The Less Blob

So you (not you bring) would cut deadpool and wolverine, 2 of their biggest sellers? You are going to a late 60s selection. I don't think they need anything this dramatic even if arguably they have 2x as many titles as they should. Not to mention, that is putting a lot of people out of work. Spiderman had 4 titles going in 1984. It does not need to be that limited. 2-3 new releases a week is silly. Readership is not going to suddenly jump to 500k on these remaining titles just because of fewer options. There are probably only 100-150,000 people out there who would even think about buying marvel comics monthly.

Joe sinnott says he was paid $46 a page back in 1956 (apparently cut to $21 after a downturn). $430 in 2019 dollars. He was paying $30 a month rent in Manhattan. A pretty good paycheck if he was doing 2 books a month. Maybe that helped keep him alive?

Harlan Ellison is a writer. But yes, some of the old timers did better. Starlin is only 69. If a man lives to 51 they actually have a life expectancy to 79. Sal buscema is old, big big john left us earlyish. A lot of guys who broke in in the 70s/80s have not done well in the lifespan department, it seems. Rich buckles, Dave cockrum, Allan kupferman, others. True, when I hit 64 and see how many contemporaries are dead I guess it won't seem odd.

I was think of buying a Dave Hoover page. He is affordable and I like his lines. So I looked him up to see what he is up to and he has been dead for 7 years, passing at age 56 or so. Then I looked up a bunch of others who were active in the 70s-90s and so many didn't make it to 70 it seems. Sure, you have your john romitas and Steve ditkos, but a lot of these guys don't live long. While there may be deadline stress and lousy (or no) health insurance, this isn't working in a coal mine or welding sky scrapers. Are my observations purely anecdotal?

The interest earned should easily pay for their extra work. They'll probably make a profit, in fact. But they'll raise fees anyway.

My main shop also sells sports cards, comics. Pokemon, majik, toys, pops, statues... Whatever he can squeeze a buck out of. Retail seems a brute unless you own the property.

Do you have access to Marvel's books? Like I said, I understood publishing to turn a profit, albeit a small one relative to other aspects of the business. I suspect sales could triple and get you into the respectability zone (frankly, not far from "better times" in terms of circulation) and Marvel's publishing profits would still only be a small fraction of the profits from antman and the wasp, which I am guessing was the least profitable one recently?

My son likes comics, but he needs to have the whole story arc, so he will only read an unbroken run on a title. And multi title cross overs? Forget it. At the end of the day he prefers reading 4-8 issues at once in a tpb. Hard to get him to try something new though. Handed him a stack of goon tpbs, he said he would read them, but they gathered dust. Handed him a stack of dark horse star wars tpbs and he gobbled them up and asked me if I could get more (of course I could, but not at $3 a pop like I paid for the stack)

Also, is there any data on regular digital downloads? A few of my coworkers who would not go in a shop read digitally and I see a lot of people on the subway reading comics on tablets. Anecdotal, I know. I even see people reading floppies on the subway. How many subscribers does the marvel thing that has everything have? I assume new stuff is not uploaded there for a while?

Not at all. See my next post. IP generation is huge. It is why Time Warner kept DC comics alive. (although during the death of superman/Batman broken back period I assume publishing made decent money).

Only to the extent that it is a good way to generate new stories, characters, etc. that may be used elsewhere. If it can pay for itself, even turn a profit (my understanding is that publishing still makes nmoney right? And did even when marvel went bankrupt. Of course, arguably 55+ years of publishing for marvel, etc has generated plenty of stories and characters, but heck, some of the recent movies (and future ones) and shows have new characters.. Miles Morales, Ronin, etc

I think we may be underestimating how many people view digital comics. My son multitasks. He will be pretending to do his homework while playing fortnight/call of duty/whatever while playing music on his phone and having a comic READ TO HIM on his iPad. There is a guy who does voice overs on comics. Each one I saw had 150k+++ views. 150,000+++ people have had some issue of deadpool read to them while 35,000 people bought the comic. I assume marvel gets nothing from the guy doing story time on YouTube.

A governor could score some political points by having that eliminated on the tax form, or at least have some $ cut-off like $10k, given that 99% of the folks just ignore it anyway (but have 2 seconds of paranoia before they skip to the next section)

Seems like convention sellers who do a cash business may benefit from this.

Are you supposed to be paying double sales tax or the difference between your tax and the out of state? Seems nuts to potentially be paying 18+% sales tax between multiple jurisdictions. Luckily I NEVER buy anything to bring back when I am in another state. Ever! (Except for the purpose of resale, of course) (rma... I am pretty sure this only applies to items brought home. You are not expected to pay CA sales tax on all the meals you ate while vacationing in Cleveland)

My brain hurts. So now when I sell something for $20, the buyer will get an invoice for 20 + tax? I will get paid the total amount, but at the end of the month ebay will invoice me for fees plus sales taxes? This does take the regulatory burden off us. Heck, eBay may be earning its fees now! I guess I should update my listings to say prices do not include any applicable sales tax? How does it impact us? Buying on eBay became 4-9% more expensive for folks in these states ( and all states will eventually follow suit). That is money out of our pockets as selkers in theory, as comic budgets Will be adjusted. My shops do not charge sales tax on comics, even when I pay by CC. We'll see if all the tax nuances are absorbed. For example, in NY I think we don't pay local sales tax on clothing under $120 and on periodicals (but it is charged on books and art..)

Production costs are like 35cents (not including paying the talent) according to the jim zub blog? And that's for a 5k print run type book. Inflation should Have the 1990 $1 comic at $2 today. May e $2.25 to account for better print quality and lower economies of scale due to lower print runs? By 1990 some talent was getting paid, dunno how it compares to today. And computers presumably make some production costs cheaper? Do humans still letter? Isn't color mostly computerized? I once had a conversation around 1998 with a mid level DC executive in a comic shop. This wasn't fanboy questioning, adult to adult, me being a lawyer in a suit, etc. Indeed, I told him I represented time Warner in some cases (which was true). When I told him comic sales had slipped in part because the cover price seemed to reflect a collectability premium but 90% of the books weren't collectible anymore and pointed to the 25 cent box. Why should I pay $1.75 for something that isn't collectible? His response " we don't give a damn about collectors, we don't make money on back issue sales"... Holy cow. He didn't understand a decent chunk of his own industry. Meanwhile he would routinely bring in a box of comics he got for free for store credit.

They do. My friend who ran a shop burned diamond for about $25k. He knew he was closing after Christmas, ordered a TON of expensive hardcovers and other ebayable stuff leading up to that. Then went off the grid and paid the rent selling those for a couple of years. Of course, because he is a criminal I never spoke to him again. .

Of course, a lot of comments here from a guy who buys 7-10 new comics a year off the rack, 3/4 of them because one of my kids guilted me. Fact is, I will probably never regularly buy new comics until they are $2 each and 64 pages and I can get the ones limited to 300 copies.

Where do you live that a shop can't sell these for $1?

One of my shops does a brisk business selling 10 for $4 grab bags. Usually a book I would like out of tbe dollar box on top you can see, but the rest less desireable. But it is NYC so there are lots of tourists wandering around and this sort of disposable cheap stuff excites the heck out of Europeans apparently. That's what you get for $8000 a month rent on a 300 square foot shop.

Why would a business want to keep $2 rather than giving it back??? Anyway, I agree there should be some returnability, but complete returnability can result in over ordering. Also, a full refund can mean a store buys back books from customers for $1 after they read them and then returns them. But I see a 50% refund maybe making sense and splits the costs. A $1 risk will still create a dicencentive to over order. What publishers don't seem to understand is that too much overstock created disincentives for retail price purchases. As for what diamond can do with returns.. Many of these books are trashed, Wal-Mart can't sell them. 2/3 of the books that go into my shops' dollar boxes are fine or less after rack abuse. I actually buy most mainstream books I see in there that are nm or better (though I have cut back on that). Many of the better copies are file customer's who defaulted.

Old days? In 1978 there were 5 spiderman titles (1 reprint), 3 hulk titles (1 mag and 1 reprint), 2 Conan titles (at some point a little later 4)... But yes, overall it was much less and no minis. But yes, I hate the reboots. Even as a dollar box scrounger I am at the point of dropping buying many reboots. I actually do like to get runs. And it is too many variants. They aren't special. If there are only 3 or 4 a week for marvel then maybe people will care? With that said, my main shop seems to sell them. I have not been offered a stack of former $7-15 variants for $1 in years and I don't see him discounting them. Maybe he cuts deals or gives them to good file customers. As for everything being "worthless" 2 months later, that's an overstatement. $1-2 as back issues. Money losers for sure, but not worthless. One shop of mine has 3 or 4 longs of dollar books shoved in a corner and he generates $100-200 a week out of it (gross, not net). Half overstock half stuff he paid 5 cents for. He is a shop that buys whatever walks in. He is honest with people though, pays ok for good stuff and ok stuff, very little for junk, obviously. It seems dumb for shops to not try and buy collections. Why say no rather than just lowball? Yesterday I watched my guy pay $200 for some slabs he put up on the wall for about $1000. One of them was a $500 book he could sell for the $200 outlay in 2 minutes on eBay, get $400-500 if he has patience. It's "free" money?

Some interesting blog articles about the ekgren cover and 2 other ekgren paintings used for comics.

I guess if you started with a big ticket item you might remember. I feel confident that was not me as I began here not long after taking a 65% pay cut and my wife was pregnant, so I was selling my big stuff, not buying more big stuff.