In 1990 I had a good vibe about the Magnus/Solar offerings.
Moderators: Daniel Jackson, greg
-
Draco
- Well I think I talked enough poop...
- Posts: 10178
- Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:44 pm
- Valiant fan since: preordered vh1 from start
- Favorite character: X-O from vh1
- Favorite title: X-O vh1
- Favorite writer: Good question?
- Favorite artist: ooooh another good question
- Location: Dead Universe Comics, Buckinghamshire, England
In 1990 I had a good vibe about the Magnus/Solar offerings.
Hey guys,
heres the story of how i was lucky to be there right at the beginning as a massive UK Valiant fan from before most people knew they existed.
I had started ordering new comics way back when in 1990 and i was even luckier to have the opportunity to order the first pre Unity issues.
My ordering was not huge having only a small customer base from selling at a local huge weekly car boot sale.
Even so i still felt there was something very different and appealing about these titles and characters, so i put a number ten in the quantity box for all and any titles they solicited.
Sadly enough i only had the first issues arrive just before my good friend and at that time business partner Stan, decided selling comics part time was too time consuming for him.
As i had no driving license or transport f my own, my little comics adventure ground to a halt in no time.
This meant they had very little exposure to anyone and after receving only the first two issues i had a four month break from selling, but the pre orders were still coming in and sitting untouched. To the point that i had ten Titan( evenually gobbled up by diamond) Comic Distributors boxes completely untouched in my hall and they stayed that way till the summer. Sure i flicked through them as they arrived and removed a reading pile from each box, but these lovelies were serious high grade niceties.
As myself and another friend started to sell again at local Car boot sales the boxes were slowly uncovered and the Valiants were not given much attention, although i sold a few on recommendation to people who knew i had good taste
By the Summer we had already traded at a few London comic marts and had a prominent space at one in particular.
I will never forget that day as it was the day that Valiant comics seemed to took off in the UK( well at London shows anyway).
I was asked by a few people at my stall if i had any Valiants and as we had a small set up and no display boards our set up was just boxes a-z.
I dug out a few #1's of Solar and magnus which were the only titles i recall having that day and sold them to two happy punters.
Now the stall was busy and we had already built a reputation in a short time for having a good stock that was well priced and lots of it.
Given this it was incredible to see the Valiant message spread inside what seemed like five minutes and ill never forget the looks on my two friends faces as more and more people asked us about this new publisher, with many people mis pronouncing the publisher and titles.
I can only recall selling to two people at cover price much to their delight (obviously they were better connected at the time to the comics world at large and knew they hit gold) before we slowly raised the prices as each one sold.
Although i was not trading locally , i still attended all the shows & picked up extra copies of the first few Magnus and Solar for 50p from retailers who had them in, but couldnt sell them and junked them as they did any non selling imports
This was a massive bonus that first day or i would have sold out there and then, having no inroad to sell to all the all the new vultures at future shows and we all know what happened months later with the ever growing boom and insane soaring prices.
A friend who was very well connected and part of major joint UK/US retail venture, mentioned to me one day at a show that Valiant were hot and gonna be massive soon, confirming my belief that they were going to be special.
Thats when i started to pick all copies up.
I remember thinking wow i really nailed this one and boy did I ever.
The next few months were great at the shows, but the local scene was a slow rebuild and so we couldnt really continue to order new product, although i still wanted certain titles and definitely Valiant i had to reign it in for a while.
I had already subsidised the imports with my wages and that was doable for six months before i realised i needed to eat too.
This was when the first real Valiant heartbreak occured.
There was mix up with my account and some bright spark had paid large sums of money into our Distributor account accidently leaving me thinking i was better off than i thought. i had no interest in paperwork till years end and so thought i had paid my bills, but was hit with £800 suddenly.
As i paid it back ( quite quickly too, to be fair) all comics that were held for me( scumbags wouldnt ship my stuff
) got placed back on the shelfs in the warehouse unbeknownst to me.
This had to include Harbinger 1 to 5 and so on and so on.
This really hurt as although we knew Valiant had hit jackpot we had no regular info hitting us and no 5 minute internet update at our finger tips.
So we were not to know what had happened to Harbinger # 1 were we.
The next show of note i recall was a decent sized show in Manchester (and boy did we have fun at Manchester shows, see Drifts sorytelling prowess unfold for further on this viewtopic.php?p=440729&highlight=#440729) where we witnessed the Valiant madness hit new heights.
A few fellow traders had just got back from A US convention and carried back with them all the books we didnt have,so we traded as much as they would let us and paid hard cash for any we could afford at the end of the day too.
I recall their prices on Harbinger # 1 being £22, but i think he let us have some crazy price like £7 as we spunked a fortune with them almost singlehandedly clearing their entire Valiant inventory that day.
Others had a good pick too so it was nice to see that the madness had spread, but this was still early days on the prices to be seen.
This madness was obviously shared by other companies like Image to name but one and its not like Marvel didnt have a heap of books all doing loopy things price wise.
It strange when i look back, for as the prices rose and the rise continued i found slowly but surely i was edged out as always when something goes ballistic.
The big boys simply steamrollered us with sheer volume.
This was hard going after being so instrumental in spreading the good word so early and being quick off themark to recognise the greatnesss.
At the same time i quickly got over the loss, as you can do so easily when something you hold dearly, but is small enough for you feel among a priviliged few becomes mainstream so to speak.
After the glut that was the summer of '93 i was ready to go do the one thing i had built my life to avoid which was doing work other than for myself.
I knew it was coming and in the end had little problem moving away from my life long dream, as i slipped comfortably into a world of partying easily acquired by my new bar job
The state of the marketplace as i saw it was dire.
So many retailers all trying to punt the same hot books and Variants(been happening again of recent, but a bit more controlled and a rant for another thread) sickened me to the point of refusing to take place, finding it a struggle to make honest money with most traders happy to say whatever was requred to keep the pretense up and an easy buck.
God i do not miss that.
What i did miss though was the Gold rush i.e Archer & Armstrong # 0 Gold, Eternal Warrior Gold etc.
I was not someone who got caught in the hype at that point, knowing better and seeing the industry for what it was and not the rose tinted glasses everone else was so happy to continue wearing.
I saw the books changing hands at £50-75 and knew madness when i saw it.
i didnt get one single crazy priced book for myself in terms of premiums and had all the pre Unity books from new pretty much, including some multiples to sell whenever i needed more beer
I picked up a Unity # 0 Red for £20 or 30 for a friend reduced £10 or so from one of the traders who was ok for discount, but that was hard work back then with way too many greedy bastiches taking the p***.
I also recall trading for a Rai # 3 to give to a friend for his birthday at £17, but that was nothing as i watched my other friend pay someone £40 and that was hard to watch believe me.
My friend for whom i bought the Rai # 3 got money problems and decided to cash in quicky on the Valiants.
he had done well with his selection so i sold them all in one hit to one of the larger retailers who i was good friends with and made myself £200 in a handshake which paid for beer for a week.
By the time i stopped selling locally late '93 i had pretty much sold my entire stock, keeping the earlier standard books for myself and a few posters and what happened next was really harsh.
I lost most of what i owned outside of my main personal comic collection in a bodged house move and through arguments with my then landlord.
A lot of my private stuff was binned to probably the tune of $20,000.
This was including two filing cabinets full of promos and my Marvel Uk Captain Britains etc.
The promos i cherished the most back then were my Valiants.
I had stuff that i have never seen since.
A weird mixture of shapes and sizes.
I swear to this day that i had some very strange looking Magnus promo sheets that had a slightly different look to what Valiant finally put out, but cant give many details due to those three years around '92 to '95 being somewhat blotchy with all the partying.
I never did actually deal with the loss to be fair, preferring to put it to back of my mind knowing there was nothing i could do to change what had occured.
I did a few shows here and there from mid ' 95 to early '97 and my friend sold some guy £400 of Valiants ata show and they were all standard issues priced between £1.50-3.50.
We lived like kings that month
I finally got back into retailing for good in '98 and was helped by an amazing X-men collection that was pretty amazing completist wise, spanning from X-men # 1 1963 up to the present issues, with all attatching series and crossovers.
However as cool as it was i found Valiants immediately and cared little for my Marvel Silver gems etc.
I soon started to hoard any Pre Unity books i could find which were not many.
I never did get any choice premiums from shows and only ebay Uk has tuned a couple of the big books, but im always there waiting to pounce
Now im almost there for my first vh1 set after finding this site, slowly becoming one with my inner comic illness after years of desperately wanting to share with like minded afflicted.
I do collect anything that says Valiant and have also succumbed to Acclaim anything too, but i collect Marvel Star comics so it was all over a long time ago right !!
Anyway thats me i think.
cheers for being so cool ya'll and hope you enjoyed my story that may or may not be 100% accurate with dates etc, but who really cares eh?
Peace and im out.
draco
heres the story of how i was lucky to be there right at the beginning as a massive UK Valiant fan from before most people knew they existed.
I had started ordering new comics way back when in 1990 and i was even luckier to have the opportunity to order the first pre Unity issues.
My ordering was not huge having only a small customer base from selling at a local huge weekly car boot sale.
Even so i still felt there was something very different and appealing about these titles and characters, so i put a number ten in the quantity box for all and any titles they solicited.
Sadly enough i only had the first issues arrive just before my good friend and at that time business partner Stan, decided selling comics part time was too time consuming for him.
As i had no driving license or transport f my own, my little comics adventure ground to a halt in no time.
This meant they had very little exposure to anyone and after receving only the first two issues i had a four month break from selling, but the pre orders were still coming in and sitting untouched. To the point that i had ten Titan( evenually gobbled up by diamond) Comic Distributors boxes completely untouched in my hall and they stayed that way till the summer. Sure i flicked through them as they arrived and removed a reading pile from each box, but these lovelies were serious high grade niceties.
As myself and another friend started to sell again at local Car boot sales the boxes were slowly uncovered and the Valiants were not given much attention, although i sold a few on recommendation to people who knew i had good taste
By the Summer we had already traded at a few London comic marts and had a prominent space at one in particular.
I will never forget that day as it was the day that Valiant comics seemed to took off in the UK( well at London shows anyway).
I was asked by a few people at my stall if i had any Valiants and as we had a small set up and no display boards our set up was just boxes a-z.
I dug out a few #1's of Solar and magnus which were the only titles i recall having that day and sold them to two happy punters.
Now the stall was busy and we had already built a reputation in a short time for having a good stock that was well priced and lots of it.
Given this it was incredible to see the Valiant message spread inside what seemed like five minutes and ill never forget the looks on my two friends faces as more and more people asked us about this new publisher, with many people mis pronouncing the publisher and titles.
I can only recall selling to two people at cover price much to their delight (obviously they were better connected at the time to the comics world at large and knew they hit gold) before we slowly raised the prices as each one sold.
Although i was not trading locally , i still attended all the shows & picked up extra copies of the first few Magnus and Solar for 50p from retailers who had them in, but couldnt sell them and junked them as they did any non selling imports
This was a massive bonus that first day or i would have sold out there and then, having no inroad to sell to all the all the new vultures at future shows and we all know what happened months later with the ever growing boom and insane soaring prices.
A friend who was very well connected and part of major joint UK/US retail venture, mentioned to me one day at a show that Valiant were hot and gonna be massive soon, confirming my belief that they were going to be special.
Thats when i started to pick all copies up.
I remember thinking wow i really nailed this one and boy did I ever.
The next few months were great at the shows, but the local scene was a slow rebuild and so we couldnt really continue to order new product, although i still wanted certain titles and definitely Valiant i had to reign it in for a while.
I had already subsidised the imports with my wages and that was doable for six months before i realised i needed to eat too.
This was when the first real Valiant heartbreak occured.
There was mix up with my account and some bright spark had paid large sums of money into our Distributor account accidently leaving me thinking i was better off than i thought. i had no interest in paperwork till years end and so thought i had paid my bills, but was hit with £800 suddenly.
As i paid it back ( quite quickly too, to be fair) all comics that were held for me( scumbags wouldnt ship my stuff
) got placed back on the shelfs in the warehouse unbeknownst to me.This had to include Harbinger 1 to 5 and so on and so on.
This really hurt as although we knew Valiant had hit jackpot we had no regular info hitting us and no 5 minute internet update at our finger tips.
So we were not to know what had happened to Harbinger # 1 were we.
The next show of note i recall was a decent sized show in Manchester (and boy did we have fun at Manchester shows, see Drifts sorytelling prowess unfold for further on this viewtopic.php?p=440729&highlight=#440729) where we witnessed the Valiant madness hit new heights.
A few fellow traders had just got back from A US convention and carried back with them all the books we didnt have,so we traded as much as they would let us and paid hard cash for any we could afford at the end of the day too.
I recall their prices on Harbinger # 1 being £22, but i think he let us have some crazy price like £7 as we spunked a fortune with them almost singlehandedly clearing their entire Valiant inventory that day.
Others had a good pick too so it was nice to see that the madness had spread, but this was still early days on the prices to be seen.
This madness was obviously shared by other companies like Image to name but one and its not like Marvel didnt have a heap of books all doing loopy things price wise.
It strange when i look back, for as the prices rose and the rise continued i found slowly but surely i was edged out as always when something goes ballistic.
The big boys simply steamrollered us with sheer volume.
This was hard going after being so instrumental in spreading the good word so early and being quick off themark to recognise the greatnesss.
At the same time i quickly got over the loss, as you can do so easily when something you hold dearly, but is small enough for you feel among a priviliged few becomes mainstream so to speak.
After the glut that was the summer of '93 i was ready to go do the one thing i had built my life to avoid which was doing work other than for myself.
I knew it was coming and in the end had little problem moving away from my life long dream, as i slipped comfortably into a world of partying easily acquired by my new bar job
The state of the marketplace as i saw it was dire.
So many retailers all trying to punt the same hot books and Variants(been happening again of recent, but a bit more controlled and a rant for another thread) sickened me to the point of refusing to take place, finding it a struggle to make honest money with most traders happy to say whatever was requred to keep the pretense up and an easy buck.
God i do not miss that.
What i did miss though was the Gold rush i.e Archer & Armstrong # 0 Gold, Eternal Warrior Gold etc.
I was not someone who got caught in the hype at that point, knowing better and seeing the industry for what it was and not the rose tinted glasses everone else was so happy to continue wearing.
I saw the books changing hands at £50-75 and knew madness when i saw it.
i didnt get one single crazy priced book for myself in terms of premiums and had all the pre Unity books from new pretty much, including some multiples to sell whenever i needed more beer
I picked up a Unity # 0 Red for £20 or 30 for a friend reduced £10 or so from one of the traders who was ok for discount, but that was hard work back then with way too many greedy bastiches taking the p***.
I also recall trading for a Rai # 3 to give to a friend for his birthday at £17, but that was nothing as i watched my other friend pay someone £40 and that was hard to watch believe me.
My friend for whom i bought the Rai # 3 got money problems and decided to cash in quicky on the Valiants.
he had done well with his selection so i sold them all in one hit to one of the larger retailers who i was good friends with and made myself £200 in a handshake which paid for beer for a week.
By the time i stopped selling locally late '93 i had pretty much sold my entire stock, keeping the earlier standard books for myself and a few posters and what happened next was really harsh.
I lost most of what i owned outside of my main personal comic collection in a bodged house move and through arguments with my then landlord.
A lot of my private stuff was binned to probably the tune of $20,000.
This was including two filing cabinets full of promos and my Marvel Uk Captain Britains etc.
The promos i cherished the most back then were my Valiants.
I had stuff that i have never seen since.
A weird mixture of shapes and sizes.
I swear to this day that i had some very strange looking Magnus promo sheets that had a slightly different look to what Valiant finally put out, but cant give many details due to those three years around '92 to '95 being somewhat blotchy with all the partying.
I never did actually deal with the loss to be fair, preferring to put it to back of my mind knowing there was nothing i could do to change what had occured.
I did a few shows here and there from mid ' 95 to early '97 and my friend sold some guy £400 of Valiants ata show and they were all standard issues priced between £1.50-3.50.
We lived like kings that month
I finally got back into retailing for good in '98 and was helped by an amazing X-men collection that was pretty amazing completist wise, spanning from X-men # 1 1963 up to the present issues, with all attatching series and crossovers.
However as cool as it was i found Valiants immediately and cared little for my Marvel Silver gems etc.
I soon started to hoard any Pre Unity books i could find which were not many.
I never did get any choice premiums from shows and only ebay Uk has tuned a couple of the big books, but im always there waiting to pounce
Now im almost there for my first vh1 set after finding this site, slowly becoming one with my inner comic illness after years of desperately wanting to share with like minded afflicted.
I do collect anything that says Valiant and have also succumbed to Acclaim anything too, but i collect Marvel Star comics so it was all over a long time ago right !!
Anyway thats me i think.
cheers for being so cool ya'll and hope you enjoyed my story that may or may not be 100% accurate with dates etc, but who really cares eh?
Peace and im out.
draco
-
Daniel Jackson
- A toast to the return of Valiant!
- Posts: 38007
- Joined: Mon Jun 21, 2004 8:33 pm
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JustCallMeAric
- ...remember that they are just paper.
- Posts: 3682
- Joined: Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:30 pm
- Location: Where the Wild Things are
)-
Draco
- Well I think I talked enough poop...
- Posts: 10178
- Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:44 pm
- Valiant fan since: preordered vh1 from start
- Favorite character: X-O from vh1
- Favorite title: X-O vh1
- Favorite writer: Good question?
- Favorite artist: ooooh another good question
- Location: Dead Universe Comics, Buckinghamshire, England
( -
Draco
- Well I think I talked enough poop...
- Posts: 10178
- Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:44 pm
- Valiant fan since: preordered vh1 from start
- Favorite character: X-O from vh1
- Favorite title: X-O vh1
- Favorite writer: Good question?
- Favorite artist: ooooh another good question
- Location: Dead Universe Comics, Buckinghamshire, England
-
Rufusharley
- donkey-shorts!..uhh i mean..danke schön!
- Posts: 6431
- Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:49 am
- Location: Charleston, SC
-
worldsbestcomics
- A CGC 9.8 pre-Unity complete set? Done.
- Posts: 1315
- Joined: Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:39 pm
- Location: Olympia, Washington
-
Draco
- Well I think I talked enough poop...
- Posts: 10178
- Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:44 pm
- Valiant fan since: preordered vh1 from start
- Favorite character: X-O from vh1
- Favorite title: X-O vh1
- Favorite writer: Good question?
- Favorite artist: ooooh another good question
- Location: Dead Universe Comics, Buckinghamshire, England
-
Draco
- Well I think I talked enough poop...
- Posts: 10178
- Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:44 pm
- Valiant fan since: preordered vh1 from start
- Favorite character: X-O from vh1
- Favorite title: X-O vh1
- Favorite writer: Good question?
- Favorite artist: ooooh another good question
- Location: Dead Universe Comics, Buckinghamshire, England
-
TKWill
- Don't squeeze the Deathmate!
- Posts: 4644
- Joined: Mon Apr 16, 2007 12:42 am
- Location: Richardson, TX
When I saw "TUC" I was tempted to post a picture of Ryan Reynolds from "Buying the Cow" but thought better of it. You should all thank me, unless you go to youtube and watch it.
**Edit** Alright, NSFW but still funny as all get out. No nudity.............kind of.
**Edit** Alright, NSFW but still funny as all get out. No nudity.............kind of.
Last edited by TKWill on Sat Oct 11, 2008 9:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
Rufusharley
- donkey-shorts!..uhh i mean..danke schön!
- Posts: 6431
- Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:49 am
- Location: Charleston, SC
Oh man!TKWill wrote:When I saw "TUC" I was tempted to post a picture of Ryan Reynolds from "Buying the Cow" but thought better of it. You should all thank me, unless you go to youtube and watch it.
Any time you can quote 'silence of the lambz' it's comic gold!(oh, and nsfw
)