[…] “I gave my daughter a promissory note for the money with a picture of the Spider-Man comic, which we can use to pay for a big part of the catering for her reception,” Richard Schaen, 69, told the …read more […]

This is the customer motivation in just about every episode of Comic Book Men, the regular person selling a rare comic to fund something. Sometimes it's worth a lot, sometimes it's worth very little, it's usually never as much as they expect. There was even an episode where the CBM put on a big estate auction to help an old friend pay his medical bills. It was a touching ep. It also showed up in The 40 Year Old Virgin as toys, selling off the mint collectibles to fund... whatever it was that Steve Carrell wanted to do (it's been a long time since I've seen the movie). And that was a metaphor for him finally growing up and taking a risk he had to make, even if he didn't feel if he was ready. Maybe this ties in to earlier in the month, with the discovery of the rare comics in the wall (or my character who had the original artwork). There has to be an emotional connection to the object, otherwise there's no conflict. And I think the last time we spoke about comics, I brought up that when these sales started happening, when people started selling their old comics for high returns, the market for comic books became flooded, there were "issue 1s" and "issue zeroes" and special covers and limited editions and so forth, everything was designed to be a collectible. It almost destroyed an already weak industry. It was nuts. So it could be an issue where a supposedly rare comic (maybe the guy figured out the prices in the Comic Buyer's Guide) turn out to be worthless, or only a fraction of their value, but he already offered to pay X amount for the wedding, so all of a sudden he's on the hook for all this money he doesn't have.

Yes, I remember there were comics whose first issue had at least four different covers for the normal edition and then tin foil cover editions in different variations (silver, gold, platinum) And most of them were sold out during pre-sales. You couldn't find them on stores at the normal cover price. But let's go back to the idea as a screenplay. Yes, it would be a very nice take that the guy decides to sell his loved comic book collection to help fund his daughter's wedding. To add a little drama let's say that the one who decides to sell it or at least comes up with the idea is his wife. And the guy at first doesn't want to. But of course he loves his daughter so much... .and then we could have the bride's younger brother that doesn't want to sell the comics, he considers they're part of his inheritance. So maybe the brother decides to take the comics to a friend's house. But his friend's kid or little brother finds the comics and draws funny pictures with crayons on them. In the end it turns out the damaged comics weren't worth that much and the father and brother realize they have to sell them.

The groom could be a huge comic book collector, and the issue that his future father-in-law could be the single issue that he's missing. An extremely rare issue in extremely good condition. Being a lighthearted comedy he wouldn't try to steal it, but buy it. The future father-in-law refuses and the groom has to convince a friend to pose as a potential buyer. In the end the groom gets the comic book and ends up paying for the wedding. It turns out the bride was also a huge fan of that comic book series and the groom gives her tu full collection - including that extremely rare issue - as a gift. He wasn't such a fan of the comic book after all, he's a fan of the bride.