Comic Haul 4/21: Cape Con 2018

Pano image from Cape Comic Con Facebook

Finally! A real comic haul article! Today I attended Cape Comic Con in Cape Girardeau, MO., and I bought some things. Please read on to see what I got!


Summer convention season is upon us, and it comes in with a thunderous roar with Cape Comic Con, the biggest and best comic convention I attend all year hands down. Guests this year included actor Lou Ferrigno, actor Reb Brown, comic artist Mike Zeck, comic writer Steven Grant, professional wrestler Tommy Dreamer, and professional wrestler and mixed martial artist Dan Severn.

My friend Mike Noe setting up his table.

The venue was run differently this year than it has been in the past. This year, nearly 100% of the comic book vendors were off on their own in a smaller room. I didn't really care for this (and neither did the comic vendors, apparently) and the smaller room caused a lot of cramped situations with people. That being said, it wasn't impossible to shop it, and I grabbed a few things I had been after and a few things I didn't know I was after. More on that in a bit.

The main room where the convention is typically held was full of everyone who wasn't a comic vendor. So that's where the vendors were who were selling things like art prints, Funko Pop! figures, replica role playing swords, handmade arts and crafts, and... coffee. This room was crowded as well, and there were several places around the perimeter where walking through it was a chore. I think instead of having the comic vendors off on their own in a room they should have had some of the other vendors who weren't selling comics in there. It is a comic convention, after all. Do we really need the people selling ashtrays with the Decepticon logo on them in the main room? No. No, we don't.

As always, my friend Mike Noe, owner of my fabulous local comic shop Campus Comics was there. We got to talk to him a bit but not as much as we could have had he been in a more accessible area. I actually wasn't sure where he was at first when we got there, but we located him relatively quickly. Mike was also kind enough to hold on to my stuff when my hands got too full from buying things!

So maybe I should go ahead and get into what those things were!

The first purchase of the day was this Spider-Gwen #1 Phantom variant cover modeled after one of my favorite covers of Amazing Spider-Man. I can't really tell you anything about how limited the book is because I can't find anything about it online! The art and coloring is very striking on this cover, much like Spider-Gwen's costume itself. I really like the pink tiled 001 in the background instead of the 300 like on the source material. This comic set me back $25 and got me in the spirit to buy more.

Then I turned around and the table behind me had this issue of Uncanny X-Men. This is #201, which is the first appearance of Nathan Summers, who grows up to the the mega popular character Cable. With Deadpool 2 coming to theaters not even a month from now, and Cable being an extremely prominent character in the film, this book is probably only going to go up in price. I got this copy for $15, which is lower than it goes for on My Comic Shop in this condition.

As I mentioned earlier, comic artist Mike Zeck was in attendance, so I brought with me two comics for him to sign. I brought Web of Spider-Man #32 and Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1, and he asked for $5 for each signature. I also got certificates of authenticity to go along with them, which is something I don't recall seeing Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti have when I met them last year at the Superman celebration.

Web of Spider-Man #32 is one of the most iconic Spider-Man covers ever, in my opinion. If I could only get one thing signed by him, it would have been that. Secret Wars I just took because I had two copies of it and it's a moderately important book to me. When I first got into comics, Secret Wars was kind of this mythological series no one had.

Continuing my assembling of Frank Miller Daredevil books, I picked up Daredevil #174 and #176 for $10 each. Only 14 more to go! One of which is the first appearance of Elektra, but whatever. There were more comics from this run there, but a lot of them were in pretty rough shape. I didn't want to buy copies that were in sub-average condition, so I could have bought several more, but didn't. Even though the price was right, I'd still rather have better looking books.

Very recently I bought the entire run of Harley's Little Black Book. Well, variant covers are a thing, so I bought this J. Scott Campbell variant cover of #1. According to My Comic Shop, I overpaid for it by a little bit, but I'm not too worried about it. The price I got the Uncanny X-Men #201 for offsets that. I really like J. Scott Campbell's art, and any piece he does is usually quite desirable.

Then I did a thing. Before I went to the con, I decided I wanted to get a heavy hitter key issue. Something like the first appearance of Deadpool, the first appearance of Cable... or the first appearance of Gambit. Well, here we are. I now own the first appearance of Gambit. This book did not come cheap, but I hadn't bought anything yet at the entire con that would get a reaction like, "Holy cow. You bought that?!" I won't say how much I paid for it, but it was definitely less than the first appearance of Deadpool but more than the combined cost of everything I've mentioned up to this point.

In an article I wrote a while back about my history with comic books, I briefly mentioned these Marvel Super Heroes action figures from Toy Biz. Previously at Cape Con, I had seen these figures all over the place. This year, however, I only saw these two, a bent up Daredevil, and two Invisible Woman figures. I snapped these up, as this is my current "I'm trying to buy them all" thing like last year was with Star Wars. I already have the suction cup hands Spider-Man, the spider tracer Spider-Man, Annihilus, and a Hulk in a bent up card I still have from my youth. Only... too many to go!

I also bought some art! I browsed a booth with the art of Tyrine Carver and bought this print she did from my favorite game from this generation NieR: Automata! NieR is listed as #3 in that link, but I wrote that before I finished the game. It's #1 now for sure. Anyway, if you want to learn more about this incredible artist, check out her website and her DeviantArt page. She had so much art and it spanned from comics to games to movies. There were binders full of her art and you just told her which ones you wanted and she'd set them aside for you. There was no worry that she'd run out of a particular piece, either; she had boxes and boxes of prints behind the booth. She definitely had it together.

Then I grabbed this print of Gojira vs. Mekagojira, or Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II! I'm living for Japanese kaiju films at the moment, especially Godzilla. Also, Mechagodzilla is my favorite of Godzilla's foes, so this one was a must-buy. The colors are very vibrant and the image quality is outstanding. He had other prints but they looked like they were sourced from awful jpegs.

And that's my haul from Cape Con 2018! It was a great day all around. I hope I'm able to continue going to comic conventions this summer even though my future is in question. Cape is usually the first of many cons. I hope that still holds true this year. I really don't want to miss any of the good times.