Went to a comic con in Portland last weekend and noticed something weird

I was at the Portland Retro Comic Expo on Saturday and walked past a booth where a guy was just standing there talking to nobody about his 'variant cover collection' for like 20 minutes. His table had no prices and he didn't even look up when people walked by. Has anyone else seen this kind of thing at shows or was this just a one off?

4 comments

4 Comments

singh.harper8d ago

Bet honestly maybe the guy just had a really bad social anxiety day and coped by talking through his collection out loud. Would you rather dealers just ignore you completely or try to upsell you on every silver age reprint they own?

charles7209d ago

Did you catch what kind of stuff he had in his collection? I heard from a friend who goes to a lot of these that some dealers just buy up tons of variants online and then stand around hoping someone offers them more than they paid. Maybe he was just trying to wait out the crowd or something.

angela_morgan8d ago

You mentioned "wait out the crowd" and honestly that's probably exactly what was going on. I used to do vendor tables at smaller cons and some people just hover around their stuff for hours without really engaging, especially if they're not used to the whole social aspect of it. What worked for me was setting up a small sign with prices and then just saying "hey, feel free to flip through" so people knew I was open to talk but not pushy. That usually broke the ice without me having to rehearse a whole monologue about my inventory, you know?

josephbailey9d ago

Watch people do the same thing at flea markets with old power tools they clearly just pulled out of a dumpster.