Friday Afternoon at the Comic Shop Like most teens, I always looked forward to Fridays. Not only was it the end of the week, marking the start of the weekend, but it was also new comic book day. Every Friday I would make my way to Unicorn Comics in Oshawa, Ontario (now known as World's Collide) and exhaust all that I had earned from my $3.15 per hour job on every new release from the big two publishers. I would then spend the next couple of days reading through all of it. Man I was a nerd... and I loved it. I quickly began to limit the number of new comic books I would buy, and instead began purchasing up back issues from my favourite series, the Amazing Spider-Man. Before I knew it, I had assembled a pretty decent Amazing Spider-Man collection with complete run from issue 100 and up. Now although my collecting heyday was from 1985-1990, popular comic books back then still cost a pretty penny. In fact, I recall paying a whopping $60 for Amazing Spider-Man #129 (which I still own by the way). Amazing Spider-Man #1 The task of assembling issues 1-99 was the logical next step. I thoroughly enjoyed digging through the back issue bins every week, as I would always seem to find at least one or two much need comics. Then, one day, out of nowhere, I received a call from Shawn, one of the employees at Unicorn. He didn't say much but urged me to get to the store as soon as possible. I had a feeling deep down that Unicorn had attained a copy of the comic at the top of my want list: Amazing Spider-Man #1. As I walked in the store Shawn held two comic books in his hands. My suspicions were correct - I was face to face with Amazing Spider-Man #1....but also Amazing Fantasy #15! Luckily both comic books were low grade, as I would not have been able to afford the books. Even back then these two books were valued at around $1000 each. In low grade, however, Unicorn was only asking $100 each. I raced home and then returned to the store with a long box filled to … [Read more...]