alexgross.com

per the WSJ today: Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe has been the most successful movie franchise in history, grossing nearly $30 billion globally over 33 films to date. But this past weekend provided the latest sign that the lucrative stable of superheroes is in need of some rescuing. “The Marvels” grossed a mere $47 million for its domestic box-office debut—a record low for the franchise and a major disappointment even against other recent Marvel movies that have been showing signs of strain. The nine other Marvel movies that have opened since the pandemic closed movie theaters in 2020 have averaged a domestic opening weekend of about $136 million, according to data from Box Office Mojo. skipping ahead: Moviegoers shouldn’t really expect Hollywood studios to suddenly abandon their timeworn practice of falling back on the familiar. Disney has already broadcast plans to scale back on its studio output, with Chief Executive Bob Iger admitting on last week’s earnings call that “we lost some focus” regarding the quantity and quality of content the company has released of late. But he also added, “We are focusing heavily on the core brands and franchises that fuel all of our businesses”—strongly suggesting that Marvel’s heroes won’t get benched. “New IP has a much lower hit rate than established IP,” noted analyst Doug Creutz of TD Cowen in a report on Disney last week. --- not a surprise that marvel's attempt with marvels to pander to an audience that generally could not care less about superheroes (teen girls) while abandoning any attempt to reel in a middle age and older male audience would result in a giant flop. one second of the preview made that obvious to most folks. i think Iger's comment about CORE BRANDS suggests that IRON MAN is about due for a reboot with whoever the most popular actor is today with younger people. whether it will work without RDJ is an open question of course.

CIS insures your books in your possesion, on their way to you, and on their way from you. there are certain signature requirements depending on book value and carrier but they insure them both ways. i have had my policy for several years now. i've never made a claim but some boardies have stated that they have received payment when they made a loss claim. website is www.collectinsure.com and no i dont work for them.

the number of pinched corners i've seen in the last decade, like this tragic one, upcoming on CL, is too high to count. i'm not an engineer and do not know how best to solve this. but i will never buy a book like this, a former 9.4 now brought down to maybe an 8.5 on a good day.

yes. people are way more selective now. i certainly am. this is a result of an unstable economy, huge interest rate increases, global events, and the erratic stock market. no one i know, except one very wealthy person, is buying tons of comics now, or any other luxury items. agree that holiday time is always the slow time. the bigger question is why would things turn around come spring, if these underlying economic issues have not brightened by then. people who can neither sell nor by a home right now, thanks to fed interest rate policy, are probably not buying comics. i loathe the gloom and doom panicky types always predicting a comics crash here on the boards. thats not me, and i beleive that the core comic collecting base is a very solid one. it will turn around at some point. but i cannot see why that would be next year, unfortunately, though i very much hope that it will be.

i'm going to go on record as saying that i was wrong about what i thought the extent of the drop would be post covid bubble. i expected prices (SA mostly is what i pay attention to) to come down some, but not as far as they appear to have come. and they continue to drop. some people said that prices would drop to pre-2019 levels, which seemed unlikely to me. but some or many books certainly have done so. i'd like to say that i think things will stabilize soon, but with almost everything in our economy, as well as the global political situation, totally up in the air right now, there's no good reason to be optimistic. i wish i was wealthier, i would be buying books all the time now. no one knows where the bottom will be, but i don't know why we would be there yet, at least for non mega keys.

oh, is there a captain marvel movie coming out?

i like hemsworth thor. taika did a great job with him in ragnarok bringing in more comedy while still making a kick butt superhero adventure. of course then he went overboard on the silliness in the next one. i'd love to see thor v silver surfer a la SS4 in a movie. of course loki was involved in the original story, so they would probably need to come up with some new backstory. but it would be a neat way to finally introduce the surfer into the mcu, which seems very overdue.

i also use CIS although i have never had to make a claim. but several members have attested that they do pay claims. they cover your books at home, in a bank box, and during shipping too as long as a signature is required.

this would be outstanding news if true. tom holland spider-man is the last great marvel comics superhero that appeals to a wide audience base. both my 9 year old son and my 55 year old self love him and all his spider-man films. one more for the road-

i certainly have not used feebay for a long time. perhaps i should since there seem to be deals, and their policies dramatically favor the buyers, and screw the sellers. this was quite a deal-

@CGC Mike

precisely. as i said yesterday, an auction house owned by a major comic book dealer is a conflict of interest. depending on the structure of the two businesses, it may even be totally kosher for metro to bid on and buy books in cc auctions. although having access to our bids is almost surely not kosher. perhaps some of you think the former employee on here who alleged that metro shills most or all of cc's stuff was just disgrunled. ok. i've had this exact scenario on HA so unfortunately if you think this is real, and i do, it does not appear exclusive to cc. and when blazing bob chimes in, i find it well worth listening to.

cc is owned by metropolis comics, one of the larger dealers out there. it's only some per cent of their overall business. i can't see what risk they run outside of getting busted, since they can (hypothetically) shill and even buy books in their own auctions and offer them for sale later. auction houses owned and operated by comic dealers have an inherent conflict of interest.

this was alleged here by a former cc/metropolis employee there with inside knowledge. important to state that it is simply an allegation. if you don't know about the np gresham case mentioned by @BEAUMONTS its a depressing read on google. but essentially that was a lawsuit against heritage for precisely this behavior. it was settled privately.

thanks for the report! my joke that the show probably didnt take place because no one posted pics is certainly not bad mouthing. its a facetious attempt at encouraging more pics and reports from attendees and dealers. i hope you made some nice purchases there and made some coin too bob.

i'm pretty sure this con did not actually take place since it's now monday night and no one has posted pics of the dealer booths of comics, original art, artists alley, etc.

it's just anecdotal, but every single person i know is doing less well now than a year or two ago. everyone is worried, and no one is spending on luxury items. maybe you hang out with more billionaires than i do, but amongst the upper middle class and middle class people that i know, things are not good. everyone i know who has some money and wants to buy a house is finding it absolutely impossible now with interest rates. home sales have plummeted. and what's worse is that there is no reason for economic optimism on the horizon.

it hasnt continued to drop in value, esp in the 2 years following the start of this st*pid thread. why cant people let st*pid threads die?

total classic awesome movie. certainly needs NO reboot. but ultimately everything gets remade. sigh.

his inst says 2-5 today and tomorrow

i have an ff48 deslabbed 7.0 that i got here on the boards around 5 years ago. last year i was interested in upgrading an xmen1 4.5 that i own to a nice 5.5 that a local store had. the ff48 value was close to the difference in books with some additional cash. he was open to trading. i showed him the book but he was suspicious of it, even though there is clearly no resto or other issue with it, though it's certainly been pressed, he was ultimately not interested. so, in that case, it certainly would have been better for me had it still been in the slab. here on the boards, i notice tons of people trying to sell raw and deslabbed books for gpa. it doesnt often work outside of really hot markets. however there is a strong market for clean raw books. both here and at shows, a great many people want raw, not slabbed books. most of them do not want pressed books though, so if you are not sure whether your books have been pressed or not, you may discover some bad news for later resale value. if your number one priority is resale value, and we are talking SA or BA books worth hundreds or thousands, then i would keep them in the slab. but as @Number 6 said, if you are talking about low value bronze, copper or modern books that are not 9.8, then it probably doesnt matter.

lovely artwork pickups for a nice price! just followed you on inst but you know live videos are not permanent. better to post reels and reg videos for those of us with a life who dont spend all day watching live streams.

lets see some pics as boardies start attending! and sales reports that are not total BS would be nice too.

batmanis#1 was annoying because he pretty much exclusively posted his clearly biased opinion that this book was a great investment, classic pump and dump. did the same with xmen1. seemed also like a pretty clueless older person, unable to read the room or the accepted etiquette. having said that, i think those who are opposed to the including of recent pricing news on this phenomenally valuable book are being unrealistic and annoying as well. i dont need a weekly update on price info on every af15 sale, but as it is my most valuable comic investment i cannot pretend that i own it just because i love the book. i do indeed love it as i do most ditko spideys. but it is also a large financial investment, and i'm certainly not wealthy enough to pretend i dont care how it does. and someday, it might pay for fifteen minutes of college education for my son.

@TerrysComicsdan panosian is a great local artist who might do it if invited. used to be my neighbor too-