VintageComics

100% accurate, on all points. I feel like you and I tend to see and understand things along similar lines. Society has practically fallen back into the middle ages while pretending we haven't. Most people are used to being leading examples not leaders. Very few actually have the ability to foresee much, which is why we're always cleaning up messes as a society AFTER the fact and not BEFORE. Their hindsight is perfect but foresight, not so much. -------------------------------------- While AI may not specifically upend the comic industry tomorrow, it IS upending underlying factors in EVERY industry now. And, while it's not going to replace Frank Miller or Will Eisner, those guys will just get much more valuable because they're irreplaceable while everyone inferior gets....replaced. To your point about collapse, just like when an old building structure collapses, collapses don't just 'happen' out of the blue. They happen after decades of neglect. A collapse itself may look sudden, but there are many clues signalling when a collapse is coming. You just have to be looking in the right place to see it but most are looking in the opposite direction or worse, some live in denial. It takes YEARS or even DECADES of denial to before a collapse happens. So, for example on this forum we've been talking about new comic sales for 20 years. And every time the conversation happens, you get people stating comic sales are dead and the apologists defending comic sales. But over 20 years, what has changed? They've continually printed less and less comics each year. So how can we still be having the same argument year after year while the numbers continue to drop? Because some live in denial. And those in denial always seem busy trying to make sure nobody is listening to the people who can clearly see what's coming.

This thread was NOT created to air beefs and your attempts to paint it as such is just you attempting yet again to derail a perfectly reasonable and spirited discussion between people who have no idea what you're talking about. You've been reading my posts for 20 years. NOTHING has changed about them except that 3 years ago, everyone started caring more about what I post. What is ironic is that you continue to question everyone else but nobody can question you, even though you've been more wrong than right over the 20 years I've known you. You keep attempting to lock or move my threads and just quash the discussion rather than play fair and just have a reasonable, respectful discussion. Stop it.

Does this thread need to be moved to the Water Cooler, do we need a new coffee forum or was that all just misinformation?

Right. One of my kids was a voracious reader but she had little interest in super-hero stuff. She read Jeff Smith's Bone and everything else she could get her hands one, though.

Yes they did. They had a few flaws for the American market (learning to deal with the extreme weather conditions is usually the largest engineering challenge for imports) but eventually managed to work that out. My real point though, was that by the time companies like Honda and Toyota were ready to jump into the American markets in a big way, the quality in their products were already on par with best products America had to offer and they only got better from there. This is why MOST Japanese cars from the last 30 years hold their resale value so well compared to almost ALL other manufacturer's vehicles. No matter which way you check your math, forwards, backwards, erc, the answer always comes out the same: People will pay for a quality product and poor products will fail. And why consumers keep falling for the opposite is the real question that everyone needs to consider, because it keeps happening and it keeps perpetuating the same problems.

Well, that certainly explains the creation and popularity of Monster Hentai. It's all about the respect the artists have for women. The US has a rape rate 27 times that of Japan's but I'm not sure if this is the place for that convo or the point you were trying to make.

The writing has been on the wall for YEARS and people have been living in denial, but you can't stop or reverse the laws of physics. What happened to Marvel and DC is what happens to every large organization that puts quality of profit over quality of product...it necessarily eventually collapses in on itself as it feeds on itself because it has no other way of feeding the big profit machine. It's pure, simple, unadulterated, unavoidable logic. Marvel / Disney and DC / Time / Warner are literally collapsing before our eyes but nobody wants to admit it. From what I've heard and read the DC / Warner offices in Burbank are LITERALLY an empty shell with no employees. And they managed to run themselves into the ground by cannibalizing profits while pretending to put out a good product. The science is pretty simple. Content. Culture. History. So many reasons, but the main one is in my opinion, that comics, being exclusively an American art form are limited in a sense by the younger and less mature culture and therefore the values of the West. I find the range of interest for people born / raised outside of the West is far broader than people born and raised with a North American mindset and who only tend to think locally. I find people from outside of North America tend to think in broader, more worldly ways and this leads to a much more broad depth of culture to draw stories from out of. ------------- Additionally, people from outside of North America - and ESPECIALLY Asians tend to be motivated by different things than those within North America. I've worked with people who worked or lived in Japan where Manga originates from, for many years and they have ALL told me that people in Japan have a very high sense of respect for each other among the general population. Honor and integrity were the highest motivators in Japan, not profit. That's not the case here, is it? And so, in much the same way, because of both history and culture, and Asia being among the oldest and most mature cultures in the world will have a very different culture to draw ideas out of than the West giving them a much different rudder to steer with. ------------------------------------------------------ The parallel of automobile industry that I used a few weeks ago illustrate this perfectly: For DECADES the Big 3 (GM, Chrysler and Ford) were putting out an inferior product after the oil crisis of the 70s, while trying to convince the public they weren't because the corporate boardroom did not want to reduce profit...so they reduced quality instead. The Big 3 kept cutting costs each year and put out a slightly inferior product while pretending they weren't and sold you what was supposed to be an improvement over the previous year. And the American public bought it for many years but they couldn't do it forever. Eventually, it was impossible to unsee: They went from this in 1959: To THIS in just 20 years in the 1980s. What did the Japanese do? I'm glad you asked. While General Motors was cannibalizing their flagship marque into something unrecognizable THIS is what Toyota's flagship looked like in 1982. Do you think it's a co-incidence that it looks EXACTLY like the fugly Cadillac above? By continuingly putting out a QUALITY product year after year, Toyota came in on Cadillac's coat tails, managed to capture the entire auto market, becoming world industry leaders and Toyota went from being an afterthought in the 80s to the TOP MANUFACTURER IN THE WORLD year after year. And how did they stay there? They just continued to put out a better product, because that is ALL that will sustain any business perpetually. If these companies want to be successful, all they need to do is put out a good product and people will pay for it. Or not.

Interesting. I was just saying this two weeks ago (that while American comics sales seem to be slowing down Manga isn't). Yep. The rising rents are due to Venture Capital companies buying up 10,000s of properties across the country over the last few years causing a quick driving up of prices exactly the way it happened in comics. The difference is that Venture Capital companies don't ever need to sell the way you or I do, as they specialize in liquidity. They just continue to buy + hold while raising rents and increasing profits. The equivalent would be a comic dealer who is very liquid and doesn't need to sell. We have a few of those in the hobby as well and their books are not for sale because they don't need to sell, so it takes ridiculous money to loosen up a desirable item, driving up the price drastically. This may help explain why we see the top end prices either rising or holding steadier than lower grade prices. Combined with the unprecedented rise in energy prices, these two things are making normal life impossible for the majority of people. We're likely watching the decline of the middle class and quite possibly the US' decline as the world reserve currency in real time. What's happening is impossible to sustain indefinitely and something will have to give.

There are so many problems with the forum software that there always seems to be something wrong with it. Quote not working, the replies form keeps disappearing, notifications not taking you to newest messages. Like you I don't even bother talking about it. These things happen daily. I just tend to come here less often (which I know some people greatly appreciate ).

Wait, what? Moderators can log in and be us?

Mods notified.

Pretty much everyone who has a vested interest in the topic, who always argue it and have argued it for years. Specifically, on here there is a small, distinct few people who do it regularly. They can be spotted because they usually come out of the woodwork to oppose me but are previously nowhere to be seen, usually move goalposts or post things off topic or come out as a group to pick on someone they disagree with and derail the discussion, shifting the focus from the message to the messenger. At least that's how it was until fairly recently. Yup. Well aware. But in THIS case, his point about Defiant being starved by Marvel's legal team parallels the discussion perfectly. DC did something similar to Fawcett 70 years ago.

Marvel destroyed Defiant in the 90s by suing Jim Shooter over Plasm / Warriors of Plasm / Plasmer. The courts decided Defiant's property was distinct and did not violate, but Marvel kept up litigation until Defiant ran out of money. That was exactly my point. I've been branded a "conspiracy theorist" by a small group of people here who incessantly notify on my posts even though there is nothing wrong with my posts, bringing extra attention to moderation even though others can openly talk about the same things I get notified on, so I was connecting the dots in a way that made sure I was....not going to get booted again. It's nice to always uncover a new CONSPIRACY that proves it wasn't just a theory. I agree that Big Money uses it's $$$ to play CYA and never get caught. Just making sure everyone else got the point too because it's a very important one to understand because of you don't see the big picture, you're not playing on a level playing field and have no shot at actually winning even if you're in the right. In much the same way, If he's in the right, I can see this creator getting stonewalled by Big Corporation even if it's his right to do what he wants with the product.

I can't share details of which books or who said it as it would quickly give a lot of clues as to who it was. Just going by what I heard when CC first introduced the buyer's premium. It was a surprise to me that CC started charging a Buyer's Premium but every auction house has different fee structures and people use what works best for them.

CC now charge a Bidder's Premium on some auctions. They started a couple of years ago and I know a few sellers who stopped selling through them because of it. So it's a misnomer that Heritage only charges a buying premium these days. At this time Clink is the only auction house that doesn't.

So, are you saying that a company would / could circumvent legal limitations to try to protect their IP by applying pressure on parties that have nothing to do with the IP?

and once you eliminate the human element I think the industry is dead, folks stop reading and buying it, the few that are left doing that now (ok, i shouldn't say that, the number of people reading digital copies of some of this stuff might be huge) The parallel seems to be the same in every profitable industry that is taken over by tech: Promise of something greater offered to the public Profit > integrity in the corporate boardroom so they devise ways to sell stuff cheaper at the sake of quality Garbage masquerades as "something greater" and is sold for profit General buying public realizes it was duped and rebels. Rinse repeat. This is what I think as well. If the human race needs to develop a computer to do the thinking for us and do it faster, doesn't that say a lot about how we've lost the handle on managing ourselves as a species? Correct. The REASON this keeps happening is because of the ignorance of long term ramifications of "tech advances" being placed on us...AND because people generally still believe "cheaper is better" always leading people to cut performance for cost rather than chase a higher quality product that costs just a little more. People have been duped into thinking cheaper is better and because of this, it's the general combination of these two things and a manipulation of the general public's perceptions that lead to them - the big corporations - to being able to do this. The automobile The factory / assembly line The atomic bomb The internet Social Media Artificial Intelligence In every case, it's the morality and integrity (or lack thereof) of those releasing the product that determine how addictive if is and it's the marketing that "shows" everyone how effective it is but it is the INDUSTRY that hides how destructive it is. For example, if we all knew the internet was going to be causing a worldwide phenomenon of self harm with the rise of algorithms in 2010-2011 across millions or even billions of kids would we have still allowed it? Why did nobody know or say anything BEFORE it happened? Where were our overlords and gate keepers? Nobody is really interested in being a "gate keeper" in an emerging, highly profitable industry. They'd get destroyed even if they did nothing wrong but asked the wrong questions (oh wait ) We've already seen the large art and movie houses speaking out of both sides of their mouths during disingenuous strike negotiations by going full steam ahead on AI even though they are pretending not to. Every industry is no different - the money is more important than the integrity in the corporate boardroom. And people chasing cheaper things care more about getting the thing than if the thing even works. These two are the root problems IMO.

Great analogy, because now, as we speak FAKE BEEF is being labelled as food when it isn't actually food. So the parallel is the same and the same rules apply - the sky may not fall now but it will certainly fall eventually. And THAT is what the discussion is about. The longer term effects and how we get there.

That is still quite a decent number for a non-key book. It is also not that difficult to find in 9.8 IMHO - back in the early days of CGC my old former selling partner and I hit two 9.8s from OO collections without pressing/cleaning. We sold the first 9.8 copy on eBay and were ecstatic to get $3900 or so for it (pre-GPA records). I bought a raw copy on eBay for $800 over 20 years ago. It was flawless. It slabbed a 9.4 because CGC said there were two "stacking creases" on the book. There weren't. It was print. So had the book "pressed" (the stacking creases were never removed - they were STILL there after the book was pressed) and the book came back a 9.8 and went for something like $8K shortly after. Still scratching my head on that resub 20 years later.

8.22% decrease. 10.26% increase. Sounds about right.

The current turnaround rates do not match the advertised times at all. I'm currently at 3-5 days to open an Ultra Value package, 5 days go grade it and get it shipped. It's been this way for over a year now. CGC website states 2 day turnaround time. Anybody else have a different experience?

There's a lot of that going on lately. Weird, right?

Now you're starting to see a little more clearly. The question is, is this all incidental or by design. The point of a union is to protect their members. Wouldn't it be obvious that the SAG is trying to protect unauthorized use of digital likenesses of it's members by closing all doors where they may possibly abuse this loophole? I'm not sure why you'd even be asking the question. Do you think there is some other motive outside the obvious reason of protecting their union members?

You mean hearing aids? Yes, my grandmother had one as I was growing up so well aware of it. ------------ I meant AI. Artificial Intelligence will soon by in the body and making independent decisions in a far greater fashion than just binary language like turning a pacemaker on and off and those units will be interacting with things outside the body. It's most likely here already as people like Alex Jones who has been written off by post have been talking about it for decades openly but nobody listened or cared because it just hasn't trickled into everyday society yet...but like the automotive industry, it most likely will. On the bright side, we'll be able to download comics wireless, so there's that.

The computational brain has even further complexity. For one thing, information processing takes place between computational units that aren't hardwired, but rewire themselves based on experience and activity. More complexity comes from the passive and active electrical properties of the neuron, which expands their signaling way beyond the binary. - A Natterer About Neuroscience I saw this coming in the mid 90's when they started using databus systems in the automotive industry to keep track of driver preferences. That was 30 years ago. It was inevitable and became obvious when they started speeding things up and having machines communicate with each other that they'd eventually speed up, meld together and increase in "intelligence". Trickle down effect. It came in on the highest end cars (from aerospace and military tech), trickled into the mid range cars and now its been in everyday cars for years. Only a matter of time before it's in our bodies.