Unboxing the Mystery: Comic Book Hinterlands, #2

By David Macpherson

How entertaining is it to open a box of random comics?

 

We are not sure, but we are willing to let David find out. He has purchased a Halloween themed mystery box of 11 comics. Will he get the grand prize? Will he find comics he wants? Why does anyone want to share unboxing comics? 

 

All questions that could be hidden in the box with the comics. Come along as David discovers what books he received and what thoughts and associations they bring to mind.

 

The world of comics is filled with wonders. But in the outskirts resides the odd and forgotten. The comic that never played well with others. The story that was converted into another medium. The character that probably should never have had its own comic. Welcome to the distant lands of comic books. Welcome to the Comic Book Hinterlands.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Macpherson
• Release date: Nov 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201667825

Book preview

Writer’s Note

The Comic Book Hinterlands series of short books are made to spotlight obscure parts of the comic book landscape. They are meant to be fun. There is some research in these books, but they are not intended to be scholarly works. While I attempt to be accurate, I am not beholden to academic rigor. This is not a serious work, but a piece of entertainment that focuses on comic book history and culture. There is no intention to get information wrong, but I might not be as thorough as some would like.  Deal with it, Skippy!

The Mystery Box

There's a mystery box waiting for me to open.

It is next to me now on the desk. a cardboard question mark. A thing of possibility.

Next to it is a serrated steak knife that I will open it with. I am aware that some people have special razors or knives dedicated to the act of opening up boxes of comic books. but all I have are the knives from the kitchen butcher block. I am sure it will be just fine.

I ordered the mystery two days ago and now it waits for me by my side.

I am almost not ready for its appearance at my door. There is no sense of anticipation, of the joy of waiting when it comes in just two days. Didn't I just order it?

It comes from a company called sellmycomics.com

I watch the Youtube videos of one of their employees. His job is to look at the books the company has purchased and give it a grade for it to be then sold at auction on eBay.

He identifies himself as Duke and his YouTube channel is called Shanghalla. I have never been interested enough in the title to find out what it means. I like the channel. I tolerate the name.

Several times a week I will watch videos of him going through scores of comics and talking about them. I do not know exactly why I find it such a comforting thing to watch, to witness.

It feels as if I am watching a friend show me his own collection.

You don't need to understand why this is an exciting thing for me to watch. I don't judge you on your odd YouTube choices.

Like a lot of middle-aged men I have the annoying tale of woe for the large and comprehensive comic book collection I had that I have since sold. I didn't make a lot of money when I sold it. My girlfriend at the time thought it a great idea to get rid of all of those boxes from my spare room.

The fact that I agreed to this and sold it is not the reason that she and I broke up, but it certainly didn't help the relationship.

I watch the videos of Duke looking at old comics and think of the ones I have had that I no longer do. I have now found myself buying back issue comics I once owned. There is no way to recreate the collection. Some of the books I had are now very valuable.

They were valuable to me, but not because they were expensive. They were the comics I loved, and that’s good enough for me.

Watching videos of old comics from the 70s and 80s is a bittersweet habit. .

Last week Duke had a different type of video. In this video he announced that part of his job is to create 100 mystery boxes with a Halloween theme. The mystery  boxes would be on sale in October and it was his responsibility to make up sets of 10 comics each that would be sold for $40 with free shipping.

An unspoken problem with mystery boxes is that sometimes they are not worth the money that is charged. I have seen unboxing videos where people will open up a Mystery Box they bought for $100 and uninteresting bargain bin comics are revealed.

Sometimes the people in those videos are upset. They feel they were ripped off. They talk about the lack of value. Other times I have watched videos where people try to justify the comics that are in the Box. They want to be excited about them. They want them to be more than their market value. If you say enough times that the book is cool, then maybe the disappointment will dissipate.

Part of the issue is that with many of the mystery boxes there is a grand prize that is included in one of those boxes. It might be a very valuable comic book or a piece of original comic art. It is the thing that everyone wants to get.

So the mystery box becomes nothing but a four color lottery ticket. The other comics in the box are not important. What is important is the grand prize or the higher end comics. Every ten boxes has a good comic. One box in a hundred has a great comic. And what of the other comics? Are they nothing but filler? Are they just ballast?

I often think of the first section of the movie, Willie Wonka and Chocolate Factory where everyone on Earth seems to be buying boxes and boxes of Wonka Bars for no other reason than getting one of the five golden tickets.

That’s a lot of candy bars without gold wrapping.

I would watch the scenes where the candy bars are shucked like oysters and the chocolate discarded in bins and wonder what the hell is wrong with these people? Don’t they know there is some decent candy being discarded? What kind of a nightmare world have we found ourselves in?

That’s what I think when I watch these unboxing videos of mystery boxes. They fly through the five or ten regular comics and hope to find something with great value.

I know I will sound like a ridiculous old fuddy duddy, but isn’t the value of a comic in reading the damned thing? Should we not enjoy the comic and not what someone is willing to pay us for it?

Why the hell am I worried about what someone is doing with the comics they purchased blind on their unboxing video?

And why the hell am I watching video after video of people opening up packages and showing it to us, like this is great entertainment?

But of course, I watch enough of them that they must be great entertainment.

From a YouTuber for his Amazon Mystery Box opening. "Okay guys. You love these boxes or you hate them. Mostly you hate them. And probably so