RETURN OF THE GARAGE SALE

My next Vast Accumulation of Stuff garage sale will be Friday and Saturday, June 7 and 8, from 9 am to 1 pm each day. The location is my home at 840 Damon Drive, Medina, OH

My first sale of the summer was a tremendous success. I made 136% of my two-day goal. I had wonderful conversations with customers and friends. I saw a great many fans excited about their bargain-priced purchases. It was a fun and profitable weekend all around.

My garage sales are always unknown quantities. I don’t know what’s going to be in them until I’m done restocking and I don’t know what will sell any particular weekend.

Some of my biggest sellers were the more expensive (but still very cheap) older comics. As I expected, the Lois Lane issues from the 1960s did very well. Some of those issues, including the infamous “I Am Curious...Black” issue, will still be available this weekend. You’ll also find issues of Marvel’s Collectors Item Classics, just to name one more title. More will be added.

My stuff always does well at these sales. I sold a number of Black Lightning trades along with individual issues of Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands. Isabella-adjacent books like Gorgo Vs. Konga (with an introduction by me) and Scooby-Doo Team-Up (guest-starring Black Lightning) also sold briskly.

Last weekend’s garage sales also saw the debut of the exclusive-to-me Marvel’s Greatest Creators: Tony Isabella #1 variant edition of the first appearance of Misty Knight. Selling at $10, it features a cover showing Misty in action for the first time and is limited to 1000 signed and numbered copies. Copies #101-110 were available at the garage sale; #101 and #106 sold.

If you’d like to order one of these exclusive signed and numbered comics, the cost is $20 for U.S. residents. If you’re ordering from outside the country, I’ll need to adjust the price accordingly. For more details, e-mail me.

I sold out of the Commando digests within the first hour of sales. Commando is a British war comic that covers all the modern-day wars with the occasional foray into the distant past or even the future. I’m several months behind on this weekly title and try to read at least one a day, so you’ll see a few new issues in upcoming garage sales. Don’t expect them to last long.

Hardbacks, trade paperbacks, quarter and dollar comics sold well. I’ve been restocking those all week.

What didn’t sell? Collectible phones, manga and posters. The phones are always unpredictable. I’ve had customers come in and buy almost every one on display. If the phones don’t sell at their already low prices, I drop the prices even more for the next sale.

The manga volumes are priced at fifty cents each. I’m not sure that I sold any of them during my first sale. However, like the phones, some customer will show up and buy stacks of them. Which is a good thing since I just discovered a few more boxes of them.

The posters are pretty cool. The double-sided Superman poster that I conceived for Cleveland’s International Superman Expo of 1988 is a steady seller. I’m down to my last two dozen of that one. Other available posters include three different Black Lightning posters, one drawn by local artist Dan Gorman; a Hawkman poster, also drawn by Gorman; and mini-posters featuring Daredevil and Luke Cage. The mini-posters are reproductions of covers of issues I wrote of those titles. Like some of the other items, customers tend to buy several posters at once.

Other sale items include: Black Lightning pins at six bucks each; 1000 Comic Books You Must Read; July 1963: A Pivotal Month in the Comic-Book Life of Tony Isabella; our popular mystery boxes at $10 each; and the British weekly Beano at a mere ten cents per issue.

What else will be available depends on what I discover in the many boxes scattered throughout the four corners of my house. I’m always finding terrific items and pricing them to sell.

One more thing. My garage sales are currently the only venue where I sign comic books and other Isabella items for free. I don’t mind signing items you’ve brought from home. That said, you don’t want to be that ungrateful comics fan who comes for the free signatures and doesn’t buy anything. I do a mean stink-eye.

Life has been chaotic for me for most of the year. But I’m working hard at getting back on track, reducing stress in my life, giving myself more personal time. Thanks for your encouragement online and your support of my garage sales locally. It helps a great deal more than you realize.

I’ll be back soon with more stuff.
 
© 2019 Tony Isabella

THIS IS WHO I AM

The above is my favorite convention photo of all time. Baby Thunder brought such joy to every one who saw her. One friend of mine said that is what I’ve accomplished in my career. I made it possible for kids like her to believe they, too, can be heroes. Though I think my friend gives me too much credit, his comment makes me feel even more committed to inclusion in comic books.

I have a reason for sharing this photo and my friend’s comment with you. Bear with me.

Today was the start of the first Vast Accumulation of Stuff garage sales of 2019. It was a great start in which I made 106% of my two-day goal for the weekend. Even if I don’t make a single sale on the morrow, I’ve still made my goal.

I had a great time chatting with customers who have become friends and old friends who have become customers. Some of my responses to questions and some of the stories from my career I shared with will end up in future installments of this bloggy thing of mine or one of my several books in progress.

I’m too exhausted to do a major restocking for tomorrow’s sale, but I have gone through a few boxes and added some really nice trades and hardcovers to the sale. I also came across an e-mail I received after I was a guest at a convention. I have redacted proper names from the e-mail since it was a private communication:

I love you, Mr. Isabella. Every person on my team that works with you falls in love with you. It is my absolute pleasure to help you during your [redacted] visit. It’s fun to hear Mr. Isabella every time [redacted] or I see you.

That e-mail is a keeper.

I hadn’t planned on writing and posting a bloggy thing today. But two other communications and my coming across that e-mail changed my mind. I have something to get off my chest.

After I posted the photo of Baby Thunder and myself, I received an anonymous message from a disgusting jerk who trolls from behind his anonymity and, in doing so, reveals what an absolute coward he is. It was a short message:

I always knew you were a pedophile.

What kind of filth looks at that photo and goes there?

Shortly after midnight, I was reading about the Dumpster President needing to be protected from seeing a Navy vessel named for one of his political rivals. I posted this:

Did I disagree with many of the late John McCain's choices and positions? Yes, I did. But, you know, he was still a billion times a better person than the Baby President Dumpster.

Most readers gave a presumed nod of agreement to that post. Some of them added their own equally negative opinions of the criminal in the White House. One guy didn’t.

He’s been blocked from my Twitter feed, but I’m pretty sure he’s a MAGA hat-wearing jerk who I met at a convention a few years back. He asked for a signature on a book I’d written. That was before I started charging for my signature. I said I would be happy to sign his book if he would remove his MAGA hat while I did so. He got all huffy and scampered away with his balls up his ass and, to be clear about it, without my signature.

The more I learned about this guy, the more I realized I wouldn’t give him a signature even if he was willing to pay for it. I found out he had harassed a friend of mine on several occasions. He was a privileged right-wing asshole. If I see him at other conventions, I will alert security to his presence.

His comment on my Facebook/Twitter post was to tell met I was a hypocrite. Forgive me for using words more precise that his angry ranting. He said I hated John McCain (not true) and I never voted for McCain (actually true) and something to the effect that Trump had saved us all from the economic ruin left behind by Obama. That last is not true because, of course, Trump inherited an improving economy from Obama and has since made certain that any improvement since then benefits the rich more than anyone else.

I never hated John McCain. I was disappointed by him. It bothered me to see him pander to the worse parts of the Republican Party and how, in doing so, he helped make sure that there are no longer any good parts of the Republican Party. Because I can read and think, I also knew McCain was not the maverick his supporters have claimed he was. His voting record was, overall, pretty dismal.

That said, McCain was a war hero and, I’d like to believe, a good person despite his bad choices and sins. I wish he had listened to his better angels.

I don’t agree with his daughter Meghan McCain on a lot of issues, but I do think she’s spot on with her assessment that Trump, that bone spur draft dodger, hated and hates McCain because he knows he will never be as good a man as the late senator and soldier could be and will never be as loved as the late senator and soldier was.

Those who criticize Meghan McCain for taking the Dumpster President to task on this over and over again are, as I see, as wrong as they can be. If Trump attacked the memory of my late father the way he continually attacks Senator McCain, I’d have to be restrained from ripping his fucking wig off his head and shoving it down his lying throat. Fortunately, for Trump, that’s an exaggeration. I have far more control of my emotions than does President Hippo-Ass.

This is who I am. The guy who delights in inspiring people of all ages and takes inspiration from them. The guy who loves talking to my fellow comics readers and sharing information and stories with them. The guy who spend an hour every morning posting birthdays and remembrances of comics people because he does not want to see them forgotten by an often heartless comics industry. The guy who is not shy about calling out the vile right-wing jerks of my country. The guy who faces his keyboard with a clean heart and soul and always gives his best effort to what he’s writing.

This is who I am. I’m not on top of the industry. I never was and I likely never will be. But, sorry, you pathetic trolls, I have a better life than you do. I have a loving family. I have people who love my work. I have friends from all over the world and from every walk of life.

Enjoy this brief moment in my bloggy spotlight.

It’s the best you are ever going to have.

I’ll be back soon with more stuff.

© 2019 Tony Isabella

MY FIRST GARAGE SALE OF 2019 IS BUT ONE DAY AWAY

My first Vast Accumulation of Stuff Garage Sale of the summer will be held tomorrow, Friday, May 31 and Saturday, June 1, at 840 Damon Drive in Medina, Ohio. The photos you see scattered around today’s bloggy thing were taken around noon yesterday. The garage sale is looking much better this morning, though I still have a lot of work to do before I open the doors on Friday morning.

The sale hours are 9 am to 1 pm each day. I don’t throw anyone out if they’re still shopping and buying at closing time. That said, I may push you along tomorrow because, after the garage sale, I’ll be seeing Godzilla, King of the Monsters with my son Ed.

I have so much stuff that it’s impossible to get it all into just one garage. Looking around the garage this morning, there are only a couple of $10 mystery boxes, though I hope to put together a few more today. I’ll be working on these boxes daily, so you can expect to find them at every one of my nigh-weekly sales.

I found a box of Marvel and DC role-playing games from back in the day. I expect they will go fast.
                                                                          

I haven’t yet put together the boxes of hardcovers and trades, but there will be several of them. You definitely want to check those out. More will be added every week.

The boxes of higher priced old comic books have amazing bargains in them. I’m hesitant to let some of them go, especially those Silver and Bronze Age issues of Lois Lane. But the idea is to sell stuff quickly and I’ve priced issues accordingly.

Isabella-written stuff? I have copies of 1000 Comic Books You Must Read, Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands, the other Black Lightning trades with my writing and July 1963: A Pivotal Month in the Comic-Book Life of Tony Isabella. On the comic-book display rack, I will have the individual issues of Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands, the Gorgo Vs. Konga comic for which I wrote an introduction, the issue of Scooby-Doo Team-Up featuring Black Lightning that I didn’t write but I really love and maybe some surprises. Older Isabella-written will have to wait a week as I bag, board and price them.

This garage sale will see the debut of my exclusive variant edition of Marvel’s Greatest Creators: Tony Isabella #1 with the very first appearance of Misty Knight. There were only a little over 1000 of these printed. Selling for $10, they will be signed and numbered. I plan on offering #101-110 at the garage sale.

MAIL-ORDER NOTE. The Misty Knight exclusive will be available in a week or so. I have to determine packaging and shopping costs. Look for an announcement next week.
                                                                               

There will be a poster table at the garage sale. I found what I’m pretty sure is my last box of the two-sided Superman in Cleveland poster I conceived for the 1988 International Superman Exposition. I’ll also have various Black Lightning posters and mini-posters of Daredevil and Luke Cage.

I have several cool collectible phones for the sale, as well as a few other interesting items. All priced to sell.

The middle tables in my garage sale feature terrific buys. I have issues of Beano, a British comics weekly, priced at ten cents each. Commando, the U.K. war comics digest, and a handful of Archie digests at fifty cents each. Mass market paperbacks at fifty cents each. Manga volumes at a buck each. So much wonderful reading.

I have boxes of dollar comics and quarter boxes. In between them, I have a box of kids comics, a box of magazines and great oversized books that don’t fit into boxes. And all the above is just the tip of the Vast Accumulation of Stuff iceberg.
                                                                                 

Some other garage sales notes, which bear repeating:

My garage sales are cash only. I am an unfrozen caveman writer and your modern technology confuses and frightens me. I hope to learn how to use one of those credit-card cube things before the end of the summer. I am not confident that will happen.

I don’t charge for my signature at my garage sales, even if you’re bringing stuff from home for me to sign. However, if you just come to these sales to get free signatures and don’t buy anything, I’m gonna think you’re a jerk.

Parents should understand that not every comic book is suitable for all ages, even if the comic book features a classic character like Batman. I will have a dedicated box of suitable-for-all-ages comic books. For example, that’s where you’ll find classic Archie comics. The more current stuff will be in the dollar boxes. If you aren’t sure about a comic’s suitability for your child, I’ll be happy to talk to you about it and/or steer you to more appropriate reading material for your child.

I’m delighted to set up a complimentary guest table in my driveway for comics professionals and fan organizations. No one took me up on this offer for this first garage sale, but the offer does remain open for future sales. Please e-mail me with your credentials. I’ll do my best to accommodate you.

I’m excited about this garage sale and can’t wait to share it with my customers and neighbors tomorrow. I’ll be back soon with more bloggy things.

© 2019 Tony Isabella

TONY'S TIPS #304

This week in TONY'S TIPS at Tales of Wonder...Remembering Tim Conway and television comics; Zagor: The Lost World by Mauro Boselli with artwork by Michele Rubini; Imperfect: A Story of Body Image by Dounya Awada with art by Miralti Firmansyah; and Fausto Vitaliano’s Uncle Scrooge!

                                                                               

                                                                              

                                                                              

SOMETHING GARAGE SALE THIS WAY COMES

My first Vast Accumulation of Stuff Garage Sale of the summer will be held Friday and Saturday, May 31 and June 1, at 840 Damon Drive in Medina, Ohio. The sale hours are 9 am to 1 pm each day, but I’m not gonna throw anyone out if they’re still shopping and buying at closing time.

The plan for this summer is to reduce the VAOS significantly. As in allowing me to get rid of my offsite storage unit and clear all the extraneous boxes from my son Eddie’s former bedroom. The "looking at the future plan" is that Barb and I will move into Eddie’s bedroom while our master bedroom is renovated.
                                                                              

As you look at the photos included with today’s bloggy thing, you may be thinking...it doesn’t look like a ready-to-go garage sale. You’re right. It doesn’t. But it will by the time I open the garage door on Friday morning.
                                                                             

      
Whenever I announce one of these garage sales, I get many questions about what I’ll be selling. Honestly, I can’t give any definitive answer on that. I know I’ll have several boxes of quarter comics, several boxes of dollar comics and several boxes of higher-priced comics. Expect to be blown away by the bargain prices of the comics in those higher-priced boxes.

There will be bargain-priced hardcovers, magazines, manga volumes, mass market paperbacks and trade paperbacks. There will be copies of Beano and Commando from the U.K. I’m pricing the Beano issues at 10 for a dollar and the Commando digests as half a buck each. Most manga volumes will be a buck.

I have a bunch of collectible phones, but I can only put so many of those in each sale. Among those that will be available are phones featuring Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley.

There will be other cool collectibles as well. I found a box of Marvel Super-Heroes role-playing game stuff. If I can fit that into this first sale, I will. If not, they will show up in a week or so.Because, this summer, I’m holding garage sales every weekend, save for those weekends when I’m at conventions.
                                                                             

There will be posters for sale as well. I found what I’m thinking is my last batch of the two-sided Superman poster I conceived for Cleveland’s International Superman Exposition in 1988. I have some Black Lightning and Hawkman posters. I have Daredevil and Luke Cage mini-posters. If I can figure out to display them properly, I will also have some cool Black Lightning pins for sale. Vast just barely covers all the great stuff I have for sale.
                                                                                         

Isabella stuff will include: 1000 Comic Books You Must Read; Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands; Black Lightning Volumes 1-3; July 1963: A Pivotal Month in the Comic-Book Life of Tony Isabella Volume One; and copies of my original script for Cold Dead Hands #1. I’ll also have individual copies of Cold Dead Hands #1-6 and other Isabella or Isabella-associated comic books.
                                                                                    

This garage sale will be the first offering of the variant edition of Marvel’s Greatest Creators: Tony Isabella #1 featuring the first appearance of Misty Knight. This edition is available only from me. The print run is just over 1000. Each copy of this variant edition will be signed and numbered. I’m pricing this variant edition at $10 per copy.

I’m looking at this special edition of Marvel’s Greatest Creators: Tony Isabella #1 as a fundraiser to help support my future projects  and travel. Copies will be available by mail as soon as I calculate the shipping costs. Look for that announcement next week.

There are a few components of this garage sale that won’t be up to stuff this first time out. I have a bunch of older Isabella-written comics to bag, board and price. I’ll do my best to keep the prices down on these, but I don’t think I’ll have a box of them ready for this first garage sale.

My $10 mystery boxes are among the most popular items at my garage sales, but I probably won’t have more than a few of them ready for this first weekend. I’ll have more of them as these sales continue over the summer.

Some other garage sales notes:

My garage sales are cash only. I am an unfrozen caveman writer and your modern technology confuses and frightens me. I hope to learn how to use one of those credit-card cube things before the end of the summer. I am not confident that will happen.

I don’t charge for my signature at my garage sales, even if you’re bringing stuff from home for me to sign. However, if you just come to these sales to get free signatures and don’t buy anything, I’m gonna think you’re a jerk.

Parents should understand that not every comic book is suitable for all ages, even if the comic book features a classic character like Batman. I will have a dedicated box of suitable-for-all-ages comic books. For example, that’s where you’ll find classic Archie comics. The more current stuff will be in the dollar boxes. If you aren’t sure about a comic’s suitability for your child, I’ll be happy to talk to you about it and/or steer you to more appropriate reading material for your child.

I’m delighted to set up complimentary guest tables in my driveway for comics professionals and organizations. Please e-mail me with your credentials and information. I will do my level best to accommodate you.

Tomorrow, I’ll place a Craig’s List announcement about the garage sales and a classified ad in the Medina Gazette. I’ll be plugging the sales on Facebook and Twitter. Feel free to share those plugs on your social media. You never know when someone might decide that a road trip to Medina would be fun.

With time out to complete some other gigs, I’ll be working on this weekend’s garage sale up to the moment I open the door at 9:00 am. If Friday’s sales are brisk, I’ll restock as much as possible for Saturday. The VAOS is strong within my garage.

I’ll be back soon with more bloggy things.

© 2019 Tony Isabella

TONY'S TIPS #303

This week in TONY'S TIPS at Tales of Wonder: Femme Magnifique: 50 Magnificent Women Who Changed The World; One Dirty Tree by Noah Van Sciver; and MAD magazine #7!

                                                                                     

UPDATES

I'm pushing back my first garage sale of the year to May 31-June 1. I need the extra time to either do all the preparation myself or convince myself to hire an assistant I can't afford. This further delay pains me more than I can express. As to the why of it...

I'm not feeling too good on multiple levels, the least of which is some kind of flu thing. In addition, I'm tired of the madness that is the comics industry and especially how that madness expresses itself online. 

I'm tired of wanting to vomit every time I think about the Dumpster Traitor and the vile Republicans who support him and their own evil agendas. If you're a Republican and take offense at that, that's just too fucking bad. I consider you the biggest threat to all life on this planet.. 

I'm tired of planning my daily work schedule and not accomplishing what I want to accomplish. God dammit I'm exhausted!

I'm going to put a bunch of stuff on hold while I do the stuff that really needs to be done sooner rather than later. Hanging out on Facebook and Twitter is part of what I'm putting on hold, though I will use both for any announcements I have to make. Don't expect me to respond to even legitimate posts and know I will be swift to block trolls and other creeps.

I won't be doing any interviews or podcasts unless someone offers me a platform that truly blows my mind. That's not likely to happen.

I'm not putting Tony Isabella's Bloggy Thing on hiatus, but it's not a priority for me at the moment. I have several paying gigs I need to do before I start blogging as frequently as I have in the past. I also have several promises to keep, even if they don't put a dime in my pocket.

I'm not sure if I will be posting my usual birthdays, historical notes and remembrances on Facebook. That platform's inability to offer me easy access to my previous posts in those areas is making the process far more time-consuming than it used to be. I'm going to make every effort to continue the work I've started with this, but that's not a dead certainty.

I do plan to post my daily Things That Make Me Happy on Facebook and Twitter. In these terrible times, I need to express whatever joy I can find in my life.

If you have anything important to say to me - important being convention invitations, paid gigs and things that will brighten my day - send me an e-mail. I'll respond as swiftly as possible.

It's my hope that I will emerge in June with my spirits high and my shit together. 

Thanks for your patience and continued support. I'll be back as soon as possible. 

Tony Isabella