Comic book store owner Ted Mays is hoping to channel the immense demand for the latest Spider-Man comic book featuring President-elect Barack Obama into raising money for cancer research.

Mays still has several copies of the initial print run of “;The Amazing Spider-Man”; number 583 with Obama on the cover, currently selling for as much as $100 on eBay.

He will auction off his remaining copies, each with a starting bid of $50, starting at 7 p.m. Tuesday - the day of Obama's inauguration - at his Gecko Books & Comics store in Kaimuki.

He said all proceeds of the in-store auction will go to the local branch of the American Cancer Society. After his grandmother's death here in November, Obama requested that donations be made to organizations in search of a cure for cancer in memory of Madelyn Dunham.

“;Ever since Tuesday of last week, the phone calls I've been getting here at the store have been non-stop Obama and wanting to get copies of the Spider-Man comic book,”; Mays said yesterday. “;I've already sold a good quantity of them to my regular customers who had already requested it.”;

With the upcoming second printing of the Spider-Man comic already sold out to about a hundred of Mays' customers and around 70 already pre-ordering the third printing, “;I suddenly realized that I had to satisfy the demands of not only my regulars, but it seemed like the entire island.

“;With this auction, I wanted to give something nice back to him and to the memory of his tutu,”; he said. “;Obama has already done good for me in terms of business.”;