If the crash comes...

[paul747]

Do not misunderstand:

 

While there are several major causes for the 90's crash, the single greatest contributor was the massive speculator mentality that infected the entire industry from the top down.

 

Publishers were printing books far in excess of what the market could actually absorb, without bothering to question who was actually buying them, and why.

 

Distributors were busy fighting for market share, trying to put each other out of business, and had no time to question the print orders they were giving the publishers.

 

Retailers were selling cases of books to people without bothering to ask them if they thought it was a good idea, and they were buying their own cases to hopefully sell at huge profits themselves.

 

Speculators were buying those cases to "put away" so they could "send their kids to college."

 

And no one, anywhere, at least that I can find in any of the literature, and certainly not in my own experience, stopped to ask "um...who's going to buy all these books at higher prices, if everyone's sitting on cases of it...?"

 

It was "you better get yours while you can, or you will miss out."

 

Until it wasn't, and the whole house of cards collapsed.

 

Loot Crate is being a then. They have been the ones that have created these large print runs recently for moderns. But even then, it's still not coming close to what publishers were doing in the 90's. I don't believe anyone is putting cases of Batman New 52 books away when the print run is 115K. Even on hot books with multiple variants, print runs are still way, waaaaaay down from the '90's era.

 

Just my , but I'm sure one of you guys is gonna take my money.

 

Yes, but you have to realize readership is also way, way down too in comparison to the number of books sold. Speculation is back in a big way. Everyone wants to believe "this time it will be different." Sure, it will be different, but in the end, there will be a correction.

 

What is the most followed threads on these boards? Threads about speculation. Which books sell out at the comic shops on day 1? Books that are speculated on. This is not healthy for the market in the long run. It turns off readers who want the books to read. Fun for speculators does not equal fun for readers.

 

what percentage of the nineties print runs where speculation driven? There are a ton of readers in this new market. If there was a way to tell i would bet the nineties print runs where 50-60 percent driven by speculation(?) and today's new market (last year or 2) is about 20 percent speculator/quick flipper(?). Yes the print runs are tiny compared to the monster number of the past but...... most of the heavy, buy by the case speculators are gone. If you put a list together from 2000 till now of just killer comics with great stories it would trump the nineties quality comics !

[rjrjr]

By the way...for those that think the comics market is healthy today, why do we still struggle with Direct orders that are so bad, they constantly fall below the traditional cancellation threshold of the past? (100,000 copies sold.)

 

March, 2015, we have Princess Leia #1 with Direct orders of 253K copies...and #2 with a 60%+ drop from that at 96k?

 

The top FIVE sellers from March of 2015 barely matches the orders for an average issue of Uncanny X-Men (NOT X-Men, which was at 1M+ per issue) in 1991....?

 

For a market to be healthy, it has to grow...but the market is a tiny fraction of what it was historically, and has been that way for nearly 20 years.

 

No, it's pop culture that is hot right now, and it hasn't translated into higher sales in the comics market. You can track, through the Cap City numbers, the growth of the market from the mid 80's through the mid 90's....and it was pretty consistent in growth year over year.

 

And yet, we see more money being pumped into the comics market than ever before. Crazy money, books that were $5 10 years ago selling for $2000 in top grade. Books that were $200 10 years ago selling for $4000 now. "Hot variants" selling for hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

 

Where is it coming from, and who are these people spending this money? Do they have any connection to the artform, or is it just an expression of the larger pop culture market, a market that is notoriously fickle?

 

Without a connection to the artform, all these people will move on. Is there a "baseline" comics market that will always exist, and are we at it?

 

Maybe. It hardly speaks to the health of a market that is, at best, anemic, even if individual retailers are doing well.

 

But the prices being paid for stuff these days bears absolutely no relation to the new comics market, and that is exceptionally risky territory.

 

A chunk of that lack-of-growth can be attributed to the rapid price escalation of the past decade, and the ridiculous escalation compared to the whole of the past 20 years. Remember, it wasn't long ago that these books were $1-$1.25. Now, anything from the big-2 is 3.99. Incomes haven't increased at the same rate & this is a commodities inflation that we've seen in other industries as well. Something has to give. You can buy 1 comic today for the price of 4 in 1992-ish.

 

Comics are also competing more against the video game industry & other gaming industries for entertainment dollars than they had to 20 years ago. For instance, video games have only essentially doubled in price (maybe tripled, depending on the game) in that same period. You could buy 30 comics for the price of a video game in 1992. You can only buy 15 comics for the price of 1 video game in 2015, and only 7.5 modern comics for the price of 1 video game in 1992 while the median household income has only increased by about 75% in that same period.

 

Is the price of a comic really an issue when you have people buying and selling brand new comics for hundreds of dollars on day 1? I know if I where a publisher, I would have no problems raising the prices for new comics in this market. People have no problems spending hundreds on a new comic, so why shouldn't they raise the prices?

 

If you ask me, the publishers are leaving money on the table.

[Doktor]

By the way...for those that think the comics market is healthy today, why do we still struggle with Direct orders that are so bad, they constantly fall below the traditional cancellation threshold of the past? (100,000 copies sold.)

 

March, 2015, we have Princess Leia #1 with Direct orders of 253K copies...and #2 with a 60%+ drop from that at 96k?

 

The top FIVE sellers from March of 2015 barely matches the orders for an average issue of Uncanny X-Men (NOT X-Men, which was at 1M+ per issue) in 1991....?

 

For a market to be healthy, it has to grow...but the market is a tiny fraction of what it was historically, and has been that way for nearly 20 years.

 

No, it's pop culture that is hot right now, and it hasn't translated into higher sales in the comics market. You can track, through the Cap City numbers, the growth of the market from the mid 80's through the mid 90's....and it was pretty consistent in growth year over year.

 

And yet, we see more money being pumped into the comics market than ever before. Crazy money, books that were $5 10 years ago selling for $2000 in top grade. Books that were $200 10 years ago selling for $4000 now. "Hot variants" selling for hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

 

Where is it coming from, and who are these people spending this money? Do they have any connection to the artform, or is it just an expression of the larger pop culture market, a market that is notoriously fickle?

 

Without a connection to the artform, all these people will move on. Is there a "baseline" comics market that will always exist, and are we at it?

 

Maybe. It hardly speaks to the health of a market that is, at best, anemic, even if individual retailers are doing well.

 

But the prices being paid for stuff these days bears absolutely no relation to the new comics market, and that is exceptionally risky territory.

 

A chunk of that lack-of-growth can be attributed to the rapid price escalation of the past decade, and the ridiculous escalation compared to the whole of the past 20 years. Remember, it wasn't long ago that these books were $1-$1.25. Now, anything from the big-2 is 3.99. Incomes haven't increased at the same rate & this is a commodities inflation that we've seen in other industries as well. Something has to give. You can buy 1 comic today for the price of 4 in 1992-ish.

 

Comics are also competing more against the video game industry & other gaming industries for entertainment dollars than they had to 20 years ago. For instance, video games have only essentially doubled in price (maybe tripled, depending on the game) in that same period. You could buy 30 comics for the price of a video game in 1992. You can only buy 15 comics for the price of 1 video game in 2015, and only 7.5 modern comics for the price of 1 video game in 1992 while the median household income has only increased by about 75% in that same period.

 

Is the price of a comic really an issue when you have people buying and selling brand new comics for hundreds of dollars on day 1? I know if I where a publisher, I would have no problems raising the prices for new comics in this market. People have no problems spending hundreds on a new comic, so why shouldn't they raise the prices?

 

The point wasn't about how much money is available for 1 super special variant book here and there from hardcore collectors but how many people can legitimately afford to buy/read regularly at that price point.

 

When your prices hit 400% in a world with real income at only 175%, you reach a level where the regular but loyal reader is priced out, and the more steady "collector but not 'I'll spend $100 on this brand new comic' collector" cuts back or is unwilling to invest 400% of his previous investment to get the same amount.

 

Most readers keep a budget commensurate with their income. If my income is 175% of 1992, I'll spend 175% of my 1992 budget but I won't increase it to 400% of my 1992 budget just to get the same number of comics per month. Especially when I can get far more hours of entertainment per dollar out of a video game than I can out of the 15 comics I could buy with the same money.

 

Additionally, it also prices out the minimum-wage-level highschool kid from buying a half-dozen comics and getting really engaged in the hobby. The ame way that it prices the 10-year-old out whose mom didn't mind dropping $1-$2 but for the price of 1-2 comics in 2015, they'll be more inclined to buy their kid a paperback book for the same $8 as 2 comic books or the $15 for a TPB of 6 comics.

[natevegas]

Its strange how indie paper quality is going up and the big 2's paper quality is going down.

[F For Fake]

Are there any non error variants from the 90's that actually sell for big bucks today?

 

(Platinum Spidey doesn't count, as it wasn't available to the public)

 

Does this one count?

 

The regular gold version doesn't sell for much, so unless you call all books with a UPC a variant then I wouldn't count it.

 

That's actually a really rare Wal-Mart variant, super tough in grade and very pricey. The regular gold version is no big deal, but this one definitely is.

 

As for other non-error 90's variants I can't think of many (though I'm sure they're out there) but there are several from the 2000's. (JSC Wolvie/Deadpool, Siege, Mary Jane Venom, etc.)

[Couchy81]

Do not misunderstand:

 

While there are several major causes for the 90's crash, the single greatest contributor was the massive speculator mentality that infected the entire industry from the top down.

 

Publishers were printing books far in excess of what the market could actually absorb, without bothering to question who was actually buying them, and why.

 

Distributors were busy fighting for market share, trying to put each other out of business, and had no time to question the print orders they were giving the publishers.

 

Retailers were selling cases of books to people without bothering to ask them if they thought it was a good idea, and they were buying their own cases to hopefully sell at huge profits themselves.

 

Speculators were buying those cases to "put away" so they could "send their kids to college."

 

And no one, anywhere, at least that I can find in any of the literature, and certainly not in my own experience, stopped to ask "um...who's going to buy all these books at higher prices, if everyone's sitting on cases of it...?"

 

It was "you better get yours while you can, or you will miss out."

 

Until it wasn't, and the whole house of cards collapsed.

 

Loot Crate is being a then. They have been the ones that have created these large print runs recently for moderns. But even then, it's still not coming close to what publishers were doing in the 90's. I don't believe anyone is putting cases of Batman New 52 books away when the print run is 115K. Even on hot books with multiple variants, print runs are still way, waaaaaay down from the '90's era.

 

Just my , but I'm sure one of you guys is gonna take my money.

 

Yes, but you have to realize readership is also way, way down too in comparison to the number of books sold. Speculation is back in a big way. Everyone wants to believe "this time it will be different." Sure, it will be different, but in the end, there will be a correction.

 

What is the most followed threads on these boards? Threads about speculation. Which books sell out at the comic shops on day 1? Books that are speculated on. This is not healthy for the market in the long run. It turns off readers who want the books to read. Fun for speculators does not equal fun for readers.

 

what percentage of the nineties print runs where speculation driven? There are a ton of readers in this new market. If there was a way to tell i would bet the nineties print runs where 50-60 percent driven by speculation(?) and today's new market (last year or 2) is about 20 percent speculator/quick flipper(?). Yes the print runs are tiny compared to the monster number of the past but...... most of the heavy, buy by the case speculators are gone. If you put a list together from 2000 till now of just killer comics with great stories it would trump the nineties quality comics !

 

Digital comics have skewed the numbers. There is a massive amount of readership that all the print run numbers don't reflect. The movies blowing up and popularity of MCU and new T.V shows are all results of comic fans. Just not entirely physical comics.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

A chunk of that lack-of-growth can be attributed to the rapid price escalation of the past decade, and the ridiculous escalation compared to the whole of the past 20 years. Remember, it wasn't long ago that these books were $1-$1.25. Now, anything from the big-2 is 3.99. Incomes haven't increased at the same rate & this is a commodities inflation that we've seen in other industries as well. Something has to give. You can buy 1 comic today for the price of 4 in 1992-ish.

 

Dollar for dollar, the worst increases in price came in the early 90's, followed by the mid to late 70's.

 

In 1990, there were still 75 cent books on the stands. By 1995, that price was now $1.95, an astonishing 160% increase in cover price in only 5 years.

 

That rivals the period from 1976 to 1981, in which comics went from 25 cents to 60 cents, which was a 140% increase by comparison.

 

Compared to that, the price increase from $1.95 to $3.99 from 1995 to 2015 is a mere 104% increase.

 

There hasn't been any much price escalation, rapid or otherwise, in the past decade.

 

The price increases of the early 90's were on purpose, directed by Perelman of Marvel, and DC had no choice but to follow suit (not that they were complaining.)

 

Comics are also competing more against the video game industry & other gaming industries for entertainment dollars than they had to 20 years ago. For instance, video games have only essentially doubled in price (maybe tripled, depending on the game) in that same period. You could buy 30 comics for the price of a video game in 1992. You can only buy 15 comics for the price of 1 video game in 2015, and only 7.5 modern comics for the price of 1 video game in 1992 while the median household income has only increased by about 75% in that same period.

 

The "comics competing against video games" argument has been around for 35 years, and I'm not sure if I buy it anymore, if I ever did.

 

I think the REAL stealer of interest is social media, which has taken much available time away from other pursuits.

[CBT]

When the market crashes, IH #1 and AF #15 are the ones where I think you will see a lot of tears flowing. But, the market wont roll over as long as there is virtually free money to borrow. Once that changes, a lot of markets are going to blow up, comics included.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Do not misunderstand:

 

While there are several major causes for the 90's crash, the single greatest contributor was the massive speculator mentality that infected the entire industry from the top down.

 

Publishers were printing books far in excess of what the market could actually absorb, without bothering to question who was actually buying them, and why.

 

Distributors were busy fighting for market share, trying to put each other out of business, and had no time to question the print orders they were giving the publishers.

 

Retailers were selling cases of books to people without bothering to ask them if they thought it was a good idea, and they were buying their own cases to hopefully sell at huge profits themselves.

 

Speculators were buying those cases to "put away" so they could "send their kids to college."

 

And no one, anywhere, at least that I can find in any of the literature, and certainly not in my own experience, stopped to ask "um...who's going to buy all these books at higher prices, if everyone's sitting on cases of it...?"

 

It was "you better get yours while you can, or you will miss out."

 

Until it wasn't, and the whole house of cards collapsed.

 

Loot Crate is being a then. They have been the ones that have created these large print runs recently for moderns. But even then, it's still not coming close to what publishers were doing in the 90's. I don't believe anyone is putting cases of Batman New 52 books away when the print run is 115K. Even on hot books with multiple variants, print runs are still way, waaaaaay down from the '90's era.

 

Just my , but I'm sure one of you guys is gonna take my money.

 

Yes, but you have to realize readership is also way, way down too in comparison to the number of books sold. Speculation is back in a big way. Everyone wants to believe "this time it will be different." Sure, it will be different, but in the end, there will be a correction.

 

What is the most followed threads on these boards? Threads about speculation. Which books sell out at the comic shops on day 1? Books that are speculated on. This is not healthy for the market in the long run. It turns off readers who want the books to read. Fun for speculators does not equal fun for readers.

 

what percentage of the nineties print runs where speculation driven? There are a ton of readers in this new market. If there was a way to tell i would bet the nineties print runs where 50-60 percent driven by speculation(?) and today's new market (last year or 2) is about 20 percent speculator/quick flipper(?). Yes the print runs are tiny compared to the monster number of the past but...... most of the heavy, buy by the case speculators are gone. If you put a list together from 2000 till now of just killer comics with great stories it would trump the nineties quality comics !

 

"By the case" speculators are sniffing around again, if not already back in the game.

 

How do you come up with your numbers? How do you know that there are a "ton of readers" (compared to what...?) in this new market?

 

Sure, we can make broad generalizations, based on observation and market reports, but anything beyond that is total conjecture.

 

I will tell you this: there is far, far, far more damage done to a small, fragile market by "20% speculation" than there was with "50-60% speculation" in the early 90's.

 

In the early 90's, if I wanted a book, it was nearly always available on the day of release, from one of the many shops in the Bay Area.

 

The only exception was Superman #75.

 

Now, many shops don't even CARRY many books, and if speculators swoop in and suck everything up from the one shop in town...all those readers are SOL, which angers them (and which was part of the cause of the crash in the 90's.)

 

Annnnd this thread has completely derailed from its original topic. Not that I'm complaining.

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

By the way...for those that think the comics market is healthy today, why do we still struggle with Direct orders that are so bad, they constantly fall below the traditional cancellation threshold of the past? (100,000 copies sold.)

 

March, 2015, we have Princess Leia #1 with Direct orders of 253K copies...and #2 with a 60%+ drop from that at 96k?

 

The top FIVE sellers from March of 2015 barely matches the orders for an average issue of Uncanny X-Men (NOT X-Men, which was at 1M+ per issue) in 1991....?

 

For a market to be healthy, it has to grow...but the market is a tiny fraction of what it was historically, and has been that way for nearly 20 years.

 

No, it's pop culture that is hot right now, and it hasn't translated into higher sales in the comics market. You can track, through the Cap City numbers, the growth of the market from the mid 80's through the mid 90's....and it was pretty consistent in growth year over year.

 

And yet, we see more money being pumped into the comics market than ever before. Crazy money, books that were $5 10 years ago selling for $2000 in top grade. Books that were $200 10 years ago selling for $4000 now. "Hot variants" selling for hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

 

Where is it coming from, and who are these people spending this money? Do they have any connection to the artform, or is it just an expression of the larger pop culture market, a market that is notoriously fickle?

 

Without a connection to the artform, all these people will move on. Is there a "baseline" comics market that will always exist, and are we at it?

 

Maybe. It hardly speaks to the health of a market that is, at best, anemic, even if individual retailers are doing well.

 

But the prices being paid for stuff these days bears absolutely no relation to the new comics market, and that is exceptionally risky territory.

 

A chunk of that lack-of-growth can be attributed to the rapid price escalation of the past decade, and the ridiculous escalation compared to the whole of the past 20 years. Remember, it wasn't long ago that these books were $1-$1.25. Now, anything from the big-2 is 3.99. Incomes haven't increased at the same rate & this is a commodities inflation that we've seen in other industries as well. Something has to give. You can buy 1 comic today for the price of 4 in 1992-ish.

 

Comics are also competing more against the video game industry & other gaming industries for entertainment dollars than they had to 20 years ago. For instance, video games have only essentially doubled in price (maybe tripled, depending on the game) in that same period. You could buy 30 comics for the price of a video game in 1992. You can only buy 15 comics for the price of 1 video game in 2015, and only 7.5 modern comics for the price of 1 video game in 1992 while the median household income has only increased by about 75% in that same period.

Regarding the price increase, the most significant jump, percentage-wise, took place over just a few years in the late '80s/early '90s. The final .75 issue of Action Comics was the December 1990 issue. By June 1993, it had doubled to 1.50.

[Gatsby77]

One of the rules with bubbles and pyramid schemes alike is that you can still make money if you get in late stage, just so long as your not holding when the music stops.

 

1991-1992 was a glorious time. It _worked_. Until it didn't.

 

The orders for April 1993 (including the return of Superman books + Turok 1) made logical sense because there was precedent.

 

The previous November people stockpiled Superman 75. And it still went to $30.

 

People stockpiled Bloodshot 1. And it still went to $12.

 

So it only made sense to stockpile Adv. of Superman 500 & the four Return of the Supermen books (a la Supes 75), and Turok 1 (a la Bloodshot 1).

 

I'm not concerned about a crash today because I haven't participated. I started reading the hot Modern threads back when folks pimped Morning Glories, then Skullkickers, then Chew, then The Sixth Gun, etc. Happy that I bought none of them.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

The previous November people stockpiled Superman 75. And it still went to $30.

 

Nobody stockpiled Superman #75. There wasn't enough to be had. hat's why it went to $100, not just $30.

 

There was zero incentive to sit on these books within a day of them showing up from the distributors.

 

Superman #75 was probably the most widely distributed comic book in the fastest amount of time in comics history.

 

As well, the previous "hit" from Superman was #50, two years earlier, which had fallen down by that time.

 

 

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

 

A chunk of that lack-of-growth can be attributed to the rapid price escalation of the past decade, and the ridiculous escalation compared to the whole of the past 20 years. Remember, it wasn't long ago that these books were $1-$1.25. Now, anything from the big-2 is 3.99. Incomes haven't increased at the same rate & this is a commodities inflation that we've seen in other industries as well. Something has to give. You can buy 1 comic today for the price of 4 in 1992-ish.

 

Dollar for dollar, the worst increases in price came in the early 90's, followed by the mid to late 70's.

 

In 1990, there were still 75 cent books on the stands. By 1995, that price was now $1.95, an astonishing 160% increase in cover price in only 5 years.

 

That rivals the period from 1976 to 1981, in which comics went from 25 cents to 60 cents, which was a 140% increase by comparison.

 

Compared to that, the price increase from $1.95 to $3.99 from 1995 to 2015 is a mere 104% increase.

 

There hasn't been any much price escalation, rapid or otherwise, in the past decade.

 

The price increases of the early 90's were on purpose, directed by Perelman of Marvel, and DC had no choice but to follow suit (not that they were complaining.)

 

Comics are also competing more against the video game industry & other gaming industries for entertainment dollars than they had to 20 years ago. For instance, video games have only essentially doubled in price (maybe tripled, depending on the game) in that same period. You could buy 30 comics for the price of a video game in 1992. You can only buy 15 comics for the price of 1 video game in 2015, and only 7.5 modern comics for the price of 1 video game in 1992 while the median household income has only increased by about 75% in that same period.

 

The "comics competing against video games" argument has been around for 35 years, and I'm not sure if I buy it anymore, if I ever did.

 

I think the REAL stealer of interest is social media, which has taken much available time away from other pursuits.

Didn't see this before responding about the early '90s. I agree with your point about social media (although I would say just the internet in general changed things; I probably spend more time reading boards about comics than comics). One of the biggest factors in the price increase, as I understand it, was that paper got really expensive. At least, the *cheap* paper got really expensive, which is why you saw the move to better paper; there was effectively no big difference to go to the better paper, and it would actually be *more* expensive now to print a comic on newsprint.

[Gatsby77]

 

The previous November people stockpiled Superman 75. And it still went to $30.

 

Nobody stockpiled Superman #75. There wasn't enough to be had. hat's why it went to $100, not just $30.

 

There was zero incentive to sit on these books within a day of them showing up from the distributors.

 

Superman #75 was probably the most widely distributed comic book in the fastest amount of time in comics history.

 

As well, the previous "hit" from Superman was #50, two years earlier, which had fallen down by that time.

 

 

Where were you?

 

In Philly, it went to $30-$40, but never $100, except for the Platinum version.

 

And _everybody_ stockpiled the book (as in, pre-ordered it, in massive quantities).

 

I bought 18 copies & sold them to kids in my study hall for $15 per. My buddy did the same, but with 25 copies. There was a substitute teacher in my school who bought 150 (he was an outlier, though -- not only did he have a part-time gig with Diamond, he also pre-ordered 50 sets of ASM 361-363 because he saw that coming in a way we didn't).

 

Also, my LCS was particularly good, in that they heavily advertised pre-order subscriptions for the whole storyline, starting at MoS 18, even if you weren't a normal subscriber.

 

Yes -- they ordered hundreds of copies & still sold out on day 1 with two hours, but in my region, speculators heavily speculated on Superman 75.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

The previous November people stockpiled Superman 75. And it still went to $30.

 

Nobody stockpiled Superman #75. There wasn't enough to be had. hat's why it went to $100, not just $30.

 

There was zero incentive to sit on these books within a day of them showing up from the distributors.

 

Superman #75 was probably the most widely distributed comic book in the fastest amount of time in comics history.

 

As well, the previous "hit" from Superman was #50, two years earlier, which had fallen down by that time.

 

 

Where were you?

 

In Philly, it went to $30-$40, but never $100, except for the Platinum version.

 

There are several contemporaneous reports about the book reaching $100 within a few weeks of release, nationwide.

 

And _everybody_ stockpiled the book (as in, pre-ordered it, in massive quantities).

 

Pre-ordering and "stockpiling" aren't the same thing, so if you meant "pre-ordered", that has a different meaning. "Stockpiling" means having physical copies of the book, and sitting on them. I stockpile Batman #426-429, but I didn't pre-order a single copy.

 

And, again, the book, even at 4 million+ copies printed, still took everyone by surprise. It's hard to stockpile a book that is in so much demand, it goes to 4 printings.

 

I bought 18 copies & sold them to kids in my study hall for $15 per. My buddy did the same, but with 25 copies. There was a substitute teacher in my school who bought 150 (he was an outlier, though -- not only did he have a part-time gig with Diamond, he also pre-ordered 50 sets of ASM 361-363 because he saw that coming in a way we didn't).

 

You were in school when this book came out. I was working for a comic book distributor at the time. That may account for our different reports of the situation.

 

How did your substitute teacher pre-order a "set" of books that came out a month apart each...? Do you mean he ordered 50 copies of each book at the time of order?

 

Also, my LCS was particularly good, in that they heavily advertised pre-order subscriptions for the whole storyline, starting at MoS 18, even if you weren't a normal subscriber.

 

Yes -- they ordered hundreds of copies & still sold out on day 1 with two hours, but in my region, speculators heavily speculated on Superman 75.

 

I have no doubt that people ordered multiple copies of Superman #75...and then promptly sold them in the days and weeks that followed.

 

Nobody sat on multiple copies of this book, unless they were completely tuned out of the market (in which case, they'd be unlikely to have multiple copies of this book.)

 

The pressure was simply too great. There was nothing like this book in comics history, and there never has been since.

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

 

The previous November people stockpiled Superman 75. And it still went to $30.

 

Nobody stockpiled Superman #75. There wasn't enough to be had. hat's why it went to $100, not just $30.

 

There was zero incentive to sit on these books within a day of them showing up from the distributors.

 

Superman #75 was probably the most widely distributed comic book in the fastest amount of time in comics history.

 

As well, the previous "hit" from Superman was #50, two years earlier, which had fallen down by that time.

 

Depends on what you mean by "stockpile"; I know people that pre-ordered a bunch of those when it was released. Not cases worth, perhaps.

[paul747]

Do not misunderstand:

 

While there are several major causes for the 90's crash, the single greatest contributor was the massive speculator mentality that infected the entire industry from the top down.

 

Publishers were printing books far in excess of what the market could actually absorb, without bothering to question who was actually buying them, and why.

 

Distributors were busy fighting for market share, trying to put each other out of business, and had no time to question the print orders they were giving the publishers.

 

Retailers were selling cases of books to people without bothering to ask them if they thought it was a good idea, and they were buying their own cases to hopefully sell at huge profits themselves.

 

Speculators were buying those cases to "put away" so they could "send their kids to college."

 

And no one, anywhere, at least that I can find in any of the literature, and certainly not in my own experience, stopped to ask "um...who's going to buy all these books at higher prices, if everyone's sitting on cases of it...?"

 

It was "you better get yours while you can, or you will miss out."

 

Until it wasn't, and the whole house of cards collapsed.

 

Loot Crate is being a then. They have been the ones that have created these large print runs recently for moderns. But even then, it's still not coming close to what publishers were doing in the 90's. I don't believe anyone is putting cases of Batman New 52 books away when the print run is 115K. Even on hot books with multiple variants, print runs are still way, waaaaaay down from the '90's era.

 

Just my , but I'm sure one of you guys is gonna take my money.

 

Yes, but you have to realize readership is also way, way down too in comparison to the number of books sold. Speculation is back in a big way. Everyone wants to believe "this time it will be different." Sure, it will be different, but in the end, there will be a correction.

 

What is the most followed threads on these boards? Threads about speculation. Which books sell out at the comic shops on day 1? Books that are speculated on. This is not healthy for the market in the long run. It turns off readers who want the books to read. Fun for speculators does not equal fun for readers.

 

what percentage of the nineties print runs where speculation driven? There are a ton of readers in this new market. If there was a way to tell i would bet the nineties print runs where 50-60 percent driven by speculation(?) and today's new market (last year or 2) is about 20 percent speculator/quick flipper(?). Yes the print runs are tiny compared to the monster number of the past but...... most of the heavy, buy by the case speculators are gone. If you put a list together from 2000 till now of just killer comics with great stories it would trump the nineties quality comics !

 

"By the case" speculators are sniffing around again, if not already back in the game.

 

How do you come up with your numbers? How do you know that there are a "ton of readers" (compared to what...?) in this new market?

 

Sure, we can make broad generalizations, based on observation and market reports, but anything beyond that is total conjecture.

 

I will tell you this: there is far, far, far more damage done to a small, fragile market by "20% speculation" than there was with "50-60% speculation" in the early 90's.

 

In the early 90's, if I wanted a book, it was nearly always available on the day of release, from one of the many shops in the Bay Area.

 

The only exception was Superman #75.

 

Now, many shops don't even CARRY many books, and if speculators swoop in and suck everything up from the one shop in town...all those readers are SOL, which angers them (and which was part of the cause of the crash in the 90's.)

 

Annnnd this thread has completely derailed from its original topic. Not that I'm complaining.

My numbers where more of a question than statement... It's impossible to tell. I do agree that the micro market is more at risk than the larger market. Agreed on someone swooping up all the copies but a lot of shops set limits and honor there pulls. I wish we had digital numbers because comic books are more main stream than ever before.

[rjrjr]

Do not misunderstand:

 

While there are several major causes for the 90's crash, the single greatest contributor was the massive speculator mentality that infected the entire industry from the top down.

 

Publishers were printing books far in excess of what the market could actually absorb, without bothering to question who was actually buying them, and why.

 

Distributors were busy fighting for market share, trying to put each other out of business, and had no time to question the print orders they were giving the publishers.

 

Retailers were selling cases of books to people without bothering to ask them if they thought it was a good idea, and they were buying their own cases to hopefully sell at huge profits themselves.

 

Speculators were buying those cases to "put away" so they could "send their kids to college."

 

And no one, anywhere, at least that I can find in any of the literature, and certainly not in my own experience, stopped to ask "um...who's going to buy all these books at higher prices, if everyone's sitting on cases of it...?"

 

It was "you better get yours while you can, or you will miss out."

 

Until it wasn't, and the whole house of cards collapsed.

 

Loot Crate is being a then. They have been the ones that have created these large print runs recently for moderns. But even then, it's still not coming close to what publishers were doing in the 90's. I don't believe anyone is putting cases of Batman New 52 books away when the print run is 115K. Even on hot books with multiple variants, print runs are still way, waaaaaay down from the '90's era.

 

Just my , but I'm sure one of you guys is gonna take my money.

 

Yes, but you have to realize readership is also way, way down too in comparison to the number of books sold. Speculation is back in a big way. Everyone wants to believe "this time it will be different." Sure, it will be different, but in the end, there will be a correction.

 

What is the most followed threads on these boards? Threads about speculation. Which books sell out at the comic shops on day 1? Books that are speculated on. This is not healthy for the market in the long run. It turns off readers who want the books to read. Fun for speculators does not equal fun for readers.

 

what percentage of the nineties print runs where speculation driven? There are a ton of readers in this new market. If there was a way to tell i would bet the nineties print runs where 50-60 percent driven by speculation(?) and today's new market (last year or 2) is about 20 percent speculator/quick flipper(?). Yes the print runs are tiny compared to the monster number of the past but...... most of the heavy, buy by the case speculators are gone. If you put a list together from 2000 till now of just killer comics with great stories it would trump the nineties quality comics !

 

"By the case" speculators are sniffing around again, if not already back in the game.

 

How do you come up with your numbers? How do you know that there are a "ton of readers" (compared to what...?) in this new market?

 

Sure, we can make broad generalizations, based on observation and market reports, but anything beyond that is total conjecture.

 

I will tell you this: there is far, far, far more damage done to a small, fragile market by "20% speculation" than there was with "50-60% speculation" in the early 90's.

 

In the early 90's, if I wanted a book, it was nearly always available on the day of release, from one of the many shops in the Bay Area.

 

The only exception was Superman #75.

 

Now, many shops don't even CARRY many books, and if speculators swoop in and suck everything up from the one shop in town...all those readers are SOL, which angers them (and which was part of the cause of the crash in the 90's.)

 

Annnnd this thread has completely derailed from its original topic. Not that I'm complaining.

My numbers where more of a question than statement... It's impossible to tell. I do agree that the micro market is more at risk than the larger market. Agreed on someone swooping up all the copies but a lot of shops set limits and honor there pulls. I wish we had digital numbers because comic books are more main stream than ever before.

 

Digital numbers are around 15% of physical copies. This hasn't changed much in the past few years.

 

[Doktor]

 

A chunk of that lack-of-growth can be attributed to the rapid price escalation of the past decade, and the ridiculous escalation compared to the whole of the past 20 years. Remember, it wasn't long ago that these books were $1-$1.25. Now, anything from the big-2 is 3.99. Incomes haven't increased at the same rate & this is a commodities inflation that we've seen in other industries as well. Something has to give. You can buy 1 comic today for the price of 4 in 1992-ish.

 

Dollar for dollar, the worst increases in price came in the early 90's, followed by the mid to late 70's.

 

In 1990, there were still 75 cent books on the stands. By 1995, that price was now $1.95, an astonishing 160% increase in cover price in only 5 years.

 

That rivals the period from 1976 to 1981, in which comics went from 25 cents to 60 cents, which was a 140% increase by comparison.

 

Compared to that, the price increase from $1.95 to $3.99 from 1995 to 2015 is a mere 104% increase.

 

There hasn't been any much price escalation, rapid or otherwise, in the past decade.

 

The price increases of the early 90's were on purpose, directed by Perelman of Marvel, and DC had no choice but to follow suit (not that they were complaining.)

 

Comics are also competing more against the video game industry & other gaming industries for entertainment dollars than they had to 20 years ago. For instance, video games have only essentially doubled in price (maybe tripled, depending on the game) in that same period. You could buy 30 comics for the price of a video game in 1992. You can only buy 15 comics for the price of 1 video game in 2015, and only 7.5 modern comics for the price of 1 video game in 1992 while the median household income has only increased by about 75% in that same period.

 

The "comics competing against video games" argument has been around for 35 years, and I'm not sure if I buy it anymore, if I ever did.

 

I think the REAL stealer of interest is social media, which has taken much available time away from other pursuits.

 

I know what you're saying, but I believe you're saying it wrong. I also only partially agree.

 

Dollar for dollar, the worst increase was the 1.99-3.99 from 2000-ish until early 2010's. Percentage wise, the worst increase was that 5-year increase in the early 90's. But it's easy to get larger price increases with lower percentages. $100- $150 is only a 50% increase, but $1-$2 is a whole 100% increase. Which is a harder hit on your wallet? The higher the starting price, the less the % must increase to have the same or greater impact on your wallet.

 

The $2 increase was a harder hit then the $1.25 increase. Simple as that. It's just easier to quantify it with percentages to compare.

 

And games definitely impact it. Games have provided MORE content as they've gotten more expensive, while comics have provided less content as they've gotten more expensive. Page counts are lower while game-play is longer. (Quality wise, they've been about on par with each other if you can try to generally quantify the comparison between graphics/game-play to story/art. Essentially, they've both gotten better over that time.)

 

There's also the immersive-ness & add-on content to video-games today that didn't exist back then. You couldn't play an endless game of Mario the way you can Call of Duty. That steals time/energy/money away from other forms of entertainment.

 

Yes, social media impacts it, but I don't think it's THAT much. It's more of a replacement for actually hanging out with friends & BS-ing that it's impacted by it, IMO.

 

Now, I'd need to do some research, but I don't think those other periods also had the same kind of rapid escalation in other commodities & essential goods/services that we've seen in the past decade across the board. Some of them, sure... like the oil crisis in the late 70's but that dropped back down or the issues with farms in the 80's and that also calmed down after a few years as well but not all at once the way we've had recently. Those all impact disposable income as a percentage of total income, and affect how much kids or the regular collector has to play with.

 

Pair ALL that with together & it's a recipe for a smaller collector base. That's all I'm saying. There's a lot of economic factors at play here. I'm also not saying that there's no bubble involved to a degree, but I don't think it's big & I don't think it's going to be painful if/when it burst, and I also think that it can be easily averted. The only thing that might sink might be the modern variants at a faster rate than they tank now on the secondary market.

[CongoBill]

My main focus of collecting is silver & bronze age keys, and GA pre-code horror. I think I'm crash proof

 

 

The only people who need to worry about a crash or a bubble are the speculators putting their money into modern books, which will always be volatile because, in most cases, there are more than enough high-grade copies to go around once the speculators let go of their copies. And, yes, that includes those supposedly "rare" variant editions.

 

Buy Golden Age, Pre-Code Horror, and prime Silver Age books and you don't really need to worry. Those books will always go up and, at the worst, hold their value.

 

They always go up!

 

 

Over the long haul, yes. Those books consistently go up in value or, at the least, hold their value. You don't see prices plunging for Golden Age, PCH, or prime Silver Age books. Not saying you can't get good deals here and there, but they are not nearly as volatile as speculator-driven modern books. Are you disputing this?