KingOfRulers

I agree with Phil's points. There are many reasons and contributing factors for the decline in publishing of Marvel and DC. Publishing in general seems like a dying business; Marvel and DC are no exception. The marketplace is very different than it was 30 years ago. And way different than it was 60 years ago. People's tastes and interests are different. Lots of people will continue to enjoy Marvel and DC properties for years in movies, TV, and video games. Those aforementioned channels are the channels by which consumers enjoy the characters nowadays. Comics still exist as a channel to enjoy the characters, but it isn't the channel anymore. The medium of comic books are now niche appeal, not mass appeal. I don't think lowering the prices will help. In my opinion, today's consumer doesn't have strong interest regardless of price. It's sad to say, but I foresee interest in newly published comics continuing to decline. I don't see that trend ever reversing. I think American-style Marvel and DC comics had their time, and that time is coming to an end. It's hard for me to imagine newly published Marvel and DC comics going extinct (at least not in my lifetime), but I definitely expect continuous readership declines.

I've been to both of those art museums (more than once). I've spent a lot of time in art museums. Whenever I travel, art museums are the first thing on my list to go to. In London, I've been to the National Gallery and the Tate. In Paris, I've been to The Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Musee de l'Orangerie, and others. In Dublin, the National Gallery of Ireland. In Prague, the National Gallery and the Mucha Museum. In Copenhagen, the SMK. I've been to most of the major art museums in the United States; NYC, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Dallas, Atlanta, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Phoenix, and I'm guessing others I'm forgetting. Art is a significant part of my life. You're not the only one with knowledge of art and art history. Perhaps there are those with opinions on art and the "art scene" that simply aren't in agreeance with your own.

It's my opinion that it's primarily the art snobs or wannabe tastemakers that poo-poo Ross' work. People who think they know better than everyone else what is high quality art versus poor quality art. The same type of people that try to show their supposed sophistication and superior intelligence by attempting to convince the world how wonderful and deep Mark Rothko's work is. If you conducted a "blind viewing" where you put a Bob Ross painting in a lineup with 20 other similarly sized, similarly themed landscape paintings from masters of the craft, each from a different artist (none of them signed or identified), it's my prediction that you'd get a wide array of votes from viewers as to their favorites. I don't think people would scoff at Bob Ross' work unless they knew they were looking at a Bob Ross work in the same lineup as a Rembrandt. Certainly, your average person doesn't care about technique, the time involved, or the wounded poet or starving artist backstory. The average person cares about how the final product looks, and I don't think in a blind viewing the average person could tell the difference between the "quality" of a Bob Ross landscape when compared to other highly regarded landscape artists. In a blind viewing, I think it would be the same story even if you raised the bar to "artsy people", who might be art enthusiasts or artists themselves. I'm guessing that most people (me included) think Rembrandt is a far better painter than Bob Ross. But how much of that perception boils down to what is essentially branding? As a lifelong art enthusiast, I've been trained to know that Rembrandt is superior to Ross. It's a fundamental given. But in a blind viewing of 20 pieces where I wasn't told who created what, I bet there's a solid chance that I (and many art lovers) could be made to look foolish in not immediately choosing a Rembrandt over a Ross. It's my prediction that in a blind viewing of 20 pieces, you'd have to reach the .05% level of the viewership bell curve before they could fairly consistently point to a Bob Ross painting as being inferior to the work of surrounding masters. The hyper-enthusiast art snob likely has the keen eye to tell the difference...although, having watched several fine art "forgeries and fakes" documentaries over the years, I can say even at that level of expertise there is a decent chance they wouldn't know the difference.

I haven't been drawing much lately. Here's my two most recent pieces. One is Robert Dinero from Taxi Driver and the other is my recreation of Secret Hearts #128.

The OP of this thread emailed me mid-September about having this book pressed. He asked if I could verify that it was a first print or not. I told him I'm not an expert on TMNT #1, and I sent him links to a couple of threads here which detail out ways to determine printings. He then asked again if I could verify so I looked at the threads myself in an attempt to come to a conclusion. The name in his email is a different name than his boards name, which is unusual if both sets of names consist of first/last names. But I can tell it's the same book as some of the pictures are exactly the same. He seems like a nice guy via email, but the differing first/last names between his email and boards name is very odd.

I don't remember the specifics of how the math got there (this was 7 years ago). I simply remember the $202/hour price tag for unskilled, loading dock Teamster labor. If you talked to them in person, you'd also get goon vibe.

The union labor there might be making more than $50/hour for a significant amount of the billing due to NYCC being held on Saturday/Sunday, where union labor probably makes 2x wages. I remember when I ran San Francisco Comic Con, as we were on a weekend and a holiday (Labor Day weekend), the union goons were making 4x wage. We were being forced to pay each of those union meatheads $202/hour to move a dealer's inventory 100 feet, which was a service that neither us or the dealers wanted in the first place.

I think Bob Ross created some beautiful works of art. That particular piece, I wouldn't call anywhere among my favorites, however all artists have their hits and misses. I love Ross' mountains and lakes/rivers pieces the most. Coincidentally, I just watched a Bob Ross episode a few nights ago, and he painted a mountain scene. I thought it was fantastic. The fact that he was able to create such works in 25-30 minutes makes it even more amazing. The technique to be able to create such lovely work so quickly is mind-blowing for me. Classical painters from centuries past could spend weeks or months to create similar looking pieces. Ross' speedmanship is something that our legendary comic artists of the Golden Age and Silver Age wish they could do as they were paid by the page. Jack Kirby came up with his quintessential look and style for the sake of speed. It was a distinctive, bold look that he could produce quickly. He was creating roughly 2 pages per day. Given an unlimited amount of time and creative freedom, Kirby's work would look completely different. I bet he would've loved to have been able to produce 1 page every 30 minutes like Ross did with his paintings. Even 1 page every couple hours would've doubled his output.

Was Iger "excessively" compensated? Again, another completely subjective matter of opinion. In my opinion, he was paid too much. But I'm a Disney stockholder. Given the option, I'd prefer paying Iger a hefty bounty of $35k per year plus 10% off any theme park restaurants. I want the best deal possible. Iger also wants the best deal possible for himself. I can't fault him there. That's the name of the game. Doesn't everyone strive for the best deal for themself? However, I'm not so full of my own opinion that I'd simultaneously suggest that those disagreeing with me are immoral or bad people.

Anytime I see the usage of the term "fair" nowadays, I cringe. Its use attempts to inject the premise of superior morality for the user of the term, on what would otherwise be a purely mathematical negotiation. What is "fair"? Fair for Participant A might be 5 while fair for Participant B might be 10. What makes either opinion fair or unfair? Every participant's idea of fair is merely their opinion. That's why the use of the term "fair" has become so ubiquitous. The term "fair" in practice means that if you don't agree with the user of the term's opinion of what's "fair", then you're immoral and a bad person.

This Perez Avengers cover has made the rounds at least three times in the last five years. It's risen each time. September 2023 (Heritage) = $38,400 (includes BP) March 2021 (ComicLink) = $21,251 February 2018 (Heritage) = $11,353 (includes BP)

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Me and @TupennyConan have been kicked out of Wizard World. Our ejection from Wizard World was in Indianapolis during the height of the comic con wars. Wizard World was embarking on a nationwide expansion in 2015 and one of their expansion efforts was Wizard World Indianapolis. We were first to market with a large-scale comic convention in Indianapolis debuting Indiana Comic Con in March 2014. WW Indianapolis came to town in early 2015 roughly one month prior to Indiana Comic Con year 2, and we wouldn't have any of it. Me, TupennyConan, and two other friends/employees were there to fight off the invaders! We handed our fliers and posters to the WW Indianapolis attendees as they were entering the exhibit hall. WW called security. We were told we couldn't hand out fliers near the entrance to the event or within the convention center. We relocated to the skybridge that connects the parking garages to the convention center. After a while WW staff must've noticed a stream of attendees arriving holding our fliers. They followed the trail of attendees and found the source. T'was us! The scene culminated with WW employees standing feet away from TupennyConan, taking pictures of him as he handed out fliers. Tupenny then pulled out his own phone and took pictures of them as they were taking pictures of him. So meta. As we departed, Tupenny received a call from WW's Peter Katz, who summoned us back onsite for a discussion. We promptly returned and Tupenny faced Peter's wrath mano a mano, nose to nose. Peter banned us from all WW events. Without much ado, we then departed a second time. Shortly after arriving back at the Marriott's bar for debriefings, the then-current Assistant Executive Director of the convention center called Tupenny and summoned us back onsight for another discussion. She then banned us from the Indiana Convention Center for the remainder of the weekend in order to 'keep the peace.' She was quite attractive, always a little flirty with Tupenny. We then departed a third time. While all of this was going on, my friend Jamel was assigned to the parking garage and put a flier under as many car windshield wipers as he could. It was around 20 degrees outside (bless his heart). The security in the garage confronted Jamel and he sprinted away through the garage. WW Indy was a disaster. Indiana Comic Con a month later was a smash hit. WW never returned to the Indianapolis market after their initial effort in 2015, and Indiana Comic Con remains the only large-scale comic convention in Indy and has become a beloved staple of Indianapolis. Peter and Tupenny made-up long ago and are fast friends to this day.

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Thank you!

First wins whether by post or PM. Payment: Check, money order, wire transfer, or cash are accepted. Shipping: Shipping cost is $20 anywhere in the USA via USPS Priority Mail. Returns: No returns on CGC graded books. Returns allowed on raw books if notified within 7 days of item(s) delivery. References: I have been a member of the CGC boards since 2005, and active in the comic book community as a buyer and seller since 2003. My eBay username is AmericanComicsAndCollectibles. I am the co-founder of Tampa Bay Comic Convention, Indiana Comic Convention, and several other mid-size/regional conventions around the United States.

And all of that is not to say that the folks running SDCC don't care about the benevolent goals of supporting comics and the arts. If I had to guess, I think they do care. But I think they also have financial self-interest in mind, as almost everyone does. My company was "for-profit", but we still cared about keeping comics and comic creators a central part of our conventions. If we didn't care, we would've stopped bringing in guest artists and shifted strictly to celebrity appearances. Guest artists definitely didn't improve our bottom line. But even being for-profit, we kept bringing guest artists to our conventions because we love comics and want to keep the hobby alive.

1) A non-profit organization is merely a government designation. Organizations have no goals. Just as a corporation cannot pay taxes. Only people can pay taxes, whether that person be a shareholder, employee, or customer. But it's always ultimately a person. The people that are in positions of power are the ones that have the goals. The culture of an organization changes as new people enter and old people exit, but the organization has no mind of its own with which to have goals. To say that because SDCC is a non-profit organization and therefore its administrators are not interested in financial self-interest, is in my personal opinion, naive. Have you ever researched what percentage of monetary donations to various non-profit "charitable" organizations actually goes to the causes they ostensibly support? If you haven't, you'd likely be shocked at the percentage that goes to things other than the cause they support, and further shocked at the salaries that administrators of some non-profit organizations make. Non-profit in no way means that there aren't folks banking. 2) Artist alley tables are not pretending to do anything. It costs a lot of money to put on a convention. My conventions were regional-level conventions and each event would cost us roughly $600,000 to make happen, on average. I'm sure conventions such as SDCC and NYCC must cost a couple million dollars to put together. Conventions to showcase such artists would not exist if they operated at a loss. Not even SDCC. 3) People have the freedom to seek out art, if it strikes their fancy. With the popularity of Instagram and YouTube, I'd say it is easier than ever to make your art available to the world as it costs no money to do so. Convincing folks to care is the trick!

Still have some of these available!

Comparing SDCC to any other pop-culture comparison is indeed NOT apples to apples. SDCC is its own comic con category, apart from essentially all other U.S. comic conventions. SDCC is not set apart from other conventions due to size/attendance (as there are other comic cons that are just as large), but for two other reasons: 1) SDCC is a non-profit organization. As a non-profit, the way that it does business and its goals are different than other comic cons. SDCC isn't an event that can be sold to some larger entity one day, like every other comic con can be. Instead of gaining value as a company, SDCC's administrator's become the beneficiaries of the financial success the organization achieves and they do this through massive salaries. SDCC administrators are not incentivized to manage the organization in the same way that for-profit companies are. 2) SDCC is widely accepted as a PR opportunity for Hollywood. SDCC doesn't pay for TV and movie stars to appear at the event. I'm sure they end up being on the hook for some travel accommodations, per diem, and minor expenses, but they aren't paying appearance fees or guarantees. As SDCC is a PR opportunity for TV and movie studios, the stars from the hot shows and movies of the day appear at SDCC for no charge. All other comic cons hire celebrities to attend their events; for all events other than SDCC, it is a paid appearance deal. For SDCC, celebrities attend for free as it is part of their PR obligation to the studios for whom they've done work for. As a pure PR opportunity for studios, celebs aren't contractually bound to the strict terms that they are in other comic convention personal appearances. At SDCC they'll do the all-important panel and then maybe sign posters for fans for an hour or so, and then they're done. At all other comic cons, the appearing celebs are guaranteed a certain amount of money for a very specific scope and length of work; they are to participate in a panel for X minutes, they are to participate in autograph signings for X minutes, and are to participate in photo-ops for X minutes. As far as ticket prices...why wouldn't SDCC charge $100/day? They sell out of tickets every year at that price, and still have mobs of people willing to purchase. It makes no sense for them to sell tickets for $30/day and sell out when they can sell them at $100/day and still sell out. Being that they have a huge waiting list every year, wouldn't the law of supply and demand suggest that they probably need to raise their price? And when it comes to conventions being accessible to unknown artists; as far as I can tell the convention world already is as accessible as can be. Pretty much every convention has an artist alley section where artists can show off their work. At my conventions, we usually had around 120 artist alley tables. We made the tables available to all types of illustrators. It all comes down to if the varying types of artists wanted to attend...if they applied, chances are I'd accept them! But you are right in that the only thing the average, common denominator of a person cares about is mass marketed, corporate properties. That's what most people like for whatever reason. If I had to make a bet, I'd bet that the unknown artist selling Spider-Man art will likely garner more interest than the unknown artist selling Japanese woodblock carvings of bonsai trees. As I mentioned previously, most people don't even care about the legendary (to us) artists that brought all of our favorite, popular characters to life within comic books for decades. I can guarantee that even fewer people care about the comparatively unknown artists. The average dum-dum doesn't care about art at all. Maybe an event like Art Basel is what you're looking for. I'd imagine a greater percentage of attendees care about the arts there. But maybe not even there. I guess that narrows it down to the folks on these boards...this is the last holdout of people that actually care about the art.

From the event organizing side of things, I wonder who owns these new, niche events. As far as I know, Hasbro is not in the event production business. Will Hasbro own and operate these new events? For example, I believe Star Wars Celebration is owned by Disney, but they contract out the production of the event to an event company (Reed Pop). I'm not familiar with Botcon, but it sounds like it is a convention in the same way that SDCC is (owned and operated by a self-contained production and promotion company), except with a very narrow focus. You say, "Why spend the money to go to SDCC and be lost in the shuffle? Go to where you know your dedicated customers are going to be." There is some good sense in that, but I'd say to some extent it's also an unwise choice to simply choose one or the other; choosing niche appeal (Botcon) over broad appeal (SDCC). What makes a "dedicated customer", dedicated? They're the customer that follows the business wherever they go. They're on Hasbro message boards, follow the company on social media, perhaps blog or make YouTube vids about their products, and are always watching their website for new announcements etc. These folks are already diehard customers, and chances are they will continue to be. How does Hasbro setting up at Botcon to essentially market to these existing diehard customers help them grow? When big companies go to conventions it is purely a marketing opportunity. I think a convention such as SDCC is good for Hasbro because it allows them to market their products to a very large audience that aren't necessarily Hasbro fanboys and fangirls yet, but are near enough in general interest that they are potential new customers. In my opinion, new money is what Hasbro wants (in addition to retaining their existing dedicated fans). Catering only to dedicated fans isn't a worthwhile strategy, in my opinion. They need both new and old money. As well, SDCC gets worldwide, mainstream publicity which a niche convention will not receive.

I'll add that there is a "chicken and egg" dynamic as it relates to comic book buyers and comic book dealers. We'd typically get 40,000+ attendees at our flagship conventions. Curmudgeonly dealers would complain, "Nobody is buying comics." Curmudgeonly attendees would complain, "Not enough comic dealers." Some dealers would stop setting up because no buyers. Some attendees would stop attending because not enough comic dealers. How do we get more comic dealers without more comic buyers? How do we get more comic buyers without more comic dealers? One of the problems that was growing in severity as time progressed, and one of the multitude of reasons that I'm glad we sold the conventions and got out of the event business. The comic collector attendee is a simple beast in terms of determining what they want. There's really only two "draws" for comic book collectors to attend a comic con: 1) comic dealers, 2) guest comic creators. I'd like to speak to #2. Building a comic creator guest list is one of the single most difficult, time consuming, and expensive aspects of the entire comic convention enterprise. In my previous post I said that the comic collector attendee costs so much to acquire, are relatively few in number, complains the most, and as a result isn't logically worth the effort to cater to; guest comic creators is a major reason why. Comic creators are difficult and time consuming to book, expensive to book, and generally very few people care about a given creator. I'll skip over the "difficulty and time aspect" of the chore for now. Generally speaking, we'd have around 25 comic creator guests per event. Some creators charge an appearance fee, but most didn't. All of them would require their airfare and hotel stay be covered. Additionally, they often had a +1 (husband/wife, helper etc), which also required airfare, and possibly an additional hotel room stay. Per diem was common, but not always required. Car service was common, but not always required. On average, I figured a comic creator would cost us $1,250 each in travel expenses. Plus whatever appearance fees some of them might charge. For 25 creators, that's $31,250 just in travel. Call it another $10,000 in various appearance fees and per diems; now we're at $41,250. And that doesn't include the amount we paid for each of their skirted tables, chairs, carpeting for the guest artist area of the convention hall, and employees we dedicated to staffing the area. Call it $50,000 in total for our 25 comic creator guest list. Our general admission was $30-$40 per day (depending upon the day), or $60 for a 3-day pass. Assume an average ticket sale price of $40. That being the premise, our wonderful list of guest comic creators would have to pull in 1,250 attendees for us to merely break even on their appearances. And a lot of comic collector attendees would find a way to get into the convention without paying anything, so who knows what the real breakeven number was. I have no empirical evidence to say whether our investment was financially worth it or not, but if I'm speaking from my gut instinct I'd say, "No way in hell it was." As a comic book guy, I was always hanging around the comic creators. That's what I cared about. I loved talking to them, getting sketches, etc. That was my world and I loved it. Hanging around in that area, I'd observe the area in an attempt to determine its success. No way do I think we were pulling in 1,250 attendees by way of our comic creators in attendance, that we would have otherwise not captured. In 11 years of running conventions, the only creators that generated enough interest to draw large lines that rivaled the lines (50 or more attendees at a time) we were getting in the celebrity signing area were: George Perez, Bruce Timm, and Jim Starlin. Honorable mention for Steranko. Other creators had lines sometimes, but 5, 10, or 20 people. 30 attendees at any given time would be a very strong line for a comic guest. Most of the time, it was no line, no wait. Of our bustling 40,000 attendance, I'd say maybe 500-750 cared about comic book creators. And that might be a generous estimate. On the other hand, we could book a Dragon Ball Z voice actor for a $3,500 "guarantee" (meaning we could recoup all $3,500 of their appearance fee through autograph and photo-op sales). This is in comparison to a comic creator's "appearance fee" which was a flat fee that we could not recoup. Aforementioned Dragon Ball Z voice actor's line would be at full capacity all weekend, serving 1,250 attendees.

I could write a book on the comic con business. In short, comic book collectors are not a large enough fanbase to support a large-scale comic convention. I say this having experienced both sides of the coin. It's evident by merely looking at the landscape for comic conventions. The largest comic-centric convention in the U.S. is Heroes Con, with what Google tells me has a record attendance of 40,000 set in 2016. After Heroes Con, what other comic centric convention comes remotely close to Heroes? I can't think of any comic-centric event that is anywhere close to those attendance numbers. Comic-centric events are plentiful all around the U.S., but the attendance is usually in the 500-1,500 attendee range. I can't think of a single comic-centric event that even touches 5,000 attendees, other than Heroes. If you look at the convention landscape for comic cons that are really "pop-culture" and nerd-culture conventions, then you'll find tons of events that hit 40,000 attendees and more. Plenty of 5,000, 10,000, 50,000, 75,000 attendees and more conventions that are in every major U.S. city, often times with multiple events within the same city drawing those numbers. These are often events that have only been around for 10 years and get these numbers, whereas it took Heroes Con 35 years to get to 40k. As a convention goer, I would not have attended the conventions I owned as I don't like the hassle that comes with huge crowds. The admission price to my conventions would've been too high. The number of comic book dealers we had would've appeared too few in number. I much prefer going to smaller shows where a high percentage of the vendors are comic book dealers, the crowds are small, the parking is easy, and the admission is relatively low. As a convention owner, in my experience, hardcore comic book collectors (such as myself) are perhaps the worst group to cater to. The demographic is small in number, unwilling to spend on admission (often don't pay as they are well connected and get free dealer passes), expensive customers to acquire, and tend to complain more than anyone else. Why bother going through the effort and investment to attract them? I can tell you that in large part, it was pure emotion and respect for the world of comics that led us to continue the effort. We didn't want to be "sellouts" to the term "comic con". As hardcore comic guys ourselves, we genuinely care about the longevity of comics. But from a business standpoint, I regret to inform you that comic collectors are the worst and are money losers for comic cons.