Other than toys releases, do you plan on buying anything else at SDCC?

I plan on buying some art books and prints...especially this poster, painted by one of my favorite artists for one of my favorite movies:

I plan to buy some shirts, books, stickers, and much much more!

It's my first year and I plan to go overboard!

When I've gone it's been all about 50% off trades, bargain bin toys, maybe some stickers but generally that's it.

Thing is, is a lot of the stuff there I know I can get cheaper elsewhere. It's all about the exclusives and bargains. I'm too cheap to waste cash on other stuff I can get later for cheaper.

Oh, and no matter WHAT, if it was free, I took it! Maybe 2!

Are dealers usually willing to wheel and deal?

Sean and I were at NYCC on sunday they were turning the lights off to kick everybody out and Sean's trying to get a couple art books and the guy wouldn't budge on the price, so instead of selling them for $5 less he took the books home with him. I couldn't believe that.

Artist sketchbooks are on my list.

Last year I picked up Mitch O'Connell's book complete with a drawing on the cover.

Diet Coke?

MIKE ALLRED is going to be signing this year.

seriously mind blowing for me!!!

That Kent Williams poster is pretty nice! Allen Spiegel always brings nice stuff. I came dangerously close to buying a Phil Hale painting from them one year but finally came to my financial senses. As a famous archaeologist once said, "it belongs in a museum"

I like buying original art when I can, new books from my favorite artists, prints on occasion (they're kind of unwieldy to fly home with), and I always seem to manage to find cool new T-shirts. Speaking of which, I hope Gargamel brings more shirts this year...

I was wondering about this also?

depends on the dealer and also which day you're trying to deal. like any other convention, if it's a dealer with a bunch of older stock and it's on Sunday late afternoon, my guess is that you have a good chance.

if it's a dealer with an exclusive with a line 200 deep, my guess would be no chance.

I've seen this type of thing before in Chicago and SDCC. As Kirkland said, though, for every "no-budge" douche there's someone reasonable. Once I had an older lady sell me the very last exclusive she had hidden under her table from an event because she heard me going on about it to my friend at her booth, for cost too, no flipage! Still on my wall today.

indie comics. always a great chance to chat it up about what's coming up this year.

Once I am done blowing over my budget for toys... I cannot afford to buy any of the comics, art and sketches I want. So I just wander around.

Sounds like what I'll be doing.
We should bring cards.

Heh. Sounds good. Maybe we could win some money back...

shit, i've already blown my SDCC budget. i'll be searching the isles for blind box toys and buttons.

if I actually have any money left after toys, then there weren't enough toys. I'd like to think what I don't blow on vinyl, I'll bring home with me. in all likelihood I'll spend it all irresponsibly at the con though. on toys.

I was just going to leave a comment about your extra SDCC money being better spent in certain bars across the border (seriously), but this needed a response.

We can re-title this section "con dealer rant"

Speaking as a "no-budge douche", there are a couple of reasons a lot of dealers don't drop their pants for everyone that comes along -

1. Conventions, SDCC specifically, are incredibly expensive. Table space alone is thousands of dollars. Add another thousand or so for hotel (you have to stay at an expensive (aka close) place at SDCC because if you aren't within walking distance you may risk not getting to your table on time). Double that if you need to have another room for your employees to stay in. Add the cost of your product, which is never as cheap as people imagine it is unless you are the manufacturer. And let's not kid ourselves, dealers are there to make money aka live. If your boss asked you to work for half-price for the last 4 hours every Friday, you'd tell him to fuck off too.

SDCC can costs tens of thousands of dollars to do. Sure, it can be worth it, but not if you give everything away for free.

2. Cliff, this sorts of speaks to what you brought up - the "end of day Sunday" bargain hunting time is not so obvious to any dealer who has done cons for any significant period of time and who restocks their supply, either for the next con or for their store. When we first started selling at cons we would sell shit super cheap near the end, but we soon realized it a) barely made a dent in what we were having to pack up and b) 95% of the time it was stuff that we just had to turn around and reorder two days later anyway. If someone is only going to make a half pound dent in the 3000 pounds of shit I have to load into my truck and I am making nothing from it, what's the point? And as Kirkland brought up, if you are taking stuff off my hands I really want to get rid of that is different, but I would have given it out for a discount on Wednesday night, no one needs to wait until right before closing on Sunday when I am much more preoccupied with how, after killing myself non-stop all week (and the week before that getting ready) and being exhausted to the point of collapse, I am going to spend the next 4 hours packing all this shit back up and then driving 3 or 4 more hours back home, than I am with giving some cheapo a discount.

3. Many hagglers are incredibly annoying, total wasters of your time and barely buy anything anyway. Everyone should stretch your dollar, I look through the discount bins and buy stuff that they need to sell at a price I like, buy it and leave. Or I occasionally ask for a discount, get an answer and either buy it or go without it and not think of them as dicks - but I never feel the need to harass them incessantly about it or get pissed. Yet it is practically a universal rule that the amount of your time people want to take is inverse to how much you make from them as a customer. The aggressive bargainers who want stuff for a huge discount (btw - usually the hottest newest stuff I am not in a rush to sell) and want to fucking discuss the discount you are giving them for two fucking hours while you ignore the other actual paying customers - those people, after wasting a metric fuckton of your time, usually walk off with one or two things. And if it's more than that, who cares you didn't make shit on it anyway. Not worth the time - I eventually learned how to turn off my impulse to always be nice and get in touch with my inner havingmysay. The funny thing is we almost always gave very nice discounts to people who never asked for one, and usually they never even knew, we just did it. And those people usually didn't take much time to help and weren't annoying as fuck. We also heavily discounted for people we knew, whether friends or just long time customers. So it's not that we wouldn't give discounts, just not to people who bugged the shit out of us.

For some reason the worst are the kids at Anime Expo which seems to be filled with annoying little fuckers who want me to be their Mommy and subsidize their fun. Every 5th person or so was a kid asking for everything for free if they hadn't stolen it off my table already. True story - one day when I was particularly annoyed, some kid at AX told me I should give him a movie at cost because "his parking was expensive", as if I own the damn lot. I told him to fuck off and said he should pay double what I was asking because I had to pay for the parking and $3000 for my table space and then listen to him being a dumbfuck and if he didn't want to pay for parking he should have taken a bus. He bought it and paid full price. The kids at AX seriously need to take a trip to San Jose for Fanime so they can learn manners from the kids there, who are so polite it's ridiculous. And at the next Anime show you go to (or SDCC for that matter), please go up to my friends at Anime Depot and ask for a massive discount on just one or two top selling DVD's and see what happens. I learned my best "fuck off" lines from them.

(Truthful) sarcasm aside, cons are 99% (ok 85%) awesome, but as anyone who has worked in retail can tell you, some people can get irritating. And not everyone who wants to get paid for their work sucks either so be nice to the dealers.

- "No Budge Douche" (except on my sales threads) Rick

P.S. Seriously, Tijuana. Check it out.

every year I try to buy some prints, comics, books and tshirts, but I always blow my budget in toys!, lets see this year, and saturday and sunday I usually just walk in the isles for free stickers

Tijuana makes me happy!

Rick,

Before I met you with LASK a couple of years ago at Astro Burger, I purchased DVDs from you at least twice at 2 different shows. I came up to you and asked "what's new and really good. I like a lot of action. either gunplay or martial arts of both." You quickly picked out a few titles giving me a brief synopsis of each. I then asked if you were only gonna pick up two, which ones would they be? Without hesitation, you handed me two and said, take 'em both for $20. I was in and out a very happy camper in less than 3 minutes.

I still watch SPL every now and again. you were right...great fight scenes. lol....

blashyrkh, thanks for the insight! First, I didn't mean to offend you, I might add I've seen WAY more "douches" on the buyers side than the sellers. My issues were always with people who wouldn't budge on the kind of crap that JUST DIDN'T SELL EVER! I'd see the same toy or book or whatever at ever con, gathering dust, and they just were firm on it. But I mean, I now have a better understanding of the world from the other side of the booth, thanks. Also another point is, is if it doesn't sell at a booth they can always try to sell it online. I've had sellers be cool about it, though, and say "Sorry, if I don't sell it here I'm going to this other Con next weekend, gonna try and move it there."

For a while Chicago Comic-Con came BEFORE SDCC, so you couldn't get a deal EVER, the "big" show was coming. THAN they moved it AFTER and sellers had less to offer, they sold more at SDCC, but also cut prices to move things.

My overall problem with cons as a buyer, and this has nothing to do with the sellers, is that why would I buy something there I can get cheaper later on? Usually what I want, Star Wars toys, trades, etc. I can so I just only go for the bargain bins anymore, and exclusives. It's all that's worth it for me, but I love going, I've found some crazy steals in those under-the-table-tupperware boxes!

wow how can i get a copy of that williams poster?

They will have copies at the Allen Spiegel Fine Arts booth at SDCC. Kent Williams will be signing at that booth all weekend also!

You can also get it here....

http://www.criterion.com/shop_products/63

I love that Criterion takes such good care in their packaging and branding. Did you guys ever see Bill McMullen's Throne of Blood art for Criterion?