despite my everything-must-go policy, I can’t bear to part with the 1974 Marvel comic — it features an early appearance of Howard the Duck, one of my favourite characters.

And what if Disney announces a new Howard film or his guest appearance in a new season of Loki or whatever? Then the value will shoot up and I will really regret parting with the mint-condition rarity.

Another vendor asks if I’m ready to part with that copy of Amputee Love that I refused to sell him last year. According to eBay, the asking price is somewhere between USD $220 to $400 for the 1974 underground, which is exactly what its title implies — a comic about the sex lives of amputees.

I would sell it if I had it with me — Netflix won’t be making a streaming version any time soon — but I think it’s probably still in my storage locker.

With over 30 boxes, I couldn’t bring everything with me in one go. I just grabbed as many boxes as I could without throwing out my back.

10:30 a.m.: Technically, the PNE Forum consists of two rooms, north and south, although for this event there is no barrier between them. The south room, where the main entrance is and which is home to the professional, seasoned dealers, is the larger of the two. My table is off in the no-man’s-land to the north, which seems to be populated mostly by toy sellers and crafts people.

At the table to my right, Mandy Kozie is selling handmade earrings that feature teeny-tiny Hulks, Pringles cans and other pop culture iconography. She works in movies and TV in costume design and calls her side hustle Kozie Kreations.

On my left, Kent Campbell is helping his son Spence set up shelves of model kits and toys based on Japanese anime and manga. Spence recently opened a store called Vesperia Manga & Comics in Kitsilano. Across from us, Squirrel Sprout Illustrations is selling stickers and tote bags, including some with pro-Canada or anti-tariff messaging.

Next to Squirrel Sprout is Magical Reveries, with fantasy and nature art by Victoria. Somehow, I don’t think the guys in the Wolverine costumes are going to be stopping by their tables.

11 a.m.: The doors open and the games begin. I am far from being organized.

1:15 p.m.: Do you know those stories about twins who, after being separated at birth, both end up being commercial airline pilots or Conservative speechwriters? What about cousins who both become comic book collectors?

Ken and I are over 10 years apart in age and never knew each other while growing up in Winnipeg, but by weird coincidence we both discovered comics at an early age and caught the collecting bug. While there is some overlap in our collections, Ken veered away from superhero comics at an early age and went on to amass a priceless selection of undergrounds. And by “priceless” I mean that, after he dumped them all on me, I found a price for them at last year’s show. This weekend, he has come to help, giving me the chance to leave the table for a while and check out my fellow vendors.

1:45: In 1975, Richard Comely created Captain Canuck, a Canadian answer to American crime-fighters. Apparently, there is renewed interest in the character following the recent wave of patriotism. Comely is one of the guests at this year’s show, along with Vancouver’s own James Lloyd, comics writer Steven Scott, and other industry professionals.

The guests are situated in the middle of the Forum, between the north and south rooms, where they meet fans and sign autographs. Also present: a Greater Vancouver Food Bank booth with Star Wars characters posing for photos by donation. This explains the Star Wars theme that played non-stop before the doors opened this morning.

3:30 p.m.: Back at our table. A guy walks by with an animal carrier strapped to his back. Inside are two live ferrets. Ferret-man?

5 p.m.: Frank Miller time. (Nerd in-joke; Miller’s the creator of, among other things, the paunchy Batman series The Dark Knight.) Yes, I need a beer, or three. But I also need a plan for the next day.

Mandy of Kozie Kreations says that rain is expected, which means that parking near the loading entrance is paramount — who wants to schlep comic books in the rain?

But I also want to load up with a fresh supply of comics before the show starts at 11. This means another trip to my crypt, but the storage building doesn’t open until 10 and by then all the good parking at the Forum will be gone.

It looks like it will take all my superpowers to figure a way out of this one. Or I’ll just call Blake.

Day 3: Sunday, April 6

10:10 a.m.: Blake, a friend who should know better by now, picks me up not far from the PNE. It is in fact raining, and I’ve parked near the Forum, reserving my spot. Blake drives me to the end of Terminal so I can get more boxes. I leave him with the building attendant, who tells him about the increasing lack of civility from the neighbourhood hard-to-house substance users while I grab another five boxes of superhero comic books from my storage locker of privilege.

11:15 a.m.: It would appear that none of the newly arrived boxes contain Amputee Love.

12:00 p.m.: “Do you have any Star Reach?” asks Rheanna. I’ve been waiting all my life for a woman to ask me this. Or any comics-related question, for that matter.

Rheanna is an illustrator who sells her “dark art” under the name softasvulvet. She is working at a table in the south room with a friend. Someone came by their table with a few issues of Star Reach and she’s come to see if I have any more. It’s just this kind of word-of-mouth that is making this weekend an enjoyable one. Well, that and not working on my novel.

1:30 p.m.: My cousin returns to help. Which is great, except that he’s right there when people make offers for his stuff. So even though he basically donated all of his personal stash to me, I feel it’s only right that he pocket the cash in certain instances.

There’s something circle-of-life-esque about customers buying a copy of the first comic ever published in Winnipeg (Polar Funnies, 1972) and a limited-edition portfolio (The Edgar Allan Poe Portfolio by Bernie Wrightson, 2,000 copies, 1976) from the person who bought them in the first place.

2:00 p.m.: Finally, I can relax. Nearly everything on our table is priced, so I leave Ken in charge once again with instructions to make sure that the haggler in the black baseball cap pays full price, a measly six bucks, for a 1971 Monsters on the Prowl comic. Making the rounds of the south room I come across a dealer pulling out Smokey the Bear comic books for a young woman dressed like a cross between a Girl Guide and a forest ranger. In this safe space for niche, this is about as niche as niche gets.

2:45 p.m.: Back at our table. A guy in his thirties is buying up a bunch of alternative and independent comics from the ’80s and ’90s, including my (Ken’s) three issues of The Flaming Carrot. This leads to a conversation about the character’s origin — how, after reading 5,000 comics in one sitting, a guy turns into a flaming carrot.

It’s the kind of discussion one can only have at an event like this, and certainly not on Hinge.

2:46 p.m.: I see a second dude in a Wolverine costume.

5:00 p.m.: Closing time. As we’re packing up, Kent from Vesperia asks how my weekend went. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I did really well (well enough, at least, to pay for half a year’s storage and another month or two of cat meds). Being one of the only comics vendors in the vicinity probably helped. But I was also selling a lot of stuff that no one else seemed to have. “You have one of the smallest selections but the best table!” one guy told us. “I came back three times.”

5:10 p.m.: While schlepping my dolly of comics to my car in the rain, a thought occurs.

Maybe this is just the beginning.

Maybe I’ve been building up my collection all these years for a reason. Maybe this is the new career path I’ve been searching for.

If so, I might have to start buying again — not just selling. How else can I keep my customers coming back?

As Marvel’s florid co-creator and publisher might say, “If this be my destiny!”