It's beginning to feel a lot like 1990....

SO, I went to my LCS today to get a copy of East of West. I know right, I know how it sounds but I couldn't help it, i drank the Kool-Aid willingly. I read the synopsis about the book and wasn't terribly impressed ( sounded very 6th Gunnish to me ). But then I remembered that I read Manhattan Project and was very impressed and now that I want the actual comics I've found that I can't hardly afford them, even though they just came out. Also, I remembered reading the preview for Saga and being intrigued but not enough to rush out and buy it and we all know how that turned out. So this was supposed to be a sure shot right, decent writer though maybe this book just isn't my cup of tea, decent artwork, Image which is always a plus these days, limited print run. Perfect conditions for speculation right.

So I go to the LCS, pick up like 3 copies ( WOW, they're still in stock even though they came out like today! ) feeling like I've got a sure bet here. I read one, not terribly impressed but I'm pretty harsh on new stuff. I call my friend Clutch to tease him about it and clue him in to this ultra rare book. Clutch is like dude, the print run is high and the book is highly anticipated, and by the way I bought 3 copies of the regular cover when I should be buying 3 copies of variants A, B, C which are apparently ultra rare.

Needless to say, I'm like man why did I rush out and buy this book in triplicate that I'm really not that impressed with only to find that its not rare and I didn't buy the right variants anyway. So of course I do some data mining ( Ebay ) and see where people have already listed the regular cover copy in addition to the variants for like triple the actual cover value on the day the book was released which is today. I mine even further and find that even though cats are charging like triple the cover price they're actually selling them. People are buying at triple the cover price on the day of release when they could just walk into the LCS like anybody else. But who knows, maybe these people live in Alaska or don't have legs, or legs that work. Now I really feel stupid but more like stupid and confused? Clutch is like dude, you gotta check the flypapers ( chat boards ) to see whats sticking. I check the boards and find that proper speculative etiquette is to now buy 10 copies not 3, and 10 copies of each variant if you really want to call yourself a speculator.

I guess what has got me so turned around is if I'm not mistaken, what makes this book worth so much in the first place? It seems like it was worth something before it even came out. I feel like we're getting ahead of ourselves don't you think. I'm not trying to be the voice of doom but its starting to look a lot like the 90's. New titles every month, multiple variants of each book, instant vintage status right off the stand, rare but maybe not really. I look back at all the boxes of tin foil, tri-fold, die cast, glow in the dark, books that I bought in the 90's and it seems like de ja vu all over again. I feel like at some point we're going to look around and realize we've missed our exit and end up holding the bag on a bunch of books that may or may not be worth anything.

Now I know your probably thinking, " but you just bought into it yourself ", and your right, and FU for telling by the way ( but like in a friendly way ). Yeah, I speculate too and sometimes I'm wrong, and sometimes I'm very wrong. But I did buy a copy of 6th Gun # 1 off the shelf for cover price and find out the next week its selling for a couple hundred bucks. Now if some insufficiently_thoughtful_person wants to buy it from me for like a couple hundred bucks by all means have it. Introduce me to the people you hang with. Or maybe not, maybe I'll be the insufficiently_thoughtful_person for selling it cause next month it'll be a thousand bucks or more. Who knows, but I feel like I'm starting to see some writing on the wall thats looking very familiar to the boom and bust of the 1990's. Maybe the best thing to do is speculate and buy " hot " books now and dump them before people come to their senses. I don't know if I'll participate any further.

Gotta have good vision!

- Spexx -

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