Another holiday brings more comic book finds.
A lot of comic shops were having sales for the Labor Day weekend. My main stop this time was at Zombie Unicorn Comics in Chicago. It’s become one of my favorite comic stores in the Chicago area because of sales like these, the quality of its inventory and how cool the guys that work there are.
I went there last Saturday morning as soon as the store opened. It was pretty busy there even at that time. They had one really sweet deal in particular going on for their Labor Day weekend sale. All the store’s back issues not marked at a higher sticker price were only $1 (those other issues were 50% off). Even the current issues on the shelf (also the ones that just came out during the week) were $1. That’s a crazy sale. I couldn’t pass that insane deal up and took advantage of it to fill in my current pull list of missing issues. I bought the first issue of the new Thunderbolts that just released just because it was $1. I did the same for the current Wonder Woman issues to check out how the book is going these days. This kind of sale was pretty amazing considering what you could end up getting. It really helped fill in all the recent Nightwing issues I hadn’t started pulling yet, all for just $1 each.
I ended up getting a lot of variant cover issues, even though I normally don’t buy or collect those. I like to stick to the main releases to have a run’s issues all matching with the same covers. The DC variants have a $4.99 cover price. The Action Comics and Wonder Woman variants are more expensive at $5.99 but I’m not sure why. Getting them all for $1 was an awesome deal. I really liked the Wonder Woman variants by Paul Pope I got. The art style is a lot different than what you normally see. The Wolverine #17 variant is a pretty sick cover, probably one of the coolest I’ve seen lately. The Jenny Frison variants on the Catwoman issues are some of the best going right now too. The variants by Julian Totino Tedesco for Action Comics are incredible. The covers for #1036 and #1037 might be some of my favorite covers EVER. I filled in all of my missing Action Comics issues from Phillip Kennedy Johnson and have the full run now. I have also been going back to get all the Radiant Black issues so I can start reading the series from the beginning. I just need a couple more issues now, which the store didn’t have in stock.
The random old issues I chose based on the covers. They were also $1 each. They had a separate room set up with over a dozen, unorganized long boxes. I didn’t go that crazy because mostly I wanted to get current issues this time around. The Star-Trek and X-Men crossover comics were really weird to find since I never heard of them before. Both issues were in a single pack so I got both of them for only $1. I’m looking for John Byrne stuff and I’ll pick it up if I find them. The Avengers #379 cover really caught my eye so I picked it up too even though I don’t have much of that series in my collection.
In total I got 65 issues for $65, which normally would have cost four to five times that amount. It saved me a lot to get all these issues I needed. I usually would have to pay higher than cover price to get a lot of them at this point.
- Action Comics (run by Phillip Kennedy Johnson): 2021 Annual, #1031-32, 1034-1035, 1030-1037 (all Cover B variants by Julian Totino Tedesco)
- Amazing Spider-Man (Volume 5): #80.BEY, 82 (Villains’ Reign variant cover by Joshua Swaby), 84
- Catwoman (Volume 5): #25 (Cover B variant by Lee Bermejo), 26 (Cover B variant by Jenny Frison), 27, 33 (Cover B variant by Jenny Frison), 2021 Annual, 36-37, 42 (Cover B variant by Jenny Frison), 43-44
- Eternals (Volume 5 by Kieron Gillen) #7
- Grim #1 (fourth print)
- Iron Man (Volume 6 by Christopher Cantwell): #1 (variant cover by Dustin Weaver), 5
- Nightwing (Volume 4 by Tom Taylor): #89, 92 (Cover B variant by Jamal Campbell), 93-95
- Predator #1 (on Marvel by Ed Brisson)
- Radiant Black: #1 (blank cover), 1 (third printing), 2 (third printing), 7-9 (Covers A and B for #9), 11, 13
- Star Wars (2020 series by Charles Soule): #21
- Star Wars: Darth Vader (2020 series by Greg Pak): #18
- Thunderbolts #1 (2022 series by Jim Zub)
- Wolverine: Annual #1 (2019 by Jody Houser)
- Wolverine (Volume 7 by Ben Percy): #17 (Patrick Gleason variant cover)
- Wonder Woman (Volume 5): #787, 788 (Cover B variant by Paul Pope), 789, 790 (Cover B variant by Paul Pope)
- X-Men (Volume 6 by Gerry Duggan): #8, 9
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My pick ups of older issues:
- Avengers (Volume 1): #379
- Green Lantern (Volume 3): #41 (cool cover by M.D. Bright)
- Guardians of the Galaxy (Volume 1): #35
- Star Trek/X-Men #1 (1996)
- Star Trek: The Next Generation/X-Men: Second Contact #1 (1998)
- Wolverine (Volume 2): #79 (cool cover by Adam Kubert), 89
- Wonder Woman (Volume 2 by John Byrne): #115, 119
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I also picked up some comics from two Half-Price Books in the Chicago suburbs. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular and just wanted to see what they had. One of the stores I went to had all their clearance items at 50 percent off for their Labor Day sale. This particular store had a pretty large comic section. They had a good chunk of X-Files comics marked for clearance at 50 cents each so they were really 25 cents. I think all these issues were previously priced at $1-2. The annuals and issue #25 of Season 10 are thicker books that have a $7.99 cover price. I ended up buying all the X-Files comics this store had on clearance, which came out to 36 issues for like $9. With this haul I’m only missing a few issues to have the complete Season 10 set from IDW. All the books were in good condition but nothing was mint. Most of the bags and boards for these issues were filthy so I switched them all out for new ones. X-Files is one of my favorite shows but I’ve never owned or read any of the comics. The art on the covers and inside the books looks really good. This turned out to be a really sweet find, especially for the price.
The few issues of Evangeline I bought based off the covers. They were also on clearance for 50 cents. I had no idea at the time that it was written by Chuck Dixon, who I also like to collect for. The issues were in okay condition but I mainly got them for the ridiculous covers. I do love that ’80s art style though. I had never heard of this comic before either.
The Punisher book is the only one I paid full price for at $2. I try to collect the old Punisher books so when I see one in good condition I usually grab it. The old Punisher issues seem harder to come by and many comic shops don’t carry a lot of them or the ones I’m still looking for.
- The Punisher: War Zone #14
- Cable (Volume 1): #83
- Evangeline (Volume 2 on First Comics): #2, 5, 7-9
- Kamandi: At Earth’s End #1 (of 6)
- X-Files (Topps Comics): #11, 31
- X-Files #0 (September 2008 on Wildstorm)
- X-Files Season 10 (IDW): #1, 3-4, 6-16, 20-25
- X-Files Season 11 (IDW): #1-3
- X-Files (IDW, 2016-17): #6, 10-14
- X-Files (IDW) Annual 2014, 2015
- X-Files (IDW) X-Mas Special 2016
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Another Half-Price Books store I went to had a different sale with 20 percent off comics. Their comic selection was much smaller. I didn’t really see much I really wanted or had to get. I picked up another Wonder Woman issue from John Byrne that had a killer cover. The Cage book interested me because of it referencing Christmas on the cover with some great art too. Both books were priced at $1 so the total came to $1.60 with the sale.
- Cage (Volume 1): #11
- Wonder Woman (Volume 2): #107
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