VintageComics

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.

Baby, I'm amazed.

Yep. That's exactly my point. My greatest lessons were my greatest heartaches and failures and they are priceless. You avoid those and you doom your potential. There's always something better waiting for those who can move forward, because you move forward with that experience to guide you and avoid it next time. I tried to do that raising my kids: You avoid it and you just repeat it and then need another bailout from mom and dad.

All of these things are "playing the short game" strategies, and what I mean by that is that yes it helps lots of people in the short term but it places the same burden on EVERYONE in the long term. Why do I have to pay for the poor decision making of someone else? Some dude snorts his way through life but it's my job to subsidize his mistakes? You just can't keep shielding people from consequences because they only get worse. They did that in 2008 by printing money to bail people out and 15 years later, it's worse than ever but this is ALL directly related to that event which was never addressed properly.. The only reason solution is to work harder and some people are going to need to make some changes. If we continue to bail everyone out we may as well not have anyone working and everyone just goes on permanent vacation, because that's the final conclusion of this line of economics. If this industry is indeed on life support then facing the music and making the change is a way better play for those people than living in denial. They MUST have been having this conversation among themselves before it came into the general public. Did they think it was going to go away? Hard working and honest people always find a way. If my grandmother can leave Europe on foot with children in her arms, though the mountains in the middle of the night into a foreign country with literally no belongings, I think these people in this land of milk and honey can rally up some better solutions.

Of course there is. Today, offerings of the highest quality where cost is not an issue are offered to the elite - the wealthy, the military, aerospace, etc. Those industries DEMAND quality first and cost is pretty much irrelevant. For the average Joe though, the watered down product for the masses generally leads with consideration of PROFIT first and therefore COST first and quality second but they are led to believe that it's 'almost as good' as the elite's offerings. This 'almost as good' market, which on a bell curve is where MOST of the volume is going to be is where AI will thrive and there is PLENTY of precedent that supports this. --------------- It wasn't like this 70 years ago. There was a time when people cared more about the integrity of their products more than they do today. We've been duped as a society. The American automotive industry is the perfect parallel to illustrate my point in this discussion. American cars were the pinnacle of American quality until about the 1970's. It was always quality first. They led the world and Detroit was the most powerful industrial city in the world at one time. If you drove a Cadillac it meant something. My dad was so proud to get his first Cadillac that when they went to Europe with one in the early 70s everyone thought they were wealthy. They weren't. They were just normal middle class Canadians now, but even a simple old Chevrolet was viewed this way at the time over there. When the 1970's hit and tech started to speed up the Big 3 (GM / Ford / Chrysler) used that innovation to cut costs but despite what Lee Iaccoca famously stated, they rested on their laurels and didn't keep the same quality standards. They were instead satisfied to collect profits that simply rode on the coattails of their past glory and shovel inferior products to the masses. They fed you garbage, told you it was caviar and took your money in exchange. Why not? It kept shareholders happy, right? But you can only lie to the public for so long, and what happened was eventually they couldn't hide the lack of quality in their products so a short sighted pump for profits ended up cannibalizing and toppling Detroit from being one of the most powerful cities in the world to a destitute, dystopian gangland in about 20 years. By the 2000s you could literally buy an entire neighborhood for what a home used to cost. Who stepped in to fill the void? The Asian car manufacturers. How did they do this? For one, Asian society values personal integrity MUCH more than Western society. They feel dishonored if they don't do everything with integrity. THEY RAISED GOOD CHILDREN AND HAD STRONG FAMILY UNITS and those children grew up with strong work ethic and integrity in their work. When they came into the West in the 60's and 70's they put out garbage but as American products waned in quality, Asian products INCREASED in quality until they surpassed the American manufacturers. Word got out that they put out quality cars over time and I remember when Toyota became #4 on the tails of TheBbig 3 of GM / Ford / Chrysler and eventually overtook them all. Toyota is now the #1 manufacturer in the world year after year. How did they do it? The played the long game and kept quality in their vehicles. To this day a 20 or 30 year old Toyota or Honda STILL holds their resale value higher than any mass produced American vehicles from the same era. Internationally these vehicles are so highly sought after that in POOR countries where they can't afford to service these vehicles regularly they are the vehicles of choice and pay a premium for them. ------------------------------------- How does that relate to this discussion? The American Big 3 thought that 'almost good enough" was enough to keep the cash train running but it eventually collapsed like a ponzi scheme. If publishers and movie companies can use AI to create "almost good enough" products while keep profits high, it will make them money in the short term because most people can't discern. But over time the truth will get out. We are already seeing masses complain about story quality as Disney and Warner churn out pure garbage while they greedily take their profits, and the general public isn't buying it. I'm getting really tired of the short game, personally and refuse to watch much of what Hollywood churns out anymore. I've probably missed 90% of the comic book movies put out in the last 5 years. AI will be more of the same unless someone with integrity sees the long game and chooses that over the short game. The tech is different but the ideology driving it is just more of the same. And it will cause a total collapse of an industry unless it's used widely and with artistic integrity. We're already seeing it happen in real time as Hollywood begins to topple. Ironically, Hollywood is the OTHER great American industry after the automotive industry that horrible leadership has ruined. Funny how even though they try to slow down the inevitable while milking blood from a stone, NOBODY can escape consequences forever.

This is not the context you're looking for. How are prices compared to 2019 for those things?

That Vern, is the American dream right there.

Very salient point. Sensible people would tend to agree on much, but there are a number of systemic barriers and wedges built into modern discourse that tends to herd people back to their camps. p.s. I don’t think those “wedges” evolved organically… Thank you for being sensible. The good news is that eventually the unsensible people are left exposed. There's just a lot of collateral damage that happens along the way to bystanders, unfortunately.

I know. I walked in many years ago, saw it and bought it on the spot. Then, after I agreed to buy it I had to figure out how to pay for it. I was smitten with how gorgeous it was.

You and I will agree on far more than you realize. We just never get the chance to have a real conversation. It's always heated with people around us raising the temperature and preventing a real discussion.

I own a Gretch Country Gentleman! What a gorgeous guitar. Have you watched prices of guitars and observed at all what they've been doing over the last 3 years? Did they boom in 2021 like comics and have they started to drop down? Incidentally, a friend of mine had a '59 Gibson Les Paul walk into his shop literally from a little old lady a few years ago. It's the find of a lifetime and the equivalent to an Action #1 walking into a comic store.

The best thing the ultra-wealthy can do for society is to spend their money on things that have no intrinsic value. No one's life is diminished when a billionaire buys the only 9.8 copy of a comic book and we have to settle for 9.4 or even 8.0. It's when they put their money into something that consumes valuable resources, such as mining for bitcoin...then it's a problem for society. If the ultra wealthy keep driving up prices on the high end, the lower and mid end eventually follows. So let's say one comic book sale of a 6 figure book doesn't affect you directly right now, but eventually that book will rise in price in all grades. Now YOU and I have to pay more for normal books in our price ranges. That just causes collectors with fixed incomes to be squeezed tighter (assume we don't increase our earnings) if they want to continue collecting. Now collectibles are very niche and certainly not a necessity, but now apply those principles against EVERYTHING - meaning every asset that can be bought and sold. They have more money to spend than there are things to buy, which is ONE reason why prices are skyrocketing on everything. The spending by the wealthy on real estate for investment has driven up rent and housing prices. Crypto, collectibles, cars, guitars and literally EVERY physical asset over the last 3 years has driven the price of everything up. Even if prices DOUBLED in 2 years like we saw in the bubble but 'only' dropped 30-50% they are still ahead of interest, fixed wages erc. So in case I wasn't clear, my core point was that the prices of assets (and collectibles are only a small part of available assets) have far outstripped fixed incomes by a large margin. Sure comics have no intrinsic value but in our little corner of the universe, to them it's a great place to store money and our hobby has been directly and greatly affected. As has every other asset price no matter the asset. Not sure if that directly relates to your point but it's how I see it.

The guvment needs to figure a way to print extra money for 12 years while somehow at the same time keeping inflation and interest rates low. You mean change the fundamental laws of nature? That is impossible. You either WORK with the fundamental laws of nature and reap the benefits or you go against them and suffer the consequences. And everyone seems bent on ignoring natural laws, pretending there are no consequences and then ignoring them some more in search for a solution.

Yes. And the available money, not REAL money, just money on paper continues to increase creating a rise in prices for all quality material. We're entering an unprecedented era something akin to that Matt Damon movie Elysium where the ultra wealthy are SO wealthy that they've left reality behind. Remember when the richest man in the world was worth $40 Billion? $100 Billion? Now we're at a quarter Trillion and pretty soon people will be worth Trillions while the number of poor continue to expand at a far greater rate. These big buyers are going to buy up the best stuff (including comics) and we will never have access to them again. They are trading MONEY ON PAPER for REAL, HARD ASSETS while the rest of us just watch it happen.

Because it's not him. I keep being told I look like Dave Grohl. In fact, someone who is close to Dave said I not only look like him but when I talk I act like him. His exact words were "If you wanted to, you could get a lot of free stuff" if I played that card. But I can't sing like Dave, I can't write like him, I can't play drums like him, so what you would have is a cheap knockoff. Who's going to spend BIG money to watch a cheap knockoff? Sure. But a Calvin Klein copy in Wal Mart is not going to fetch Calvin Klein money. The solution to everything is raising better kids and having stronger families and communities. Instilling integrity and proper values into people is the LOOOONG solution but really, it's the only way out of every mess we have.

Yes, on all of the above. Really though, this could open up a new job classification. If you need AI faces you don’t need real actors or those with aspirations. Advertise it and pay normal people that don’t mind selling their likeness. Need a homeless character. Go find one and give them a contract to get scanned. Need a pretty blonde, same thing! I don't know if you'll remember this or not, but about 8 or 10 years ago we were discussing student loans and student loan forgiveness in the WC. This was WAAAAAAY before it become a central public talking point. I never understood why someone should just "forgive" my loan because I couldn't pay it back. You signed up for it as an grown person, you agreed to take it on, you agreed to pay it back and it was all part of a plan you had in your head...then when you decided your plan didn't work, or you got lazy and didn't feel like doing it anymore, it all of a sudden the loan becomes everyone else's fault and now everyone has to chip in to pay for your lack of ability to make your degree work. Those who argued FOR the forgiveness of student loans argued that the entire culture of student loans was PREDATORY. Really? Someone is bending your arm to take on a loan for the next 4, 6, 8 years? They have a gun to your head? No, you probably watched too many Tik Tok videos your friends made, got all excited and decided to "go for it". Poor baby. This sort of broken, immature logic is why the world is in so much trouble. You can't bail everyone out of every bad decision THEY make. You can't shield people from simple consequences to decisions they made. It ruins the fabric of society which is founded on accountability. Without accountability you have nothing. You have anarchy and complete chaos. The very fabric of our previously functioning society is built on the fact that rights will prevail and wrongs will be punished. Why am I ranting about this? Because the parallels are similar. Because I DO believe there is some predatory nature IN EVERY INDUSTRY. Big Wigs will look for ways to strip people of their rights to line their own pockets. Movie execs will ABSOLUTELY try to get away with EVERYTHING THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH TO LINE THEIR POCKETS. But it's YOUR job to know what you should and shouldn't do, not anyone else's. If someone is selling a raw book as a 9.6 and you think it's only a 9.4 but you buy that book simply because you hope they're right and it gets a 9.6, then THAT IS ON YOU. You went against your own beliefs for the sake of greed. In much the same way, it is ON YOU to know what you're getting into, what you're signing, what you're giving away. If your greed and hope of being a star over rides your logic, that's ON YOU. ---------------------------------- I absolutely believe big money in EVERY industry is predatory. I also absolutely believe you should take your consequences like a grown up, even if it hurts you. Consequences are the most valuable teacher you will every have. My greatest lessons, the ones that will NEVER leave and always be a teacher to me came from the worst consequences I've experienced. Had I avoided the consequences I'd never have learned those lessons and never have matured. You remove that accountability to yourself and you remove the very glue that has held Western civilization together for the last 100s of years. ------------------ I absolutely believe that if someone uses your likeness WITHOUT your consent as the studios have done that they should be punished with great consequences as well, because that's the ONLY way that corrupt, big money will back down. All they care about is protecting the money, so make it hurt where it hurts them most when they do wrong. But to tie this all together, I believe that we live in a society of people who can't take consequences for their actions and the fallout is that you have an emotional mess to deal with between corrupt actions by the big studios and corrupt logic by the employees. This is an impossible mess to navigate. Most of the general public lives in denial and sticking your head in the sand is only going to make sure your butt gets sun-burned. Sorry if this sounds harsh but it's not meant to. I genuinely sympathize with starving artists as I know 100s of them. Some are my close and personal friends, but the reality is harsh if you try to go against it and it doesn't bend. You can't change reality around you but you CAN change how you interact with it and your decisions that you CAN control are your way out of whatever situation you're in.

I think that many are trying to escape or avoid the reality that the landscape just changed permanently and it's not going back. Many people may not go back to work after protesting and striking, so it would probably be a good idea for those people to start looking at other revenue streams. That's just the inevitable reality. The cut throat industry is about to get even more cut throat for everyone and there is going to be a lot of blood in the streets.

Watch your dirty pie hole.

Disney cares about everything and everybody. Trust them. And keep giving them your money, Iger REALLY appreciates it.

He's also a real Richard in real life.

Wait, aren't all those artist West coast types supposed to be all about protecting the environment? Oh wait, this works better for them. Nevermind. It's justified because it helps their cause!

It depends on the market we're talking about. Highest quality books are outstripping their lower quality counterparts and the gap continues to increase. If you have a 9.8 it's not falling as fast as the grades below it, and if it's an exemplary specimen, it's going for stratospheric money. I think that as a general rule seems to be holding. And as I mentioned, I think the reason for this is that the people with REAL money are buying up quality items because they foresee a glut of poor quality (or fake / digital) items flooding the market place. Supply continues to dwindle for ALL quality assets. REAL and QUALITY will always command a premium in any market so these two are the safest bets for investors.

This link you posted has had my gears turning all week. I have been able to confirm now that Certified Collectibles Group is absolutely using AI in the grading process....but at this point I've only been able to confirm it for cards - sports cars primarily and not for comics yet. What they are doing is using AI to identify variants so that they don't get missed because apparently some cards have many variants (or very subtle differences - I can't remember which it was). So they are using imaging and AI to make sure the variants are properly labelled. Now I'm totally picking at straws here but I don't think it takes a lot to put 2 + 2 together. I am now almost certain that the implementation of imaging every book at CGC - which CGC just started doing a few months ago and we thought was implemented as a security feature to identify tampered holders, may actually also be the 1st stepping stone to AI grading for comic books. And I don't think AI will ever do comic grading (or at least not in the near foreseeable future as it's probably too cost prohibitive to have the mechanics of handling books AND imaging an entire book, BUT I DO THINK AI WILL REPLACE A PRE-GRADER soon. Some thoughts: Page count? Weigh the book. If it is within certain parameters to a certain percentage of a gram (or ounce if you're metric) and you will know if a page is missing, a coupon is clipped or possibly even if a staple is missing. Something off about a book? Missing a page? Added resto material increasing the weight? Red flag and human inspection. But a significant portion of the books will get passed through as MOST comics are complete and unrestored. So now graders can focus on trouble books and not the ones that are simply a waste of time to check anyway. ------------------------ How about catching obvious defects? 2 dimensional imaging can absolutely catch what might be obvious defects like printer defects, tears, missing pieces, creases, bends, waviness, discoloring, miscuts, miswraps, extra staples, off center staples, stains and who knows what else? So, acting as a pre-grader, the AI will have to be fed a data base of what each cover actually looks like when proper and minty fresh, and then by comparing the Gold standard image to living examples, the AI will IMMEDIATELY project a grade ceiling for that book. So, how I envision this would all work is like this: For example, if you have a NM book with a cover length crease that is unrestored and nothing is missing the book passes the weigh inspection and the visual images would put that book at a grade ceiling of Fine range - roughly what a NM book with a cover length crease would grade. You've just done the majority of the pre-grader's job with no manpower, leaving the pre-grader to now fine tune the grade the way a 2ndary grader would, and then finalized by the finalizer. I'd bet dollars to donuts this is coming.

How many more titles do we have today compared to 70 years ago? How many publishers do we have today compared to 70 years ago? How many comics in total (gross) are published across all titles / publishers / characters compared to 1940 or 1950? I chose 1940 because that was pre television and 1950 was after the release of public telivisioin IIRC. Also, our discussions are very "Big 2" or "Big 3" centric (Marvel / DC / Image) Are you counting Manga? Have you been to a manga convention? They're comics too. These kids don't read Superman or Spiderman but they read manga voraciously. Graphic novels? More comic readers. Some people are readers and not collectors so they won't buy comic books per se but will buy graphic novels or read them from Libraries. One of my lawyers is a voracious comic reader and is always asking me for things to read but he read graphic novels and doesn't collect comics. These are ALL things (and others) that should be factored into the discussion and considered for a well rounded discussion. Bringing back a strong middle class is contradictory to what many of the wealthy would want. They don't want an educated, intelligent, hard working middle class because that directly threatens them. It's much more convenient to them to have a ruling class and a subservient society...and I firmly believe this is an actual goal by the ruling class. They don't give two hoots about your feelings or your life and the economy is much easier to direct in their favor when we're all either ignorant, poor or against each other. This formula is the #1 thing that's changed since the powerful middle class post WW2 and I believe it's by design. You can see how corruption spreads as the middle class wanes. Don't listen to what a person tells you. Look and observe the behavior they show you.