Comic Values in the Distant Future - Action #1 for $10M or $10?

[Firespitter]

Decades into the future, scientists will discover that the chemical combination of comic book inks and paper decomposing together make a unique and viable fuel source for intergalactic travel. (Like the way dinosaurs make oil. But if we had dinosaurs roaming around, we couldn't just mash them into oil like we do olives). And comics will be more valuable than diamonds.

Atleast...that's what I keep telling myself when I find a comic cover that I like in the dollar bins.

 

-Terry

 

[SquareChaos]

Print is surely dying, but comic books and junk mail will be the last hold outs.

[markseifert]

Print is surely dying

 

People aren't believing the evidence to the contrary quite yet, but resurgence of print vs digital will be a big story in 2015:

 

Amazon launched the Kindle, which is now in its seventh generation, in 2007. Sales peaked in 2011 at around 13.44m, according to Forbes. That figure fell to 9.7m in 2012, with sales flat the following year. It is estimated that Amazon has sold around 30m Kindles in total.

 

At the same time, British consumers spent £2.2bn on print in 2013, compared with just £300m on e-books, according to Nielsen.

 

London bookstore Foyles has reported a surge in sales of physical books over Christmas.

 

US book giant Barnes & Noble is looking to spin off its Nook e-reader business, which is estimated to be losing $70m a year. Meanwhile, core sales, excluding Nook, rose 5pc in the most recent quarter.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/11328570/Kindle-sales-have-disappeared-says-UKs-largest-book-retailer.html

 

That syncs up with what quite a few publishers will tell you privately. The last 18 months of data are not what many would have predicted.

 

Again -- of course digital will come on strong, but as someone in that article notes, there is a lot of fud out there about the death of print that the data just doesn't come close to supporting yet.