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Shelf Bound: Post-Auction Wrap-up!

By | June 15th, 2020
Posted in Columns | % Comments

From April 24th to June 5th, I posted a different bound edition from my shelves for auction, with the proceeds going to organizations like the Hero Initiative and Black Lives Matter. Now that the dust has settled, the checks written, and the last of the book boxes making their way to the post office, it’s time to take stock of what we accomplished in those 6 weeks.

By my count, you raised $4,045 for charity.

  • $2,525 for the Hero Initiative.
  • $450 for Helping Hand – Access PR Small Biz Relief.
  • $340 for the Black Lives Matter Global Network.
  • $250 for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
  • $150 for the Dwayne McDuffie Fund.
  • $130 for HELP: Fund Black Trans Women and NB People in MN.
  • $100 for Supplies for DC Protesters.
  • $100 for the ACLU.

That’s insane.

Donor fatigue is a thing. Asking people for money when money is tight for everybody isn’t the smartest thing to do. But I figured “what the hell?” and did it anyway, hoping at the very most I’d get at least a $25 bid per book and raise around $800 total.

You raised OVER FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS!

That’s more than Jim Lee got for one of his most recent Hero Initiative “sketches”! (Granted, only one of those 30 pieces fell below the $4K mark. But still!)

And while we’re on the subject of Jim Lee: while I am on record as not being the biggest fan his sequential artwork, his portrait drawings have always used the posing & stiffness I find in his panel-to-panel work to great advantage. Some of these latest drawings have been gobsmackingly gorgeous. I joked with MC staff that it took us 6 weeks of work to do what he could do in an hour, but I want to take this opportunity to tip my cap to the man for using his art talents and the market value of those talents on a scale that really is a honest-to-goodness superpower. Bravo, sir.

Another cap tip goes to Gail Simone, who let us use the #ComicWritersChallenge hashtag she started for our last week of BLM-aimed auctions. I’m sure that helped us spread the word a little further and faster than we otherwise would, so thanks for letting us hitch a ride on your charity train.

Yet another tip of the cap to Hero Initiative president Jim McLauchlin. Jim was on-board with this project from the start, retweeting and signal-boosting our efforts.

The cap tips again for MC editor Brian Salvatore for helping me straighten out & clarify some logistics, as well as running an impromptu Shelf Bound commercial before episodes of the DC3cast.

I want to give special thanks to Kate Kosturski, our resident MC social media queen. Each auction ran for three days, and in that time each one got different waves of individualized tweets and posts. It’s one thing for me to come up with this idea, but people can’t bid on something they don’t know about. Kate made sure these auctions got the full-court press on social media, and our success is as much a product of her effort as anyone else’s.

And finally, to everyone who bid on these auctions: even if you didn’t win that book, all your efforts mean:

  • A comic creator in need will get help with medical bills, or won’t be evicted from their home, or any number of other social safety net protections.
  • People marching in the streets to exercise their Constitutional right of free assembly and voice their desire for change, even as those in power give them every reason not to, can do so with a little more help on their side.
  • The Dwayne McDuffie Foundation, a non-profit organization to award academic scholarships for diverse students and carry on McDuffie’s legacy, gets that much closer to being a reality.
  • Black LGTBQ+non-binary assistance groups have more resources to offer their communities more of a helping hand to protect them from the closed fists.
  • And more.

That’s real, tangible, objectively provable good you put into the world, at a time when it seems more and more of it disappears before our eyes every day.

You did that, and from the bottom of my heart I thank you for it.

Shelf Bound is going to take a break for a few months, but we should be back this fall with more ways to get your comics out of those longboxes and on to the bookshelves!


//TAGS | Shelf Bound

Greg Matiasevich

Greg Matiasevich has read enough author bios that he should be better at coming up with one for himself, yet surprisingly isn't. However, the years of comic reading his parents said would never pay off obviously have, so we'll cut him some slack on that. He lives in Baltimore, co-hosts (with Mike Romeo) the Robots From Tomorrow podcast, writes Multiversity's monthly Shelf Bound column dedicated to comics binding, and can be followed on Twitter at @GregMatiasevich.

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