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Former Cracked editor, MAD Magazine writer and Marvel Comics writer and editor Barry Dutter has, these days, turned into a comic book dealer. And he posted a recent experience of his, the origin of certain comics he recently acquired, and the surprising appeal of DC Comics’ Robin, which he allowed me to share. Dutter writes;
A few weeks ago, a seller put an ad on craigslist for 10 boxes of comics for $200. But he was very vague about what was in the boxes. I told him I might be interested and he instantly lowered the price down to $150, which told me all I needed to know.
Turns out the guy was an employee of Warner Brothers. WB employees get every DC book for free every week and they also every Dark Horse Comic, because apparently Dark Horse has an exchange program with DC these days. Now this particular man who I dealt with is not a direct employee of Warner Bros. — he is not on the freebie list. He is an independent contractor. But when he visits the Warner Bros. Studios, he gets access to the junk pile where all the other employees leave their unwanted Comics. So basically he grabbed 10 boxes of rejected books that nobody else wanted. (I know from my experience in being on staff at Marvel that employees generally keep the comics featuring all the popular characters and often dump the books featuring all the unpopular characters.)
Warner Bros employees are not meant to sell the complimentary copies they receive, though there was a generally agreed trade for employees and local stores for cash or credit, that was scuppered when it started getting too high profile and the taxman threatened.
The man was passing through my area on his way home from the studio and he actually offered to deliver the comics to me. We met in the parking lot of the local supermarket near my apartment. I took a look through the boxes and realized these were a bunch of undesirable books. Remember, these were the books that absolutely nobody wanted. There were some DC Comics, but no Batman, no Joker, no Harley Quinn, etc….
As I’m digging through the boxes, expressing my disappointment, the seller pretty much let me know that he would accept any offer, he just didn’t want these boxes in his truck anymore. I told him I didn’t want to insult him with a lowball offer and he said no offer would be too low. So I offered him 50 bucks. He happily told me that we had a deal. So I handed him 50 bucks and took the 10 boxes of mostly undesirable comics. There were a handful of trade paperbacks and one or two hardcovers that I sold in my auctions that almost instantly enabled me to recoup my investment. There were also 25 or 30 copies of the ROBIN 80th anniversary spectacular. I wished I had gotten one of the other 80th anniversary spectaculars that DC had done, like Batman, Catwoman, or Joker.
I listed one of the Robin books, expecting nothing. Much to my surprise it did well. So I tried again the next day. And that did well also. So I started listing one or two copies of the ROBIN book every day in my auctions. Much to my surprise, every single copy of this book sells for five dollars to eight dollars each in my auctions. Which means that me paying $50 for the entire collection turned out to be a good investment after all.
Thanks to Robin the Boy Blunder, I will make four or five times my investment in this collection. Most of the rest of the comics will be donated to schools in my area and US servicemen all around the world.
If anyone is sitting on copies of the Robin 80th Anniversary Special, Barry would probably take them off your hands as well. Even if other Warner Bros employees don’t want them.
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