SNE to flood eBay with 13,000 slabs?

[the blob]

was there really a problem for readers getting these mid/late 1993 valiant releases at cover or less? speculators might have bought 1 million copies, but comic shops bought the other 750,000 copies and they need to pay the rent, so Turok 1 was on the rack for sale. i know my shop was stuck with long boxes of these when the actual "reader market" didn't pan out. He wasn't buying them to sell for 3-5X cover, he would have been ecstatic selling tons of them for cover price or at a discount for his file customers. no doubt he was figuring folks would buy 5-10 copies each. like i said, they were seemingly all available in september 1993 for 25 cents each in quantity.

 

kindah hard to charge a premium when there are 1 million+ copies of something floating around. the only one i can think of was Spawn 1 and I saw that at shows for $3 a pop, so not a big premium. no doubt shops were trying to get $5-$10 and some succeeded.

[the blob]

With that said, it is hard for a business (with shareholders, right?) to say no to 1.75 million sales of Turok 1 and argue that 1994 and 1995 will be better if they create some perceived scarcity and do a smaller first print, risking people not wanting a second print. Really, they wouldn't have sold 1.75 million copies to retail customers under any scenario. And honestly, I don't think they ever would have made up the lost sales.

 

Sure, it could be argued that if so many people didn't feel burned by the early 90's hysteria, fewer would have left the hobby. Hard to say. I doubt many adults who got in for speculative reasons would have stayed even if there had not been an exploding bubble. But yeah, I suppose a bunch of 9 - 15 year old kids got killed who may have even liked the comics but also liked the idea of their comics increasing in value even more who probably felt so burned they never came back.

 

True, Dark Horse did survive. So did Image. Dark Horse never seemed like it was fueled by mega speculation. Image did have some of that, but most of those titles are gone by now anyway.

[Logan510]

I have heard more than one comic pro say that the publishers do not care a whit about the sell through ( what the shops sell ) and that the only numbers they truly care about is what the stores buy. I'm not saying you don't know what you're talking about, but I'll go with what I've read / heard editors say. During the speculator boom I'm sure there were plenty of people who knew what was going on and turned a blind eye, just as I'm sure there were plenty of people who actually thought that there may have been over 1 million people reading Turok.

[CKB]

was there really a problem for readers getting these mid/late 1993 valiant releases at cover or less? speculators might have bought 1 million copies, but comic shops bought the other 750,000 copies and they need to pay the rent, so Turok 1 was on the rack for sale. i know my shop was stuck with long boxes of these when the actual "reader market" didn't pan out. He wasn't buying them to sell for 3-5X cover, he would have been ecstatic selling tons of them for cover price or at a discount for his file customers. no doubt he was figuring folks would buy 5-10 copies each. like i said, they were seemingly all available in september 1993 for 25 cents each in quantity.

 

kindah hard to charge a premium when there are 1 million+ copies of something floating around. the only one i can think of was Spawn 1 and I saw that at shows for $3 a pop, so not a big premium. no doubt shops were trying to get $5-$10 and some succeeded.

 

It was a downward spiral. The shops became the speculators. Why would your shop be stuck with long boxes of Turok 1? Because they ordered too damn many... That's not the "reader market". I'm sure they would have been happy selling their long boxes at cover price, but how could they do that when the hardcore card-shop speculators, seeing their folly too late, were willing to sell their cases for just about anything right away.

 

[the blob]

right, i don't think there was really a problem for the "reader" to get a copy of these comics at cover price. simply too many to hoard effectively, too many thousands of speculators who needed to make back their money, etc. maybe i guess if there's only one shop in a 50 mile radius. but the mail order guys where trying to unload these too.

[Gatsby77]

I'm a Valiant fan. I started collecting comics in 1989 with "Acts of Vengeance" and continued actively keeping up with new books until 1997.

 

For those who were there, Valiant was that hot and seemed that real. I wasn't around for the black & white explosion and crash of the mid-eighties, but I went to those comic conventions in 1992-1993 when Harbinger 1 and Magnus 0 were actually selling for $125 a piece. Funnily enough, I bought my Solar # 1 from Dan at Showcase New England's booth at a Philadelphia comic con for $12.

 

I also talked to multiple dealers who thought this was the next Marvel, and that Harbinger # 1 was the next Giant-Size X-Men # 1--it certainly had the biggest percentage gains since then. They told me when it was $100 that it would be a $250 book within 2-3 years. I was the one laughing then in response but people at the time thought it would happen--it was a sea change in the industry.

 

That said--make no mistake: Superman 75 and Image were far more responsible for the crash than Valiant, which was more a casualty of war. With Superman 75's 4 million copies, money was made so fast that baseball card dealers entered the comics world with a vengeance. I was dealing copies to my high school study hall for $12 a piece the day after release.With that book, it made sense to order cases of the hottest new thing, be it Venom # 1 the next month or Adv. of Superman 500 months later.

 

And I've never seen a sign at a store that said "Limit 5 per customer" before or since Youngblood 1 on the day of its release.

 

I don't have a link here to prove it, but I read recently that Turok # 1 was the # 6 selling book of 1993, so to blame it for the general behavior at the time is dumb.

 

 

[the blob]

I just throw Turok 1 out there because it's a a book I still see gadjillions of and I do flip through the valiant sections of dollar boxes in the hope of hitting an early one or an end of the run one. When I hit the Image section of the boxes I just skip entirely unless maybe it's Maxx and even then I don't buy the "later issues are hard to find" hype (though i did like reading Maxx...or trying to figure it out at least)

[RockMyAmadeus]

was there really a problem for readers getting these mid/late 1993 valiant releases at cover or less? speculators might have bought 1 million copies, but comic shops bought the other 750,000 copies and they need to pay the rent, so Turok 1 was on the rack for sale. i know my shop was stuck with long boxes of these when the actual "reader market" didn't pan out. He wasn't buying them to sell for 3-5X cover, he would have been ecstatic selling tons of them for cover price or at a discount for his file customers. no doubt he was figuring folks would buy 5-10 copies each. like i said, they were seemingly all available in september 1993 for 25 cents each in quantity.

 

kindah hard to charge a premium when there are 1 million+ copies of something floating around. the only one i can think of was Spawn 1 and I saw that at shows for $3 a pop, so not a big premium. no doubt shops were trying to get $5-$10 and some succeeded.

 

You're confusing the ordering of Turok #1 with the receiving of Turok #1. Turok was an early 1993 book, released when Valiant was still hot hot hot. Believe it or not, there actually was about a week or so when Turok #1 was impossible to get, because everyone was holding them back to wait and see.

 

It was really Bloodshot #1 that did the most damage. 800,000+ copies, and they did, in fact, "sell out", and sell out quickly..mostly to speculators, including retailers, who then flipped them for $5, $10, $15 in the ensuing weeks, thus insuring that the people who may have wanted to READ the damn thing wouldn't be able to without shelling out the cash.

 

Orders for Turok #1 came due shortly after Bloodshot #1 hit the shelves, so everyone upped their orders. So, no, the reality of Turok #1 was quite different from the promise of Turok #1. Turok #1 was the beginning of the end, but because no one had done their homework on Bloodshot #1, Turok #1 happened.

[RockMyAmadeus]

With that said, it is hard for a business (with shareholders, right?) to say no to 1.75 million sales of Turok 1 and argue that 1994 and 1995 will be better if they create some perceived scarcity and do a smaller first print, risking people not wanting a second print. Really, they wouldn't have sold 1.75 million copies to retail customers under any scenario. And honestly, I don't think they ever would have made up the lost sales.

 

It wasn't about "creating a perceived scarcity." That's just more market manipulation, and they needed LESS of that.

 

It was about printing the amount of copies that the market can actually absorb without being glutted. And it's not easy.

 

Comics don't work like film or records or TV, where they have to get as much as they possibly can right from the get go....comics must cultivate readers, a customer base. The market was ridiculous at that point. They all (DC, Marvel, Valiant, Dark Horse...screw Image) should have been working to STABILIZE the market...and they did the exact opposite.

 

Anyone with a brain could have seen this coming a mile away, and several of them did (and you can read them in market reports of the day.)

 

And I'm pretty sure Voyager Communiations (Valiant) was never a publicly traded company, so no, no shareholders.

 

Sure, it could be argued that if so many people didn't feel burned by the early 90's hysteria, fewer would have left the hobby. Hard to say. I doubt many adults who got in for speculative reasons would have stayed even if there had not been an exploding bubble. But yeah, I suppose a bunch of 9 - 15 year old kids got killed who may have even liked the comics but also liked the idea of their comics increasing in value even more who probably felt so burned they never came back.

 

True, Dark Horse did survive. So did Image. Dark Horse never seemed like it was fueled by mega speculation. Image did have some of that, but most of those titles are gone by now anyway.

 

The only reason Dark Horse survived the 90's was because of their licensing.

 

Mike Richardson is a licensing genius. Star Wars, Aliens, Predator, Terminator, Buffy....and Sin City, Hellboy, and Next Men...these are the things that kept Dark Horse alive, despite the debacle that was Comics Greatest World. Otherwise, they would have been destroyed, too.

 

Image was different, and operated as independent studios, so there was really no way for them to "go under."

[RockMyAmadeus]

I have heard more than one comic pro say that the publishers do not care a whit about the sell through ( what the shops sell ) and that the only numbers they truly care about is what the stores buy. I'm not saying you don't know what you're talking about, but I'll go with what I've read / heard editors say. During the speculator boom I'm sure there were plenty of people who knew what was going on and turned a blind eye, just as I'm sure there were plenty of people who actually thought that there may have been over 1 million people reading Turok.

 

:shrug: Those editors don't know what they're talking about.

 

Every business, especially a business that works through a distribution process, cares about sell through.

 

They have to, to survive.

[RockMyAmadeus]

right, i don't think there was really a problem for the "reader" to get a copy of these comics at cover price. simply too many to hoard effectively, too many thousands of speculators who needed to make back their money, etc. maybe i guess if there's only one shop in a 50 mile radius. but the mail order guys where trying to unload these too.

 

No. There WAS a problem for the reader to get a copy of these comics at cover price...at FIRST. Dealers held these back at first, thinking they would have another Bloodshot #1 on their hands. Nobody knew, that first week, that 1.75 Million copies had been printed except Valiant and the printer. They only knew what they had on hand, and everyone thought "gosh, this will be great, I (maybe) missed out on Bloodshot, now I'll make up with it with Turok!" They held them too long, and by the time everyone found out, THEN the massive dump began.

 

But you're missing the point. You're focusing on the AFTERMATH of Turok #1, and my hypothetical discussion was dealing with the PRINTING of Turok #1.

 

Bloodshot #1 was the ACTUAL book that readers could not get a hold of. This carried to the ORDERING and PRINTING of Turok #1, days and weeks before it actually hit the stands.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

That said--make no mistake: Superman 75 and Image were far more responsible for the crash than Valiant, which was more a casualty of war. With Superman 75's 4 million copies, money was made so fast that baseball card dealers entered the comics world with a vengeance. I was dealing copies to my high school study hall for $12 a piece the day after release.With that book, it made sense to order cases of the hottest new thing, be it Venom # 1 the next month or Adv. of Superman 500 months later.

 

And I've never seen a sign at a store that said "Limit 5 per customer" before or since Youngblood 1 on the day of its release.

 

I don't have a link here to prove it, but I read recently that Turok # 1 was the # 6 selling book of 1993, so to blame it for the general behavior at the time is dumb.

 

 

Do you know what the #1-5 books were......? (I do, but I'm making a point.)

 

But no, you're quite wrong about Valiant...Valiant was just as responsible for the crash as anyone else, with perhaps the exception of Marvel.

 

 

[Mr 9.8]

You really like to post dont you Amadeus?

[MrBedrock]

Has anyone mentioned that Bloodshot #1 came out the same day as Superman #75 (the death issue)? The only reason Bloodshot sold as well as it did was because all of those folks who were buying Superman with the intention of putting their kids through college on the potential profits they would make were smart enough to realize that the funnybook with the shiny cover was also going to make them a mint. And the shop owners who catered to that were smart enough to realize that Turok 1 also had a shiny cover. Interestingly enough, most of those retailers are no longer around.

[RockMyAmadeus]

You really like to post dont you Amadeus?

 

Indeed.

 

Don't you?

 

Especially on topics about which you have a great deal of passion?

[Logan510]

Once the publisher has sold the books to the distributor they could care less if it's 100 people buying 10 copies each or 1000 people buying one copy in the shops. To them it's the same money.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Has anyone mentioned that Bloodshot #1 came out the same day as Superman #75 (the death issue)? The only reason Bloodshot sold as well as it did was because all of those folks who were buying Superman with the intention of putting their kids through college on the potential profits they would make were smart enough to realize that the funnybook with the shiny cover was also going to make them a mint. And the shop owners who catered to that were smart enough to realize that Turok 1 also had a shiny cover. Interestingly enough, most of those retailers are no longer around.

 

I think it may have been mentioned earlier in the thread, and definitely has been mentioned before.

 

I do not doubt that a great deal of BS #1's success had to do with Supes #75.

 

Typical Conversation heard on Nov 20, 1992:

 

New Customer: "What? You don't have any more Superman #75s? Drat. Well, do you have anything else you think might go up in value? What's this? Bloodshot #1? First chromium cover, you say? I'll take it!"

[Flaming_Telepath]

Once the publisher has sold the books to the distributor they could care less if it's 100 people buying 10 copies each or 1000 people buying one copy in the shops. To them it's the same money.

 

Not quite correct.

 

If only one person buys all 1,000 copies of #1, do you think they'll be doing the same with #2?

 

The more different customers buying #1, the healthier the orders for #2.

[short_box-migration]

You really like to post dont you Amadeus?

 

Indeed.

 

Don't you?

 

Especially on topics about which you have a great deal of passion?

 

Yes he does. That's why the only things he posts about are Miracleman and Judge Dredd.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Once the publisher has sold the books to the distributor they could care less if it's 100 people buying 10 copies each or 1000 people buying one copy in the shops. To them it's the same money.

 

Only to publishers who have no intention of being in business by the 4th issue.

 

Which, in the mid 80's, many weren't. But that's entirely irrelevant to this chat.