WIZARD STOCK IN FREE FALL

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Who wants to see the emails where John Macaluso, WW CEO & facebook star, offered to cancel WW Indy last February if Indiana Comic Con (last March) would pay its combined venue rental & hotel room block of approx. $100K?

 

Who wants to know how much they lost in Indy when they proceeded anyway, after Indiana Comic Con rejected this curious brand of what looks like gangsterism?

 

WW scheduled Orlando 2016 the same weekend as Tampa Bay Comic Con 2016. Who is ready to make predictions & take bets?

Scare other cons into buying them out? Are you really suggesting this is WW's business model going forward?

I dont know what they are thinking, but a few years back WW ATLANTA tried to compete head to head with HEROESCON

Last year, WW Philly tried to go head-to-head with HeroesCon as well.

Wizard World bought out The Pittsburgh Comicon and I'm not too happy about it. Seems like they've just turned it into a pop culture con rather than comics. The Pittsburgh Comicon, while smaller, was at least focused on the hobby. Lots of dealers and a good variety of artists like Trimpe, Frenz and the like.

They may have bought Pittsburgh Comicon but it appears they will have future competition:

http://3riverscomicon.com/

Sweet, this is the first I'm hearing about this show. We also have the Steel City Con which is less comics, more sci-fi and horror but alas CGC isn't there. I have a 9.8 copy of Batman '66 Meets The Green Hornet that I want to get signed by Adam West and Burt Ward but no CGC witness, no dice. I do have a second copy I could get signed just for personal reasons, but I'm not buying show tickets to a convention I'm only mildly interested in for two sigs.

I dont know what they are thinking, but a few years back WW ATLANTA tried to compete head to head with HEROESCON

and they lost that battle big time.

Hmmmm... I'm wondering if New Dimension is putting together that 3 Rivers Comic Con show. That's where their big main store is. Plus, that mall needs something to keep it alive. If it's a con, so be it.

As for Wizard taking over Pittsburgh... well... we needed someone to take over MurderCon. Renee George was letting that show go down the hole real fast. It was no better than Steel City at this point, except with CGC taking subs. It lost all its luster from the 90's and early/mid 00's. I remember getting exclusives there back in the day. Now, you're lucky to get parking at that convention center. It's really not very good. But being downtown finally? (or if they were still in the Expo Mart) that's a whole different story.

It is New Dimensions for sure and I think its the cheapest space available as that is the deadest mall in the county. I always thought his main store was the Ellwood City one?

http://3riverscomicon.com/about

I would figure that Pittsburgh Mills would be deader than Century 3. As long as it's a good show and there are some good artists, then I don't care if they hold it in the basement of the Cathedral of Learning.

 

 

 

Remember, 20 years ago, many dealers considered tear seals and slight restoration as enhancing a book, not hurting it.

 

Probably more like 30 years ago, and we all know the verdict on restored books in today's marketplace.

 

The question is what will the verdict be 30 years from now on the sanctioned manipulation of books for the sole purpose of enhancement and maximization of value in today's marketplace.

 

 

Restored books fell out of favor when CGC put them in different labels, and that wasn't even twenty years ago. Where the market is on restored books thirty years from now is irrelevant when examining a deal done twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, non-disclosure was pretty much the norm.

Restored books fell out of favor long before CGC even came onto the scene. I remember dealers and collectors were already trying to avoid restored books when I first started collecting GA and that was back in the latter part of the 80's.

Try telling collectors that getting their books back in a PLOD label today is irrelevant just because they were purchased 20 years ago.

Yes, although non-disclosure was prevalent back then, unfortunately this situation has not improve at all as this has now become the new normal in today's market, albeit with different restoration activities.

 

 

 

Remember, 20 years ago, many dealers considered tear seals and slight restoration as enhancing a book, not hurting it.

 

Probably more like 30 years ago, and we all know the verdict on restored books in today's marketplace.

 

The question is what will the verdict be 30 years from now on the sanctioned manipulation of books for the sole purpose of enhancement and maximization of value in today's marketplace.

 

 

Restored books fell out of favor when CGC put them in different labels, and that wasn't even twenty years ago. Where the market is on restored books thirty years from now is irrelevant when examining a deal done twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, non-disclosure was pretty much the norm.

 

Restored books fell out of favor long before CGC even came onto the scene. I remember dealers and collectors were already trying to avoid restored books when I first started collecting GA and that was back in the latter part of the 80's.

 

Try telling collectors that getting their books back in a PLOD label today is irrelevant just because they were purchased 20 years ago.

 

Yes, although non-disclosure was prevalent back then, unfortunately this situation has not improve at all as this has now become the new normal in today's market, albeit with different restoration activities.

The point I was making is that you shouldn't be upset that a dealer sold you a undisclosed restored book twenty years ago. That doing so doesn't make him a bad guy.The market for them was very different back then. I was selling books and restoration was looked upon as being desirable in many cases. Marrying Marvel covers was common, especially after all those file covers hit the circuit around 1986 or so.

A bit of CT or japan paper, even bleaching books was pretty common. It really wasn't until the Purple Label stigmata came along that it fell out of favor.

 

Remember, 20 years ago, many dealers considered tear seals and slight restoration as enhancing a book, not hurting it.

 

yeah, crooked ones did. i can't say what the world was like in 1985, however, as that was not part of my thought process, and I think that was probably more the thinking 30 years ago, but in 1995 I was aware that sealed tears, color touch, etc. devalued the book at least from the "apparent" grade...a sealed tear would NOT make a book VF! I did not know that the PLOD would further enlarge the spread between minor resto and no resto, however.

Not necessarily unless you are also calling most of today's collectors and dealers crooks.

How soon we forget how the marketplace has changed over time. Yes, back in the late 70's and early 80's restoration was indeed seen as a positive activity which added to the monetary value of a unrestored book by improving its overall condition and appearance. This was so engrained in the hobby to the extent that Overstreet even had an entire section in the price guide to help determine the added value of a restored book as compared to its prior lower value unrestored state.

Needless to say, the mood of the marketplace changed towards restored books over the years. Unfortunately, it would appear that we have not learned from our past mistakes as we continue to manipulate books and foist them without disclosure upon unsuspecting buyers all in the pursuit of more money. Or maybe we did learn from our past mistakes by simply selecting more subtle and hard to detect activities and rebranding them as non-restorative now. Will the marketplace still think the same way 30 years from now if there are more cost effective techniques developed to detect these more subtle non-restorative activities by then?

Yes, the initial purpose of the PLOD was to help facilitate the identification and differentiation of restored books from unrestored books for the marketplace. Unfortunately, the use of the PLOD not only facilitated the identification of restored books, but unintentionally facilitated the stigmatization of restored books in the marketplace through its 2-color labelling system. This unintended consequence of the PLOD was probably the primary reason why SB himself did not adopt a similar labelling system when he started his new company. Certainly not one to repeat a mistake and you can bet that it would be in place if he had thought it was a good idea.

That IS China afterall, where they put paint led in baby food and pet food

Maybe it has something to do with the large amount of shows they have been doing that have been complete disasters.

 

You mean like their China show?

 

http://www.twoamericansinchina.com/2015/05/the-big-con-nightmare-guangzhou-comic-con.html

 

They moved the venue to a tent and many people were stuck outside inline in the heat hours past the open because they wouldn't let people in until others left.

 

By 12:00 the celebrities started arriving, and they were not happy with what they saw. Thousands of guests and fans were still standing outside in the broiling sun, and inside, it was so crowded there weren’t even any chairs for them to sit and sign autographs.

 

...and it gets better

 

About 2:30, the organizers announced that no one else would be allowed inside (not that they had let anyone in since about noon) and only VIP ticket-holders would be allowed inside on Sunday. A mini riot broke out, which caused the celebrity guests to be evacuated the police to form a human barricade around the tent. The organizers then said they would issue refunds for all the regular ticket holders, but they didn’t give any directions about how to get the refund. We have contacted event organizers directly as well as Wizard World and Coke via their website, Facebook, and Twitter, all to no response, so we have not received any refunds.

This recovered to 60 cents recently but crashed again today.

Jesus Christ. Can't even spell their own company name right.

HA! Reminds me back in the 1990's, working for an internet company where all of us as employees had stock options. At one point (before the internet stocks all crashed in 2000 or so) the company stock had some sharp "bump" drop-offs and the CEO was sending out company emails telling everyone not to worry about it. It was just the stock market making some corrections. He told everyone to hold in there, and that this was a great opportunity to get more of the company stock at a lower price in addition to the freebie options.

Turns out the CEO was the one selling off large chunks of his own options in the hundreds of thousand sums, and that was what was making the stock value drop in large bumps!!

The total crash happened maybe a year or two later, but by that time, that guy was living on an island he owned in south America somewhere.

Ah, good times!

-Terry

Shocking ....there is something serious about this company 's downfall... At what price will this company delist out of the exchange ....