Pop! Goes the Icon

I have a beef with Clifford Meth.

OK, well, more specifically, I have a beef with Clifford Meth’s Yahoo! e-mail account.

You may recall that a few weeks back I shared news about Meth helping the fiscal security of the late Dave Cockrum’s widow, Paty, by facilitating the selling off of Cockrum’s personal comic collection. I wrote that post on Feb. 20, after I had already e-mailed Meth my reservation request for Uncanny X-Men No. 150. Note that date.

Here’s how the sale works: You go to Meth’s blog. You see what’s not already sold or reserved on the posted list. You send him an e-mail to reserve the comic(s) you want. Meth, in theory, says “OK” and then you send off a check for your goodies.

Well, on Feb. 18, I sent Meth this e-mail, requesting the aforementioned item:

I received no response. Take note that Meth’s e-mail address is a Yahoo.com address. In the past, I have noticed that Yahoo!’s spam filters are a bit too strong, and unless you are already in someone’s contacts, your e-mail will NOT go to the Yahoo! user’s inbox, but their junk mail folder. With that in mind, I left a comment on Meth’s blog, along the lines of “hey, my email might have gone to your spam, want to reserve comic.” This was on Feb. 20 at 2:31 a.m. Meth left me a comment on this blog on Feb. 20 at 8:01 p.m. in response, asking me to e-mail him my request. He has since removed the contents of my comment on his blog, though the time stamp remains.

X-Men No. 150 was still not marked as “sold” or “reserved” on his blog, so I went ahead and dropped my $15 check in the mail for Paty.

So, again, I sent an e-mail to Meth, on Feb. 21, which made note of the potential problems with Yahoo!’s e-mail and reiterated my request:

Again, I did not hear back, but I figured even if there was a problem when he received my check, he could call or e-mail me (all my contact info was in the letter) to let me know and maybe I could just select a different comic or whatever — I just wanted to help out Mrs. Cockrum, mainly.

Well, a few days ago, I received an envelope in the mail from the Cockrum address. Enclosed was my letter and check (now voided) and a note written on the letter, presumably by Meth, that read:

“This is gone. Next time follow the instructions on the blog and reserve the comic by emailing us first.” (Emphasis his.)

Well, Mr. Meth, I did try to reserve it. Hell, I only DEDICATED AN ENTIRE BLOG POST to the cause, after YOU ASKED ME TO. So obviously, I know the drill here. Here’s a thought: If you know that you’re going to be receiving a large number of emails from people you’ve never heard from before regarding such things as financial transactions, maybe you should check your junk mail/spam folder every so often.

I still think it’s a good thing Meth’s doing for Paty Cockrum (of course, he’s also selling off his own stuff on the same site), but the underlying nasty tone in the letter response and the pain in the ass this whole process has been makes me kind of wish I’d never gotten involved in the first place.

For anyone out there who might have run into a similar situation, please let me know. Mr. Meth, I know this isn’t your fault, but I figured you should be aware. And because I obviously can’t e-mail you about it, and my blog comment will simply be ignored, well, now I guess the dozens (or six, you decide) of Pop! Goes the Icon readers get to share in my frustration as well.

Let’s end this thing on a positive note: I DID receive my big ol’ box of Avengers comics from Roger Stern, and have been enjoying this late-80s collection all week. And I’m not even a quarter of the way through. What a great buy. It did make me think that a more efficient, effective means of selling Cockrum’s collection might be to put the goods on eBay where there are things like user accounts and seller/buyer protection. And Mr. Meth — you could even raise more money for Mrs. Cockrum by opening those books up to auction where they could bring in more than you’re asking.