10 years since the "crash"... so what caused it?

[valiantman]

Well, it's been about 10 years since the comic book crash...

do we have a concensus on what caused it?

 

Likely suspects (not necessarily mutually exclusive):

Speculators (there have always been speculators, so... "1992-93 Speculators")

"Death of Superman" attention brought to the market

Sportscard shops who decided to sell comics overnight

5 versions of X-Men #1 with "unlimited" print runs

Image (Shadowhawk, Spawn, Youngblood, etc.)

Valiant (Bloodshot, Ninjak, Turok, etc.)

Wizard magazine, Overstreet CBM, & other monthly price guides

Comic shop owners who greatly increased order numbers

Other factors...

 

What was the catalyst? What was the cause? What have we learned?

[Rip]

Many new people buying/ hording issues, not really caring about what's in the book only how much they can flip it for. Combine that with shallow talent pools, ie. poor writing, combined with increaing print runs, etc ect...

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

How about: "the whole industry (publishers/artists/distributors/retailers) failing to realize that, ultimately, content wins out, and preying on the consumer's loyalty with gimmick and alternate covers wrapped around $2.95 worth of fluff is only going to go so far."

 

Other then that, I think you hit the high points.

[OldGuy]

PAGING JOE COLLECTOR

[AlexH]

Rob Liefeld...

 

Proof:

 

- Big name (at that time) pulls out of Marvel to start a competing company

- His book comes out extremely late, and people still buy it (now the industry starts to believe it is OK to put stuff out late as the fans will still gobble it up). Fans eventually get tired of the lateness from other books and don't buy anymore.

- Cover price of Youngblood #1 is way more than the average comic at that time, it still sells out. Marvel and DC sense that they can raise the prices; some fans find out that it can be an expensive hobby and leave.

- When the book actually comes out, it sucks. It is horribly written and drawn. Fans think, "if this is supposedly one of the best creators out there...then there isn't anything that I want to read"

- Did I mention that it was massively produced and yet still had some stores commanding a premium for it, and that made fans mad.

 

It's all his fault!

[Apotheosis]

5 versions of X-Men #1 with "unlimited" print runs

 

I tend to lean towards this one. Why? As a "completist" it REALLY annoys me that certain titles always seem to come out with multiple covers. What Image does with Witchblade (i.e. two standard covers... then at least two con editions... and then one Museum edition... 5 covers for every issue?!!!! ) is the #1 reason why I refuse to buy any Image comics anymore. If they would bring out a special cover only once in a while it might be different.

[DoubleCovaBrotha]

You forgot to mention Spider-Man #1

[joe_collector]

Okay, here's the deal with the mid-90's crash, and it was the same in the mid-80's and the same today:

 

1) Newbies entering the "speculator/investment" comic arena, the vast majority of which had not bought comics for over a decade, and were attracted by the $$$, as usual.

 

2) Mass media exposure of "comic investments" (magazines, newspapers, TV, etc.) fueled the newbie explosion, bringing big bucks into the hobby and driving prices skyward.

 

3) At a certain point, the "hot potatoes" that speculators were buying and selling hit a ceiling, and with no more profits to reap, this started the mass exodus of speculators/investors.

 

4) Once the speculators left, the "heat" also left the comic hobby, leading to less exposure by mass media, less active speculation on new and back issue comics, and a serious deflating in real-world (not Overstreet) comic book values.

 

5) Rinse and repeat 4) and 5) a few times.

 

All Boom/Bust occurences come down to two main factors: Newbie money rushing in due to mass speculator profits and media exposure, which is then slammed by a "glass ceiling" that specs are willing to pay for the "hot potatoes", fueling a mass exodus of the money-grubbers.

 

It happened in the 80's, it happened in the 90's and it'll happen this decade as well.

 

Newbie money + parabolic price spikes + "hot potato" speculator flipping = Long-term Pain.

[sckao]

 

I think what happened was that comics didn't "take" with the next generation of collectors since that was the time the internet started becoming a household word and gaming consoles were being released. You could spend $2 on a comic that you read in 15 minutes or $50 on a cartridge that could last you for untold hours of gameplay. Most parents would probably opt for the cartridge since it seems a better economic deal in terms of bang for your buck.

 

The Sony Playstation X was released in 1994 as well. 1994 was also when the Internet really started becoming a mass-consumer oriented tool. I had been on the net since the mid 80's but that was a scientific/educational/military network... not the Internet/Web as we know it today.

 

Many of us here on the boards weren't teenagers in the 90's. We probably grew up with late Silver Age, Bronze, and late-Bronze age comics.

[Rocketeer]

And as far as the internet is concerned,...has anyone stopped to consider the fact that in these last two so-called crashes there was no E-bay ??...this is the "surprise variable" that all of you doom-sayers fail to factor in......the exposure to the hobby now is unmeasurable compared to the mid 90's, 80's etc.,....

[mitol]

Similar to the stock market, I view what happened to comics in the 90's as a "market correction". Up till the correction, we were all guilty of grabbing/hording all the stuff deemed hot or rare for future sales. For the younger me, I learned a very valuable lesson: Good art & bad writing still equals a bad book. I too was caught up with the great stuff McFarlane, Lee, Liefeld (why, I'll never understand), etc. were putting out. Again, similar to the dot com period several years ago, the cause was pure and simple, GREED. The first few dot coms had some great ideas and a few people invested in those ideas because they honestly believed. And as a result of their belief, these investors were rewarded handsomely. When others (entrepeneurs & investors) caught wind of this, everyone jumped onto the dot com bandwagon. Obviously, it's a bit more complicated than the several lines I've just written, but I don't want to go into a diahrretic rant.

 

Since Valiantman brought up this topic, the arrival of Valiant both helped and hurt the market. If memory serves, McFarlane and gang had just left Marvel and were beginning to push out their stuff. By stuff, I mean the "Good art & bad writing still equals a bad book" stuff. Along came Valiant as a fresh alternative, moderate art, but damn good stories. Basically, while waiting for the Image stuff to come out (remember Pitt #1 and Pitt #2?), I started picking up Valiants and was hooked. Valiant helped the market by producing quality goods. The bad thing was, in order to generate more revenue, they came out with more titles and those new fangled holofoil covers. Now, Valiant may not have been the official first company to sell books with these covers, but they are the most memorable. Of course, all these covers were not lost on Marvel and everyone knows where that led.

 

In conclusion, the silver lining that came out of this correction are vastly lower print runs and much better quality products which to this day, we're still enjoying. For those who believe the ultimate (not intended to be funny) crash is just around the corner, I'll continue to buy until the bitter end and after, I'd love to pick up a white Ultimate Spider-Man for a steal.

[delekkerste]

Likely suspects (not necessarily mutually exclusive):

 

...What was the catalyst? What was the cause? What have we learned?

 

Judging from present market conditions, it appears that people haven't learned much. None of the items you cited were the cause of the crash. They were merely symptoms of a mania, and all manias are fueled by mass greed. The conditions were right for a mania to develop and then it just fed on itself, much as we are seeing in the current market.

 

Personally, I don't think the present market should be compared at all to previous bubbles, because this one is so much bigger. In terms of new issues, no (it seems most have learned their lesson there), but certainly in terms of HG older books. And, although there may be fewer collectors participating in the present mania, those who remain are buying books at price levels that are many multiples (by orders of magnitude, in some cases) greater than in the 1990s. The carnage to those still "investing" in comics is going to be so much bigger than what we saw in the 1990s once this bubble finally pops.

 

Gene

[delekkerste]

And as far as the internet is concerned,...has anyone stopped to consider the fact that in these last two so-called crashes there was no E-bay ??...this is the "surprise variable" that all of you doom-sayers fail to factor in......the exposure to the hobby now is unmeasurable compared to the mid 90's, 80's etc.,....

 

You must be joking. While eBay has made the market much more liquid, it has also made it much more public. People see or hear about prices taking off on eBay and are sucked into the speculative mania as if it were a black hole. It will have the same effect on the way down - people will see prices falling or not meeting reserve and the pessimism will spread just as fast as the optimism did on the way up. In fact, the improved liquidity due to eBay, e-mail and all other things "e" has the potential to accelerate any decline (just as it has helped to accelerate price appreciation over the past few years) as information is disseminated to more people, more rapidly.

 

Gene

[joe_collector]

They were merely symptoms a mania, and all manias are fueled by mass greed.

 

I agree, but in any boom/bust phenomenon I've seen, this greed must also fuel a ton of "newbie insufficiently_thoughtful_person money" to enter, as these people haven't a clue concerning past performance or historical cycles, and just see the $$$ of a gold rush.

 

Without the influx of brainless, knowledge-less, newbie money, you would never create the boom conditions necessary for a bust to take place.

 

When the newbies start blowing their load is when I start to worry.

[joe_collector]

In fact, the improved liquidity due to eBay, e-mail and all other things "e" has the potential to accelerate any decline (just as it has helped to accelerate price appreciation over the past few years) as information is disseminated to more people, more rapidly.

 

You hit the nail on the head, and it was quite apparent with the rise-and-fall of Daredevil movie-based speculation. You could almost feel the tides shift overnight, and values dropped through the floor the next morning.

[Rocketeer]

Yeah ,..your right Gene,...sorry...I forgot you have a degree in EK-O-NOM-ICKS...

[delekkerste]

Yeah ,..your right Gene,...sorry...I forgot you have a degree in EK-O-NOM-ICKS...

 

True, but what does that have to do with anything? Your logic was faulty. It doesn't take a degree from Wharton to figure that out.

 

And, for the record, we "doomsayers" factor in everything.

[uclapeterg]

My degree's in Business Economics. Why would that give us people an advantage again?

 

Yeah ,..your right Gene,...sorry...I forgot you have a degree in EK-O-NOM-ICKS...

[lighthouse]

My degree's in Business Economics. Why would that give us people an advantage again?

 

Yeah ,..your right Gene,...sorry...I forgot you have a degree in EK-O-NOM-ICKS...

 

Beats me... My degree is in Economics as well... and I take great pride in the fact that I have not only read Hal Varian, I both understood him and liked him...

 

My own (completely insane) opinion on what caused the crash of 1993-94:

Lack of industry barriers to entry.

 

I would postulate that if the barriers to entry in the comic book retailing industry circa 1992 had been comparable to those in other industries, there would have been no crash. Nearly all of the other factors mentioned in this thread have direct relationships with the proliferation of inefficient retailers in the marketplace.

 

Rather that ramble on for another five paragraphs detailing my rationale as I normally would, I will instead await replies from those capable of arguing my point.

[joe_collector]

Interesting reply Lighthouse, and how would you say this relates to today, where EBay allows anyone with a Net account to be a dealer?