Hey, you think Obi-Wan could have
Beat Darth Vader in the first Star Wars?
That big battle they had on the Death Star?
I think that he could have taken him out,
But even if he takes out Vader, he's still got, what,
40 trillion stormtroopers to contend with?
I think he sacrificed himself to let them escape.
I would think the stormtroopers just give up
Once they see Vader's gone.
I saw it as he's, like,
He just--he knew he wasn't gonna win, so he just gave up.
- No way. - No, that's not what it was.
I think that he was suffering from dementia,
And he forgot what he was doing.
[laughter]
[epic music]
♪ ♪
Sync by Loxforl addic7ed.com
Hello, and welcome back to another episode
Of Comic Book Men,
One of the only two things
That have ever made apache chief cry.
- Eh-neeek-chock! - [laughs]
I'm your host, Kevin Smith.
- Bryan Johnson. - Walt Flanagan.
- Mike Zapcic. - Ming Chen.
A really odd item came through the doors the other day.
Apparently, it's pretty rare.
- Hi, how are you? - How you doing?
Got a couple of animation cels here
I'd like you guys to take a look at.
- Let's check 'em out. - There you go.
Oh, yes. He-Man, that's it.
- So where'd you get this? - I've been collecting
Animation cels for years, and this one actually
Popped up in one of my collections.
And you're looking for how much for the set?
- 700. - 700, huh?
You know, these are cool pieces, they are, but...
It's hard for me to put a value on it since I'm not that
Knowledgeable about animation cels.
Would you mind if I called in somebody who had a little...
- Sure. - Bit more knowledge than I do?
- Mm-hmm. - I'm gonna call Rob.
Hold on. Let me take care of this.
Oh, you see what he's doing is he's mimicking
Aquaman calling his army of fish.
Mmhmm. [laughter]
One of them that he had was an actual cel from the show,
It was just a single, solo shot
Of Prince Adam, He-Man himself.
So if you're gonna look for a
He-Man piece of animation, what do you want?
You want He-Man, at least, by himself.
I thought so too.
So you bring in resident pop culturalist,
Rob Bruce, of course.
Wow, He-Man animation cels signed by Lou Scheimer.
This is really cool. But He-Man,
I think, ran 130 episodes.
They produced more than a million cels.
So a cel like this, nice full-figure, front view,
- Probably run 175 retail. - Okay.
But this is really great.
This is a setup sheet that was used to
Show you the different colors for the character in any
Scene he would be in through the whole production.
These are colors that they would use.
You couldn't vary from that.
So how many of these would they have made?
This is actually pretty hard to find.
I would even consider it rare.
This would have been in-house only.
- Less than probably six. - Wow.
But it's obviously missing the overlay.
Is that why everybody looks so weird...
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And ram man has crossed eyes?
Right.
I don't think it takes much away from this,
Because it's really unique.
A piece like this, I would think, you know,
Conceivably 300 retail.
So you're saying for both of these,
-You could e--a--retail 500? -Yes.
- You were looking to get 700. - Right.
I think the best I could do today is 200
For the set of two.
Would you do 300?
No.
200 bucks, I'll take them both off your hands.
250?
[groans]
I think I'm gonna have to stick with 200.
I understand if, you know, if that--if it's--
- 200 is fair. - 200 is fair?
- All right, man. - Thank you.
- You got yourself a deal. - Sounds good.
[laughter] - All right, well, good.
No, don't worry about it. We'll come out there.
We'll take a look at it. We'll figure something out.
See you later.
- Ooh. - What's up?
- That was Gary cor. - What's up with Gary?
He's had some health issues, and lost his job,
So he needs to move his collection
Because he has some mounting medical bills,
And he's fearful that he may be losing his house.
Who's Gary?
Do you remember Gary ConOver?
He's a regular, right? At the store?
Yeah, day one of the Stash, he was there.
He's been collecting for--for years.
I think since 1956, he told me.
Get out of here.
- Yeah. - Good Lord, man,
That's gotta be a big-money collection.
When we first started out, Gary kept these doors op
He needs us, and I want to help him out
Because he's a good guy, and he deserves it frankly.
We'll go through the collection, we'll evaluate it,
And we'll take it step-by-step.
- I'm in. - You're in?
- I'm in. - You know I'm in.
- All right, let's go. - All right.
Wow, there's a lot of great books
Just in this small pile right here.
Waah.
That's the mating call of a comics nerd.
[laughter]
- Waah. - Waah!
Very early Fantastic Fours.
A Thor annual number 1.
- Remember that? - That's awesome, yeah.
- Tales of Asgard number 1. - Wow.
Look at that Kirby cover, man. That is the iconic,
Cosmic cover right there, baby.
- Iron Man number 1. - Oh, my God.
Daredevil number 1.
First Silver Surfer. First Galactus.
Easily gonna get $100 in this shape.
I mean, this is crazy. It's, like, literally
Like time capsule after time capsule.
Within the first two or three boxes,
We started finding gems.
He's got Spider-Man number 5, 4.
Avengers number 4.
First Cap in silver age.
X-Men number 6.
Superman, the first appearance of the Legion.
Good Lord. So this guy's, like,
Almost the king of the silver age at this point.
All this is a great sampling of what you have.
I'd love to take a look at the rest of the collection.
- Yeah. - Okay.
It's all up in the attic.
- Lead the way. - I will.
Looking for Amazing Spider-Man number 300.
- First Venom. - Fantastic.
Oh, I haven't seen you since the news hit
About, you know, Star Wars.
There's been news?
- Disney bought Lucasfilm. - 4 bilions.
Yeah, there's gonna be three new Star Wars movies.
Disney can use their resources.
They can hire whoever they want to direct it,
Hire whoever they want to write it,
And, you know, make sure it's good this time.
I think they should just redo it, revisit it,
And just redo Star Wars.
Now you're getting ridiculous.
Why? Why? The--the--the--why?
What franchise haven't they done?
Well, who would you cast in the new one?
- As Luke? - Yes.
- Justin Bbieber. - [laughs]
Justin Bieber as Luke. Yes.
- Taylor Swift as Princess Leia. - Absolutely not.
No. No.
Are they still brother and sister?
You know, it's a new age, man.
Now this time, maybe they actually consummate,
And then they find out.
I think it should be rated nc-17.
[laughter]
Suddenly, I'm not so excited anymore.
Hey, how's it going?
- How you doing? - Good.
I'm looking for Amazing Spider-Man number 300.
First Venom.
You're in luck. We do have that.
Excellent, excellent.
Why are you looking for that one today?
It's a book I've been looking for for a while.
I love the character.
Venom's just an incredible, gnarly badass.
Well, if you you're all into tough and powerful men,
Why don't you ask me more about myself?
[laughs]
- As you requested. - Fantastic.
- So why Venom? - When I was a young kid
I was quieter and shyer than I am now.
When I started reading, it was just like,
"Wow, this guy doesn't care.
This guy will kill, maim, murder."
Wasn't he, like, he was a brain-eater?
[laughs] well, you forget one thing.
He didn't go after the innocent.
But even if he's eating bad guys' brains...
I think--[laughs]
He's still chowing down on brains.
Yeah, well, that's true.
I think it was the other-- the misunderstood side of him.
- Right. - He wanted to do right,
But, you know, he's tempted.
- Like we all are. - Yeah.
I don't trust people that are like,
"My favorite character's the supervillain."
Venom began as a total villain,
And Marvel kind of "heroed" him up...
- Oh, yeah. - In the last few years.
But he proved so popular,
They couldn't keep issues on the stands
He appeared in them. Marvel was like,
"We've got to turn this guy into a hero,
"because we can not market a cannibalistic supervillain
As a viable mainstream character."
It would be like kids suddenly being like,
"we like Jeffrey Dahmer." [laughter]
And people are like,"well, we gotta find
"a way to hero him up
And get to get rid of his shady past."
Can we work with the price on this one?
I mean, I could do 95. I mean, not much more.
90?
Okay. I could do 90.
- I could do 90, too - All right.
That's fine. I'm exci-
This is--this is great.
There you go.
Awesome.
Let's get to work.
Wow.
I have never seen a collection like this
In all the time I've worked at the stash.
This is pretty impressive.
Gary tells us there's only 25 boxes
Of comics up in the attic,
And how many did you wind up bringing down?
More like 72.
He was collecting everything from the big two.
Everything.
- How far back? - The 1960s, '56.
Good lord, man.
It would take a lifetime to read
That is a massive collection, man.
I don't know what we're gonna do.
We need to come up with some way he can get rid of it quick
And he can get the most bang for his buck though.
Make sure they're out of the house and light a match.
[laughter]
All right, a legitimate way to get it in one shot.
What about one of those public auctions?
They're gonna take a huge chunk out of the profit.
Yeah, you're right.
All right, what if we hold our own auction?
We'll take no fees.
- Gary gets the lion's share. - Yeah.
- I like it. - Think about it.
100% of the proceeds will go to Gary and hidical bills.
You know what that is? That's Batman.
That's a Batman move.
That's what the Batman would do
And you guys are doing it for Gary conover.
That is genius.
A little mini Comic-Con.
Or a Gary ConOver-Con.
We'll create a carnival atmosphere with games, prizes.
We can dress up in costumes.
Cosplay? From Walt Flanagan?
It'll be a Comic-Palooza.
- All right, let's do it. - Let's do this, man.
All right!
I was just wondering if you can give me
Some information on it. Who made it, when it made?
- It says 1941 on that. - Wow!
Welcome to the Gary ConOver Auction.
[auctioneering] Sold $685.
Anybody who's been reading comic books
As long as we have
Will remember the hostess pie ads.
- Oh, yes. - Remember those?
They had a one-page ad that was paneled out like
A real comic book page featuring the biggest stars
Of the D.C. and the Marvel universe.
You'd have the Hulk fighting a bunch of his foes,
And then they thought they could stop the fight
By throwing some pies at the hulk.
[chuckling] - Yes.
I was kind of a finity eater, but those ads
Made me beg my mom to get me those pies
For--like, I want them in my lunch.
I wanted a hostess pie to, you know, to crack open,
And all the-- all the kids would look around
And be like, "oh, he's got one of those..."
- [laughs] - "Comic book pies."
[laughter]
But sometimes you had heroes that were like,
"I'm low on my strength,"
Getting a pie and bringing them back,
Sustaining them, if you will.
As if, like, you could find super powers based on,
Like, a pound of sugar and whipped animal fat.
[laughter]
What are you doing?
I am reading a movie site to see what's coming up.
Are you of those clowns that's also, like,
You've got to find out what all the plot points are
Before it comes out?
I like to be informed. What's wrong with that?
The greatest moments of, like, me going to the cinema...
Right.
Is not knowing anything about the movie,
And then just being totally surprised.
See, the greatest moments in my life concerning cinema
Are ruining moments like that for people like you.
[laughter]
- Hey, how's it going? - Hey.
Um, you guys buy toys, right?
Depends on what it is.
This Star Trek toy?
Ah, Captain Kirk.
We don't really love
Star Trek here. Well, some of us don't.
- I know you do. - Yeah.
If there is a Star Trek fan in the shop, it is me.
Oh, what's this on the side?
- It's signed by Shatner. - No.
- This year at... - Nice!
A Comic-Con in Philly.
Do you have a picture of you getting it signed?
I have a picture
Of my dad in a Captain Kirk outfit next to him.
- That's weird. - That is weird.
- And that's coming from me. - How often does your dad dress
In a Captain Kirk outfit?
Just, like, every Halloween.
[laughter]
But...
- Well, this is very cool, man. - Wrath of Khan.
- Possibly the best
- Of the Star Trek movies. - Which ain't saying much.
What, it's got to be "Wars" in "Stars"
In order for it to be interesting?
Show me an alien.
Show me a ray gun for christ's sake.
[laughter] it's intolerable at times.
They're just old guys talking and talking
And talking and talking.
Think about the real military. [laughter]
They don't always have a war or an adventure.
Most of the time they're just sitting around philosophizing,
- Iting for something. - Which is why the military
Doesn't have a tv show. [laughter]
I would say to move on, but the signature intrigues me.
- Hmm. - The signature
Is the only saving grace on this piece,
Because it'd be cool to have something signed by the captain.
What are you looking to get for it?
I'm looking to get 150 for it.
It's a little soft on the corners.
What about... [drums fingers]
120?
Would you take 100?
110.
All right. 110.
All right.
"Live long and prosper."
I thought something interesting
Came out of the transaction though.
- Ming does a mean Captain Kirk. - Oh.
Get out of here. Ming, you got an impression?
Mike, you have crappy taste in sci-fi.
[laughter]
When you say "a mean impression,"
You meant a mean impression. [laughs]
- Hey, guys. - Hi, how are you?
I'm wondering if you can help me with something.
Let's see.
Back in the 1970s, my parents bought this for me.
I was just wondering if you can
Give me some information on it.
Who made it? When it was made?
It's obviously a recreation of Superman number 13.
It says 1941 on that.
I don't know.
Maybe you better call in your expert in.
- Hey, rob. - Yeah?
Come on over here for a second?
Sure thing.
It looked like it may have been a poster
That was produced in the 1940s to promote Superman comics.
Something that would be rare as a faberge egg at this point.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's sweet. Great image.
- Can you put a date on it? - Yeah.
I mean, you would think this would be some sort of ad flyer,
But they would never have used this gloss.
Now, there's a real giveaway to this piece,
Because it does say "1941,"
But then it says "Produced Massachusetts,"
And it has a zip code.
Now the zip code was created in 1963.
Ooh, man. That's like a
Sherlock Holmesian detail that makes and breaks the case.
I know, and that validates why
I call him in all the time, right?
Right then and there, you're like,
"this guy knows his stuff."
Not only does he know the item, he happens to know
A little bit about zip code history as well.
[laughter]
Do you see a lot of these around?
I do not see this item that often.
- That doesn't change the value. - Right.
I mean, it's more like desirability pushes the market.
At this point, you know,
Instead of having this as an original worth $5,000,
It's a '70s piece worth about $40.
Would you take 20 for it?
No.
- 30? - No.
50 bucks.
- No, I can't do 50. - 50 bucks.
- No. - I'm gonna offer you more than
What my expert has said it's worth.
I realize that.
I'd like to hang it in the Stash, man.
How awesome would it look back here
On our wall right here, man?
Boo-yah, right?
How about 100.
No.
I'm not insane. [laughter]
Okay, guys.
All right. Thank you.
- Thanks, guys. - Thank you.
- Thanks for coming in. - Take care.
190. Can I have 200, can I have 200?
- Sold for $205. - You know you want it!
- Sold for $300 right there.
Yeah! Whoo!
The day had come.
Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash
Is proud to present
- Gary (Con)Over Auction. - [chuckles]
That rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?
[laughter]
We were in Asbury Park--
Asbury Park is where we shot
The "fake convention" for Chasing Amy.
Well, now it's time to come full circle with a real Con.
We had catalogued all his books. We had put it all in order.
We had put it-- separated it into lots.
And at teginning of the auction,
We had a special announcement
From one of the most famous names in comic book history.
Attention, true believers.
Welcome to the Gary ConOver Auction.
There are great books for sale,
But also five hidden gems
With my autograph.
Happy hunting, fans!
- Whoo! - Yeah!
[cheers and applause] - whoo!
All right, with that-- all that said.
We're gonna get started,
So here we go. What do we got?
Amazing Spider-Man 129.
The first appearance of the punisher.
190, can I have 200, can I have 200, can I have 200?
200, 225?
Sold it for $200. Thank you.
Giant-Size X-Men number 1!
525, can I have 525, can I have 525?
Sold $500 right there.
- Silver age Batman. - I got 675.
700, 725. [gavel pounds]
Sold it for $725.
20, can I have 20, can I have 20?
Now 500, 500? Sold $135.
225, bid 250, 250, 225.
Bid 250. Sold for $225.
[gavel pounds] sold for $205.
- Sold for $300 right there. - Yeah!
[applause] Whoo!
It's hot and heavy,
And numbers are flying everywhere.
You know, "do I got 10, do I hear 20, and 20, 50, 100!"
Just when you feel like, "well, I'm gonna sit down now,"
You can't sit down, 'cause you're sitting down,
- You see Gary right there. - He's like,
- "I got a reason to sit." - Yeah! [laughs]
"You sell!" [laughter]
- Last lot of the night. - Last lot!
- This is it! - This is it!
This is it!
The Incredible Hulk 180, 181, and 182.
"The Wolverine Trilogy."
500, can I get 500, can I get 500, 525?
- 500, bid 525. - Oh, yeah!
550, 550, 550, 575...
- Yes! - 575, 575, 600, 600...
[crowd reacts] 600, 625, 625, 625...
- 625! - 635, 645...
655, 655, 665...
$675.
- 675... - Yeah!
- 685, 685, 685... - You have 685!
695. 695 to buy, 695 to buy, 695 to buy.
$695?
- Sold $685. - Whoo!
[applause] Thank you all for coming.
We appreciate it. We thank you.
Have a great night. Have a safe drive home.
Thank you once again. Thank you.
Whoo! Good job, man.
- Thanks a lot, man. - No problem.
[overlapping chatter]
We actually have a tally for you.
$27,935.
Sweet! Wow, thank you guys.
[applause] I mean, thank you.
I just--
Thanks a lot, guys. - Thank you.
All right, you're welcome.
This is the one thing that has made him happy...
And he really loves it,
And he's had a lot of fun tonight.
I appreciate it.
I'm not a crier. I'm really not.
- But thank you. - Oh, you're welcome.
You're welcome.
It's so uncharacteristic
Of any of you to care about anybody,
So this story really warms my heart.
In some way, and I don't want to oversell it,
But you guys are heroic, man--
Superheroic, in this instance.
You guys did something completely out of character
For your fellow man.
I think it's important that we ignore the doctors
Who actually did save Gary's life.
[laughter]
And that's gonna wrap it up
For another episode of Comic Book Men.
I'm Kevin Smith.
- Bryan Johnson. - Walt Flanagan.
- Mike Zapcic. - Ming Chen.
Remember, kids, you're never alone
At the Fortress of Solitude.
Good night.