>>"Buy something you'd like to read, that way it'll always be worth something to you."

Great advice, and a nice counterpoint to my personal mantra of "If you don't like it, don't buy it!" I sometimes catch flak for the stuff I enjoy, but if I enjoy reading it, what's the harm?

Very nice post Mike. Thanks for the insight.
Luke | Email | Homepage | 07.19.07 - 4:50 am | #

"On the other hand, when customers asked me which comics would be a good investment, that's where I drew the line."

A while back I had a guy really pushing me, wanting to know which book was going to be hot. After 10 minutes of buy what you like I broke down and mentioned that there was a new book out written by a top writer and illustrated by a fan favorite.

He proceeded to buy me out of all of my Onslaught Reborn #1s.
Colin | Email | 07.19.07 - 5:01 am | #

This may just be crazy talk, but I've had a half-baked opinion that comic sales seem to bump upward during times of economic depression, and maybe someday I'll get around to researching that a little more fully.

This may have more to do with desperation than anything else. Times are hard, and some people remember in the back of their mind that hey, aren't comics valuable? Nothing else works, might as well try the funny books...

Okay, here's something. I guess this is the benefit of hindsight and all, but it seems a simple equation: Rare, sought-after book = high value. Did speculators not realize that companies printing 300k-500k copies of a new book, and everyone buying five copies apiece to store away, meant that these books were by definition not rare and therefore not valuable? In these latter days, this seems glaringly obvious...
Ken Lowery | Email | Homepage | 07.19.07 - 9:02 am | #

You would think. I worked at McDonald's during the Beanie Baby craze. The first year, they didn't make too many and they became valuable.

The following years, they made shitloads of them, and started coming out with spin-offs and variants of them (seriously), but idiots still kept hoarding them and I remember seeing them dirt cheap in flea markets shortly after that.
Chaz Ervin | 07.19.07 - 9:16 am | #

If there is a bump in comic sales during economic times, it might have nothing to do with collecting. It might be because people tend to seek simple pleasures during those times. Charlie Chaplin was a millionaire during the Depression, because people flocked to see his films and forget their troubles for a while.
Chance | Email | Homepage | 07.19.07 - 9:19 am | #

"(How many big "pet rock" revivals have there been since the '70s, for example?*)"

Well, there have been some like that.
JUST as stupid but with a twist.

Tamagutchis were HUGE.
Basically, just an electronic Pet Rock.
You had to push buttons to "feed" it, make it "sleep" and wipe it's @$$, or it would "die", emaciated and lonely in it's own filth.

Also the Beanies and other similar things were along the same lines (although they were more like the CABBAGE PATCH dolls, really. But I lump all that "high demand, low inventory" crap together in my mind).

While none of those were as simplistic (and brilliant) as the Pet Rock, the same basic sales model was there.

Hell... for one brief day, as a lad, seeing a row of Pet Rocks on the shelf in the lower level of the Roosevelt Field JC Pennys (or was it the Woolworths?)... I wanted one.

Even as a kid, I saw the genius of the marketing for that thing.

OH!
I DO have a few KRYPTONITE rocks in their original packaging.
Those are comic geek Pet Rocks.
They glow in the dark and keep that living legend of superdickery the hell away from me.



~P~
P-TOR
SanctumSanctorumComix | Email | 07.19.07 - 11:13 am | #

Oh.

And now I'm almost too embarrased to even ASK, but...

Hey Mikester?

You wouldn't happen to have any packs of GHOST RIDER hero caps (aka; pogs) left over would ya?

And not the ones that came like 9 on a shrink-wrapped card that made up a graveyard scene.

I'm talkin' in packs, blister cards or canisters (they were sold 3 different ways).

I'm so close to a complete set that it'll drive me nuts.

I have all the "hero" caps, I just need a few of the "skull" caps to wrap up that collection.

Damned Doctor Strange (and Midnight Sons) addiction, ya know.

Just...ah....just askin'.

I have NO OTHER pog interest, mind you.



~P~
P-TOR
SanctumSanctorumComix | Email | 07.19.07 - 12:06 pm | #

Another 90s question: when the boom was going on, did you believe that the market was ascending to a new plateau (i.e. that a lot of the boom was actual long-term growth in the market) or did you think it was all hot air and candyfloss and likely to end in tears (or, more positively, a nice little bump in sales and cashflow before things settled back to normal)?

Also, what was the most traumatic event of the boom, from a retailer's POV? What one thing (corporate decision, book delay, whatever) did the most damage to your business? Me, I'm guessing it was Marvel's switch to self-distribution by buying Heroes World.

What was the most ludicrous waste of money that was clearly going to be an enormous failure? I'm thinking Tekno Comics, here.

I like your idea that comics boom during tough times, but I think it's more to do with their reputation as a potential get-rich-quick system that you can get into with little capital. On the other hand, it seems like there's a circuit of scammy little investments that boom and bust no matter what the overall economy is (sports cards, pogs, Magic:The Gathering knockoffs, beanie babies, internet day trading, "flipping" real estate, etc.) that occasionally comes around to comics, and the link between comic booms and tough times may just be happenstance.

For me, the real signal that the boom was over and wasn't coming back any time soon was the sudden arrival of "Bad Girl" books on the market (and on the various "hot" comic charts). I figured it was all over when they had to resort to straight-up T&A to try and move books.

Wondering: What role did the Magic: The Gathering boom of 95-96 have in helping keep your store afloat during the comic market implosion?

Your point about retailer awareness of fads and the dangers of over-ordering was being one of the few good outcomes of the market boom is good, but a little melancholy, because you know that as time goes by, people's memories of those times fade, and the next boom (if there is one) will find retailers and speculators falling for the old tricks again, because hey, this time it's completely different!

One other good side effect of the boom was that it created a huge demand for writers and artists, and a whole bunch of people who otherwise wouldn't have broken into the industry got breaks. Now, most of them were terrible (Sturgeon's Law), but a fair number of really excellent writers who are mainstays of the current industry got their foot in the door writing for fly-by-night publishers during the boom. The first time I saw Warren Ellis' name, it was on a Topps Comic. The terrible writers and artists went away with the boom, but the good ones stuck around and made the late 90s a really solid period for good comics.

While Batman:The Movie may have started the whole 90s train rolling, I think it was the widely-reported Death Of Superman that really kicked the market into ludicrous territory, with people lining up before stores opened and buying 25-50-100 copies at once.

Finally, of all the dumb cover enhancements that came along in the 90s, which was your favorite? I really liked a Superman cover that was just a Metropolis cityscape with a slightly waxy coating - and it came with a sheet of ColorForms(tm) you could peel off and make your own cover with. Reusable!
FMguru | Email | 07.19.07 - 2:48 pm | #

About the black-and-white boom, it should be noted that some of those "failures" were selling in numbers which would happily get them continued by a small black-and-white publisher today.

--Nat (whose final issue of Licensable BearTM, possibly the final black-and-white pamphlet he'll publish, just hit stores.)
Nat Gertler | Email | Homepage | 07.19.07 - 5:04 pm | #

You know, I still can't effin' understand how POGs are played. Is player? Are played with? I can't even get the prepositions right!
Mark Hale | Homepage | 07.19.07 - 5:14 pm | #

I've heard the "people spend more money on entertainment during weak economic times" theory before. I think it was regularly espoused in the pages of THE COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE in the late 90s, but don't quote me on that.

Also, I think I know the PREVIEWS catalog you're thinking of. I think I still even have it in my collection. It had a die-cut gatefold front cover announcing Dark Horse's new universe that brought us the greatest title of all time, CATALYST: AGENTS OF CHANGE.
Augie De Blieck Jr. | Email | Homepage | 07.19.07 - 8:25 pm | #

"I think it was Dave Sim, of all people, who said that television is the only real mass medium, and everything else is a distant second."

Heck, I don't even think *television* is a real mass medium anymore. Or, at least, it's becoming much less of one, something the dinosaurs of the broadcast networks are only dimly and fitfully aware of, yet terrified by.
David C | Email | 07.20.07 - 8:12 am | #