Boy, I remember the crash so well. I live in a smaller market, and it was amazing to watch the shrinkage happen in just one store.

It might be my memory playing tricks on me, but I am almost positive that TUROK #1 and SUPERMAN #75 came out the same day.

I would also nominate DEATHMATE and SPAWN #10 as likely culprits.
C. Elam | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 8:40 am | #

Correct me if I'm wrong but I do believe Superman #75 and Turok #1 both were released on the same day.
Devon Sanders | Email | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 9:16 am | #

Twelve years later, I don't remember if these two comics came out on the same day. I could dig out the old invoices (wherever they may be!) and check.

If that's the case, then perhaps we have another reason Turok sat on the shelves...it was incredibly overshadowed by Superman.
Mikester | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 9:25 am | #

I remember the huge publicity for The Death of Superman. The thing I most remember is that it was my Mom who told me about it, that's how big this was.

It's weird to think that there are these people who probably own one comic and that's Superman #75. Do many of them still have it? Where do they keep it? I wouldn't be too surprised if a lot of them probably threw it out after they were done.
Ian Brill | Email | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 9:50 am | #

I read an interesting economics article the other day, which maintained that orthodox economic theory is based on 19th century "scarcity" of goods, and as such was useless for talking about the 21st century. I would say that the collector card and comic markets are good examples of this. I mean really, what is intrinsically scarce about paper and ink? And certainly these days, it isn't like they can't be ever reproduced..
jingyang | 09.12.05 - 10:09 am | #

I had a friend give me an extra black polybagged copy of Superman #75 just last year. It was a nice gesture, but a clear indicator of how the thing has zilcho value! LOL

I think you're pretty dead-on with your books. Others that pop into mind are X-Men 1 (with the bazillion variant covers) and somewhere along in the Spider-Man Clone Saga. Spawn #10 is a another good pick, although I'd argue that the start of the Image line was an early herald of the end. That period is such a jumbled mess, it's hard to sort it all out.
Michael Denton | Email | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 10:19 am | #

In our own little universe here in South Jersey, at the video store where I used to work, and where I still get my books, I would have to say the death of that particular age of comics speculation has to lie at the feet of that Damned (Adjectiveless) X-men #1...the one that they printed five weeks in a row with a different cover for four weeks and then a gatefold cover of the other four covers as one big cover the fifth week? Well, that place still has (at least) two entire long-boxes filled with them.
Bryan Irrera | Email | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 10:29 am | #

I always felt the market crash in the comic book industry WAS the Death of Superman. Not that it didn't sell, but that all of these stores (including yours) were carrying a lot more Supes product after that than the market could bear. So, when you ordered Adv Supes 500, you were already dealing with an overextended market. In other words, Death o' Supes was Wile E. Coyote going off the cliff, hanging out there in mid-air with nothing supporting him, Adv Supes 500 and all of those damn Valiant books were gravity taking over.
Roger Green | Email | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 10:55 am | #

I remember the Death of Superman fiasco, and all my friends' associated commentary. That may have been what plunged the industry into the pits, but for me personally, it was X-Men #1.

It was the X-Men that sucked me into comics collecting back in the late 70's, so I had the kind of obsessive loyalty to the X-titles that only a young girl can muster... even when, with the plethora of X-spinoffs of the late '80's, they were stretching the franchise and my allowance to the breaking point. But with the thrice-accursed variant cover scheme, I felt that I **personally** was being called upon to financially carry the burgeoning weight of the Marvel Comics Machine. Well, again with the obsessive teenage girl fervor, I snapped. If it was economically unfeasible for me to collect them all, then I wouldn't collect *any*. (The Industry may be glad to know I've chilled out since then.)
Melissa Gay | Email | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 11:18 am | #

Wow.. Freaky coincidence.
I was just explaining the Great Comic Meltdown (especially as regards Valiant comics) to my wife the other day (she humors me) after buying three old copies of Turok: Son of Stone at my usual comic shop. The comics were originally priced at $20, $20 and $30. I bought them in the quarter boxes.

Sad, isn't it?
Pope Impious XXIII | Email | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 11:58 am | #

Oops, forgot to add.. The Turok were the old Gold Key, and the conversation (and purchase) was yesterday. Queue the Twilight Zone music.
Pope Impious XXIII | Email | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 12:00 pm | #

Yeah, that X-Men #1 was a definite harbinger of something-or-other. I read an interesting conclusion about this period somewhere - that, ironically, during this period of ridiculous over-expansion, with multiple covers, spin-offs, etc., Marvel actually killed the "Marvel Zombie." You know, that once-archetypical subspecies of comics fan who bought *only* Marvel Comics - wouldn't touch a DC, even if his favorite Spider-Man writer and artist were doing it. And, frequently, would not only buy *only* Marvels, but *all* the Marvels - the entire line, or some feasible subpart thereof. At some point, it became literally impossible to do so for all but the wealthiest zuvembie... and thus, the zombies were freed from their chains! Dunno how much actual hard truth there is to this (or for that matter, how common the "Marvel Zombie" buyer was in the first place), but it's interesting.

BTW, I recall that my comics shop *did* put the "One issue per customer!" tag up for one day on some total (but relatively minor - like they'd ordered 20 when they could only sell 5) dog that they'd over-ordered for some reason, and it did, in fact, work....
David C | Email | 09.12.05 - 12:02 pm | #

Was your store around for the black and white bust of the mid-eighties?

I was really pissed at the hype around Valiant, even if it meant for a while that I could finance my college education from the "rare" Valiants I'd bought when nobody but loons like me were buying them.

I remember the Unity crossover series and finally being able to complete the mosaic cover while on holiday somewhere, laying them all out on the floor and just loving it.
Martin Wisse | Email | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 12:14 pm | #

David C -

It was definitely sometime during the collector's frenzy that Marvel killed off their "zombies" for good. I always figured it was because the suits who were trying to cook the books for the shareholders didn't understand the gravy train they were sitting on - they thought they could make more money by making more books and they'd all get bought. Unfortunately for them they overburdened their OCD collector's fanbase instead and they started buying other things instead.

Basically what Melissa's post said - a lot of folks who were getting everything because they were "Marvel" collectors just decided it wasn't worth getting ANYTHING and dropped it all at once. For most of them, I think it happened in the middle of the speculation collapse - when the Image guys bolted or at some point just before that (X-Men #1, or maybe X-Force #1), but the market was swollen with speculators. When they left, the core fanbase was weaker and the market as a whole was weaker with it.
Jer | 09.12.05 - 12:28 pm | #

I would also nominated Pitt #1 - as I was a retailer at that time and had a customer order 50 issues of Pitt #1. Then right before it was released he asked if he had to buy them. I said yes and took a deposit from him on the spot.
Jim | Email | 09.12.05 - 12:54 pm | #

Thanks a lot. Now I'm having traumatic flashbacks to the gawdawful comics of the mid-to-late nineties.

AAAHH!!

Tiny heads and giant thighs!!!

Poly-bagged chromium!!!

Sweet Jesus, make the hurting stop! Make the bad men stop!!
Harvey Jerkwater | Email | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 2:26 pm | #

Roger - well, at least at our store the whole Funeral for a Friend/Return of Superman storylines did sell very well, and Superman sales remained fairly strong for a couple years, even as the rest of the market was crashing down. We just made the mistake of drastically overordering that Advs of Superman #500!

Pope - man, I wish I could find some Gold Key Turoks for a quarter! I still need a few to go to fill out my run.

Martin - yes, we were there for the big b&w boom (in fact, it's our store's 25th anniversary this month...whee!). Luckily we didn't get taken on the whole b&w/TMNT-inspired glut, like some people (for example, that poor bastard I saw at a convention in the early '90s still trying to unload a long box full of Shadow of the Groundhog).
Mikester | Homepage | 09.12.05 - 10:57 pm | #

Luckily for me I had already had my personal comics meltdown long before the mid 90's collapse.

It started with Secret Wars and Marvel's crossover crap. Add in variant covers and I realized that Marvel was completely marketing driven, That and poverty drove me away from comics except for the occasional indie purchase.

At one time I used to spend almost every single dime of my disposable income on comics. Now I doubt I could afford to collect more than two or three monthly titles. So I don't buy any.

I kinda wish I could though.
Evilbeard | 09.13.05 - 2:37 am | #

Watching people trying to unload various boom-n-crash titles at comic stores, be they the retailer or some poor bastard trying to get some money for the comics which his purchase of has plagued him can really make you feel like some rubbernecker at a trainwreck Ever watch a grown man almost break down in tears because his near-complete collection of Adolescent Radioactive Blackbelt Hamsters (including GNs and that pointless x-over Eclipse published with Airboy) is worth far, far less than he thought it would be...or similarly seeing poor gal trying to unload complete runs of Triumphant titles like Riot Gear, Scavengers and Chromium Man...tsk tsk. You remember Triumphant don't you? Gimmick City, they were. Ashcans, HOT SPECIAL ISSUE #0s, and of course actually serially numbering each issue so you could see that it was no. 5 or 451 or 1003 off the line of that print run.
thorpe | 09.13.05 - 6:21 am | #

Aren't we forgetting Wizard? Shouldn't they be to blame, in some part for the crash-n-boom? Didn't a bunch of their backers or something buy huge amounts of Valiant, which drove the prices in a bad way?
RobB | Homepage | 09.13.05 - 7:14 am | #

i remember the max exodus of marvel artists who went on to create image as the beginning of the end...the irony of the idea that these guys were going to quit for reasons of artistic integrity, when it turned out all along to be financially driven, their creations all terrible terrible rip-offs of the books they were doing at marvel in the first place.

i was a huge McFarlane fan @ the time (...yeah...i admit it) and gobbled up Spawn even though i knew it was crap.

and the "#0" issues...what in the hell was that, except to an attempt to have TWO high selling first issues?

...i loved sam keith's the maxx though...that was a good book while it lasted

i remember the X-men #1 fiasco as well...

but i think you are right to peg the death of superman as the birth of a bad era in comics...it is poetically fitting, and there isn't really a better way to say it.

it was the beginning of hype-driven comics publishing.
phil | Homepage | 09.13.05 - 10:33 am | #

Spawn was alright when it was influenced by actual creatively talented people like Neil Gaiman.

And The Maxx was very amusing, even the cartoon was good.
Evilbeard | 09.13.05 - 7:21 pm | #