Star Wars Comic No. 1 Hoard 0

[COMICKINGS]

Jay Maybruk's interviews on Vinnie's Comic Zone,

 

I'm interested in listening to the interviews but I don't see them on this site...could you point me in the right direction. thanks! Joey

 

Yes, the above link also didn't work for me.

 

You should probably try the one below which came from the Sparkle City thread in the GA Forum where all of the good stuff is (let's hope it works):

 

http://www.comiccollecting.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=362

 

The first 2 interviews, although longer, are better than the last 2 interviews from a collector's point of view. You must admit the man was able to research and hunt down the collections and distribution warehouses. Especially at a time, when real investigative work and pounding the pavement was needed since surfing the internet was still a couple decades away. (thumbs u

 

Enjoy!

Awesome,those links work! gonna check it out in the morning! ,I appreciate it!

[COMICKINGS]

Jay Maybruk's interviews on Vinnie's Comic Zone,

 

I'm interested in listening to the interviews but I don't see them on this site...could you point me in the right direction. thanks! Joey

 

The podcast player seems to be a Flash plug-in, so maybe you need to update?

 

I have the mp3s if you need 'em drop me a PM.

I appreciate the offer to send'em to me! I was able to hear some things on that first link,just couldn't find the Maybruks,but Lou_Fine just got me some good links.

Thanks again for the offer!! Joey

[joe_collector]

It can be argued that the quality of the print needs to be considered as well. Today's 3.99 comics aren't printed on flimsy news print with nearly dot matrix quality of replication.

 

We went over this awhile back, and after getting some expert opinions on paper/print pricing, there was no question that the insane spike in new comic prices came down to three factors:

 

1) Much higher pay rates for writers and artists.

 

2) Much lower sales per month.

 

3) Predominantly adult buyers who can foot the crazy monthly bill.

[COMICKINGS]

Jay Maybruk's interviews on Vinnie's Comic Zone,

 

I'm interested in listening to the interviews but I don't see them on this site...could you point me in the right direction. thanks! Joey

 

The podcast player seems to be a Flash plug-in, so maybe you need to update?

 

I have the mp3s if you need 'em drop me a PM.

I appreciate the offer to send'em to me! I was able to hear some things on that first link,just couldn't find the Maybruks,but Lou_Fine just got me some good links.

Thanks again for the offer!! Joey

Finally got through listening to the 4 interviews. Maybruk is an odd one. Maybe it's just the post drug days. Anybody know if he's still alive. He sounded in pretty bad condition at the time of the interviews. Did a lot of rambling. But it was worth listening to as I love stories of guys finding collections and hoards. Anybody out there ever buy one of the Sparkle City Memorabilia kits that Metropolis is still selling on Ebay? Sounds interesting but $65 for it,I'm not sure I want to take the chance and it be a waste of $65. Thanks again Lou_Fine for the links!

[lou_fine]

You are most welcome, COMICKINGS! (thumbs u

 

Glad to hear that you enjoyed the interviews.

 

It looks like Jay is still alive and kicking based upon doing a Google search on him. I guess the wonders of modern medicine was able to help him overcome whatever medical condition he was having around the time of the interviews.

 

Although he was definitely a market maker in the early days of comic book collecting, it looks like he has kept to his word that he would never buy or sell another comic book. Especially since he felt that he could have made so much more of his life if he had never gotten involved with comics in the first place.

[jaybuck43]

aww where did this shill go???

[Buzzetta]

I blame all of this on the loss of the LTPC thread.

[mrwoogieman]

I blame all of this on the loss of the LTPC thread.

 

Hear, hear!

 

[rjrjr]

I'm not surprised nothing came of this. The OP only has 10 postings and disappeared. I suspect it is a boardie trying to prove a point.

[the blob]

It can be argued that the quality of the print needs to be considered as well. Today's 3.99 comics aren't printed on flimsy news print with nearly dot matrix quality of replication.

 

We went over this awhile back, and after getting some expert opinions on paper/print pricing, there was no question that the insane spike in new comic prices came down to three factors:

 

1) Much higher pay rates for writers and artists.

 

2) Much lower sales per month.

 

3) Predominantly adult buyers who can foot the crazy monthly bill.

 

Weren't "star" artists getting paid huge money in the early 90s on hot books? Inflation adjusted, was anything Jim Lee does now close to his payday on X-Men 1 and the three billion copies sold? It could be total misinformation, but didn't Tom Lyle get some huge payday for the Robin minis? And he was a second stringer.

 

Writers, who are the new stars, are probably paid a lot better now though.

[RCheli]

Weren't "star" artists getting paid huge money in the early 90s on hot books? Inflation adjusted, was anything Jim Lee does now close to his payday on X-Men 1 and the three billion copies sold? It could be total misinformation, but didn't Tom Lyle get some huge payday for the Robin minis? And he was a second stringer.

 

Writers, who are the new stars, are probably paid a lot better now though.

 

Page rates increased some, but it was mostly the royalties that brought you the big paychecks. Pencillers may have gotten $200 per page, but they were getting 10 cents (or whatever) per copy sold.

 

Lyle got money because Robin had like 4 different hologram covers and it was ordered really heavily. A lot of second stringers made good money because you'd pop a hologram or a foil cover or whatever, and stores ordered like crazy.

 

Didn't matter that none of them sold to customers.

[seanfingh]

Weren't "star" artists getting paid huge money in the early 90s on hot books? Inflation adjusted, was anything Jim Lee does now close to his payday on X-Men 1 and the three billion copies sold? It could be total misinformation, but didn't Tom Lyle get some huge payday for the Robin minis? And he was a second stringer.

 

Writers, who are the new stars, are probably paid a lot better now though.

 

Page rates increased some, but it was mostly the royalties that brought you the big paychecks. Pencillers may have gotten $200 per page, but they were getting 10 cents (or whatever) per copy sold.

 

Lyle got money because Robin had like 4 different hologram covers and it was ordered really heavily. A lot of second stringers made good money because you'd pop a hologram or a foil cover or whatever, and stores ordered like crazy.

 

Didn't matter that none of them sold to customers.

 

Andrew Pepoy worked on the ASM 365 hologram art. And he said that it was one of the biggest paydays he ever had.

[Buzzetta]

Weren't "star" artists getting paid huge money in the early 90s on hot books? Inflation adjusted, was anything Jim Lee does now close to his payday on X-Men 1 and the three billion copies sold? It could be total misinformation, but didn't Tom Lyle get some huge payday for the Robin minis? And he was a second stringer.

 

Writers, who are the new stars, are probably paid a lot better now though.

 

Page rates increased some, but it was mostly the royalties that brought you the big paychecks. Pencillers may have gotten $200 per page, but they were getting 10 cents (or whatever) per copy sold.

 

Lyle got money because Robin had like 4 different hologram covers and it was ordered really heavily. A lot of second stringers made good money because you'd pop a hologram or a foil cover or whatever, and stores ordered like crazy.

 

Didn't matter that none of them sold to customers.

 

Andrew Pepoy worked on the ASM 365 hologram art. And he said that it was one of the biggest paydays he ever had.

 

That cover is a guilty pleasure of mine. The silver hologram worked really well with that black cover. Throw in a new direction for Spider-man and the first appearance of Spider-man 2099, and you can still find me picking up that book whenever I see NM copies in the $1-$2 bins.

[RCheli]

I'm pretty good friends with a long-time Marvel artist. During the hey-day of this craziness, he did a highly-ordered 4-issue mini-series.

 

The royalty check for the first issue was $70K+. It was unbelievable. Unfortunately, those days were short-lived.

[RockMyAmadeus]

That cover is a guilty pleasure of mine. The silver hologram worked really well with that black cover. Throw in a new direction for Spider-man and the first appearance of Spider-man 2099, and you can still find me picking up that book whenever I see NM copies in the $1-$2 bins.

 

Fun factoid:

 

ASM #365 is the only issue of Amazing Spiderman ever to break the million copy print run barrier.

[Miscellaneous]

Sounds like a bubble is brewing!

[jaybuck43]

That cover is a guilty pleasure of mine. The silver hologram worked really well with that black cover. Throw in a new direction for Spider-man and the first appearance of Spider-man 2099, and you can still find me picking up that book whenever I see NM copies in the $1-$2 bins.

 

Fun factoid:

 

ASM #365 is the only issue of Amazing Spiderman ever to break the million copy print run barrier.

 

Not saying you're wrong but can you point me to where you found those sales numbers? I've never seen anything saying ASM ever broke 1 million issues.

[RockMyAmadeus]

That cover is a guilty pleasure of mine. The silver hologram worked really well with that black cover. Throw in a new direction for Spider-man and the first appearance of Spider-man 2099, and you can still find me picking up that book whenever I see NM copies in the $1-$2 bins.

 

Fun factoid:

 

ASM #365 is the only issue of Amazing Spiderman ever to break the million copy print run barrier.

 

Not saying you're wrong but can you point me to where you found those sales numbers? I've never seen anything saying ASM ever broke 1 million issues.

 

There isn't anything that directly says that. You are required to extrapolate.

 

Here's how:

 

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/1992.html

 

ASM #365 was the top selling book for June of 1992. The top selling book of May was Spawn #1, with 1.75 to 2.5 million copies printed.

 

The top selling book of April was X-Men #9, and according to the SOO for that title, the average print run was 1,151,525; average paid circulation 967,808. That was printed in X-Men #18, and represents the average....the numbers for the Jim Lee issues were higher.

 

July 1992, the #1 book was Wildcats.

 

Now, let's look at Cap City orders from the Standard Catalog of Comic Books:

 

Spawn #1 - 204,760

 

X-Men #9 - 169,500

 

Wildcats #1 - 281,850

 

And ASM #365? - 221,700

 

The numbers for ASM #365 were so colossal, they dragged the entire print run average for the year up by several hundred thousand copies.

 

1991 ASM average sold - 340,977

1992 - 544,900

1993 - 592,442

1994 - 353,025

 

Cap City orders for ASM #364 were 72,000, and for #366 they were 89,100. ASM #365 was so monstrous, it double, tripled, and almost quadrupled the Cap City orders for other issues during the year. Since we know the AVERAGE number of copies sold in 1992 was 544,900 copies per issue, we can see that #365, with Cap City orders ALONE of 221,700, was nearly four times the Cap City orders for #360, at 57,300.

 

Issue #375 did the same thing the following year, with such monster numbers that it, too, dragged the entire average up. #375 *may* have had numbers over a million. Cap City orders for that issue were 208,200. #373? 64,00. #376? 67,400. However, there were other large issues in that year, like 374, 378-380, with numbers that weren't present the year before, that mitigated the average for #375, so it may not have been a million+ seller.

 

And, in 1992, the average amount of copies PRINTED was 660,958, for each and every issue, even the low printed books of the year, like #359, 360, 361, 370, and 371. Cap City orders for #361 - 68,000. #365? - 221,700. That's a monstrous difference.

 

So, is there any one source that tells us that ASM #365 had a print run, or sold, over 1 million copies?

 

No.

 

But just looking at the numbers, and the picture becomes clear: ASM #365 was a monster, and had well over 1,000,000 copies printed, if not closer to 1.5 million.

 

[porcupine48]

Did you get to grab em by the handful to put them out on the shelf like I did....man,those are good memories you brought up talking about the War Journal.

[IntoAnother]

Did the census ever take a 100 book bump for this lot?