Better than expected

I don't remember when it was exactly, but at some point in the last couple of months I was looking at comic books on Craigslist (not a site I got to very often), and came across an ad for a place called Red Rhino Cash Advance in Knoxville. I thought at first that the ad must've been put in the wrong section, but I still clicked on it anyway, and boy am I glad I did!

The ad basically stated that they had comic books and other assorted collectibles for sale, which sounded nice, but how much stuff could a place with that name really have?

I couldn't really find any great pictures of the inside of the store online, so not knowing if would be worth the 2 1/2 round trip, I just kind of filed it away as a "maybe someday" place.

Well, "someday" ended up being about two weeks ago on the day that I went back to McKay's (see last post), it's about 20 minutes away from McKay's, so I figured why not, I'm probably only gonna be in there for 10-15 minutes max... a serious miscalculation on my part.

I spent two hours at McKay's, ate my lunch in the car (I always take a lunch), and headed for the Red Rhino, I even ended up getting there quicker than the GPS said I would (always satisfying). I really wasn't prepared for the sight that befell me when I walked in, especially I was expecting a box of comics tucked away under a table somewhere, and maybe a couple of Funko's (seriously, does every damn place have to carry those things?). Much to my surprise, I was instead greeted by a full on comics and collectibles store, I'm talking comics, graphic novels, toys, statues, CD's, DVD's, vinyl, and a bunch of other stuff that I'm already forgetting. [I have since found out that in the last couple of years, the store has gone from a traditional cash advance place, to a pawn shop, and finally to what it is now... a geek paradise]

My senses had already been overloaded by McKay's, so this was just way too much for my tiny little mind to handle at that point in the day. I knew I wasn't going to get very far, so my plan was basically to look through a couple of comic boxes and just come back on another day... preferably on a day when I'm not suffering from FBS (fried brain syndrome).

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures while I was in there, because the place was packed (there was even a Knox County sheriff looking at comics), so you'll just have to believe me when I say that they had to have had at least 10,000-15,000 (maybe more?) comic books in this store.

Since I'm not really looking for anything in particular at the moment, I just chose a random spot where there wasn't somebody else already standing, and just jumped in (figuratively of course).

I noticed two things right off the bat (no pun intended), the first being that even though all the books appeared to be organized alphabetically, but once I started digging, it became apparent rather quickly that they weren't -- and I know that that would bother the heck out of some people, but not me, I actually kind of like not knowing what's gonna be behind the next book, it adds a bit of mystery and excitement to the searching.

The second thing that I noticed was that a lot of the books weren't priced, which usually isn't a good thing, but in this instance it turned out pretty well. So starting with the Detective Comics #543 above, until I say when, was all of the unpriced stuff that I pulled out.

It's virtually impossible for me to turn down a cheap horror comic, no matter what condition it's in.

This book is of absolutely no interest to me, but I noticed a signature at the bottom, and figured that somebody else might want it.

I don't recognize the signature, and I haven't gotten around to figuring out who it is yet.

This marks the end of the unpriced stack. I took all of these up to the counter, and the guy told me that he'd figure out a price and let me know. When I went back up to the counter about twenty minutes later, I was told that the total for all of the books that you've just seen would be $9. Sold!

While I was waiting for that total, I went back and looked some more, this time finding a few things that had price tags:

I already had the first two issues of King Conan, but these two are in far better shape than mine, so at $2 each, I decided upgrade my old well read copies (not that it was necessary, I just wanted to that's all).

I probably only looked through about 1% of their comics, but I did find a few Unexpected (pun intended) deals, like this needed issue of Unexpected for $2.

Due to it's condition I don't how many people would've paid $1 for this one, but I really wanted to read it, so...

At $3, this was my most expensive purchase.

After a half an hour or so I was already done for the day, like I said, going to this place after McKay's was not a smart move on my part. But before leaving, I made a quick pass through all of the non-comic stuff (which is all over the store btw). While doing so, I noticed that on a ground level shelf that was underneath the CD's, there were a couple of stacks of loose comics piled up somewhat haphazardly -- with no indication of a price that I could see.

I noticed a couple of things in these piles that were of interest, so I went back to the counter to ask about them. The guy who was up there -- manager?, owner?, I don't know, but he was really nice -- anyway he seemed almost surprised that someone was asking about them, which I thought was a bit odd, back to the point though, he told me that they vary in price... but most of the time they were 25-50 cents each. So back to stacks I went, I thought I'd be grabbing more, but I only ended up getting three, all of which only cost me a total of 75 cents:

Beat up as it may be, this 1963 Dell Frankenstein #1 was my favorite find during this first trip. The cover is as bad as it looks -- but it's still very readable, and it was only a quarter! This is one of those very rare times that I actually enjoy being me, I don't "collect" comics anymore, so I can just buy something like this for reading purposes, and not worry about condition, or even worse... what it'll grade out at.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with what I was able to get for around $20, and will be going back sometime in the next couple of weeks. And for anyone living in/passing through the Knoxville area, I really can't recommend this place enough, for the moment it does seem to be a true hidden gem.

Oh, and on an unrelated, and not terribly important final note, today is this humble little blog of mine's third anniversary, so... yay me!


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.