For those of you that were around in the 90s, was the 'crash' a good thing?

[Prince Namor]

Plus you had the sales success of Spawn and Wildcats (and even Youngblood) followed by a great deal of late or canceled product from Image.

That's budget you'd set aside for those books, you DIDN'T have to use for something that actually shipped and you could sell in your store.

A quality retailer got caught up in that as much as anyone else.

[Logan510]

Product was being put out to cater to the speculators, driving away the readers. Once the speculators bailed, the numbers dropped well below what they had been before.

[PKJ]

I was just starting to work as an adult so my disposable income was starting to happen.

I did buy the current books (seems like the releases were Friday back then) on pay day. I would buy Image and Valiant thinking about the flip later but I never bought tons of them. I had friends who did buy 5 or so of all the #0's and #1's. They do not collect at all now.

I do remember once it started to fall apart being able to grab semi keys for a song. Hulk 181 for $70 or so and ASM 300 for $35. TMNT seemed to be high and I never was able to pick up 1-4. When CGC started I slabbed multiple 181's that ranged from 5.5 and up. I did leave completely for about 10 years though as the current stuff did not interest me and the local shops had focused on Heavy role playing games. The Origin series with Wolverine brought me back in and I focused on SA and BA along with that and a few new books here and there.

[rjrjr]

I was just starting to work as an adult so my disposable income was starting to happen.

I did buy the current books (seems like the releases were Friday back then) on pay day. I would buy Image and Valiant thinking about the flip later but I never bought tons of them. I had friends who did buy 5 or so of all the #0's and #1's. They do not collect at all now.

I do remember once it started to fall apart being able to grab semi keys for a song. Hulk 181 for $70 or so and ASM 300 for $35. TMNT seemed to be high and I never was able to pick up 1-4. When CGC started I slabbed multiple 181's that ranged from 5.5 and up. I did leave completely for about 10 years though as the current stuff did not interest me and the local shops had focused on Heavy role playing games. The Origin series with Wolverine brought me back in and I focused on SA and BA along with that and a few new books here and there.

 

Hulk #181 for $70 seems high for the time period. Maybe I'm mis-remembering though.

[Prince Namor]

So the answer is no... It was NOT a good thing.

It devalued the modern mainstream comic book as reading material, and as art and reduced it to a collectible that is generally worthless or, even worse, has a PERCEIVED value despite being relatively worthless.

What would be the good reason for it?

[PKJ]

I was just starting to work as an adult so my disposable income was starting to happen.

I did buy the current books (seems like the releases were Friday back then) on pay day. I would buy Image and Valiant thinking about the flip later but I never bought tons of them. I had friends who did buy 5 or so of all the #0's and #1's. They do not collect at all now.

I do remember once it started to fall apart being able to grab semi keys for a song. Hulk 181 for $70 or so and ASM 300 for $35. TMNT seemed to be high and I never was able to pick up 1-4. When CGC started I slabbed multiple 181's that ranged from 5.5 and up. I did leave completely for about 10 years though as the current stuff did not interest me and the local shops had focused on Heavy role playing games. The Origin series with Wolverine brought me back in and I focused on SA and BA along with that and a few new books here and there.

 

Hulk #181 for $70 seems high for the time period. Maybe I'm mis-remembering though.

 

 

It may have been but they were sold as NM. 1 came back 9.4 and 1 at 9.0 when I sub'd in 2000.I had about 12 copies at one point in 93 but specifically remember buying two at one time for 150.

[500Club]

No. The crash was a bad thing. We lost significant chunks of the infrastructure of the hobby. That included small publishers, all but one major distributor, many LCSs, and many long time collectors. The shrinking of the hobby likely also helped the newsstand market to dwindle.

 

I'm convinced that if we had the number of LCSs, and the ubiquitous newsstand sales sources of the early 90s, we'd see the industry capitalizing on the current interest in the subject material.

[rjrjr]

I don't think the market crashed so much as adjusted to reflect the actual readership. Sure, we lost a few long term collectors, but we lost far more speculators, people that were not buying the comics for the content. That is the only parallel that I see to today's market. There are a bunch of people buying comics today who do not read them. And I have no doubts that we'll see an adjustment at some point to reflect the actual readership. So, I see this 90s 'crash' as a good thing from the regard of purging the hobby of speculators and would love to see the same thing again someday. But, as others have pointed out, smart retailers will be fine and the ordering system we have today will also prevent the 'crash' we saw in the 1990s.

 

The bad part about the causes of the 1990s 'crash' was it killed the full run collectors. Prior to the advent of the variant covers, it was very common to hear of fellow collectors with complete runs of titles, including the minute number of variants, if any. Since the 1990s, that completist mentality is gone. It is very rare today to hear of collectors who have full runs anymore. They have been conditioned by the publishers to not care about having a complete collection. It seems to me that the publishers were better off with that mindset, because they had guaranteed sales and title loyalty. Now, collectors have no problem dropping titles.

 

If you look at the top selling comics today, they all have multiple variant covers. Variant covers have become the crutch for publishers to increase sales and publishers know that is what is propping up the industry right now. You take away those covers and I would not be shocked to see the top selling books in the 70,000 - 80,000 range and many of the small publishers like Dynamic Entertainment, IDW, and Boom would probably fold. Today's market is more about the cover art than the content. You have new comics selling for hundreds of dollars because of cover art. And publishers are continually increasing the number of variant covers a comic has. Does anyone see the day when a comic has 100 variant covers? 150? 200? This is the game publishers are playing, and this will have to happen if they want to continue to show an increase in sales. Either that, or they just raise the price of comics again.

 

 

 

 

[Gaard]

So the answer is no... It was NOT a good thing.

It devalued the modern mainstream comic book as reading material, and as art and reduced it to a collectible that is generally worthless or, even worse, has a PERCEIVED value despite being relatively worthless.

What would be the good reason for it?

Perhaps there is more than one reason a person collects what they do. When I was a kid, I collected comics because they were cool, not because they had any kind of value. Same with people who collect, say, knick-knacks of pigs. It's not important to them that there is any kind of monetary value to them.But, if I'm understanding you correctly, value is very important to some collectors - whether it is a collector of comics, OA, etc.

 

So if that is true, that there are collectors who care about the value of their collection, and there are collectors who don't, then I can see how the crash would be bad for some and welcomed by others.

 

A quick thought ... you know those people who have $1,000,000 paintings on their walls? Are they collectors of art, or are they collectors of expensive paintings? I wonder if they would have those paintings if they didn't have any monetary value.

 

I don't want you to misconstrue what I'm saying. It would be super if the books in my collection were valuable. But for some, myself included, how much a comic is worth, or will be worth, doesn't come into play when adding books to my collection. (that probably comes from having a collection of comics with an average grade of VG)

 

I remember when those G&T Enterprises indexes came out. I had lists of all the cool comics that I wanted to get (not valuable comics). Did you do the same? I'm sure there are 1,000s of kids out there who would welcome a crash with open arms.

[catrick339]

I agree with Chuck.

 

IMO, the worst outcome of the Great Glut was losing every distributor but Diamond. Speculators come and go, there will ALWAYS be people who chase the newest hot trend, and get burned with a lot of unsaleable product when the trend doesn't have any legs.

 

But losing competing distributors? I'm confident that this has given us worse product, at a higher price. I expect that the only thing that has saved our beloved hobby is the twin push from massive quantities of quality reprints, and the raised public interest from the successful movie franchises.

 

When Marvel was thaaaaat close to bankruptcy, and EVERYBODY'S bottom line took a huge hit, I'm really kind of surprised the industry survived at all.

 

 

[catrick339]

...oh, and on a related note, 20+ years on, I'm STILL finding massive old store stocks dating from the 80's and 90's.

 

[Number 6]

So if that is true, that there are collectors who care about the value of their collection, and there are collectors who don't, then I can see how the crash would be bad for some and welcomed by others.

 

If I understand you correctly, I think what you're describing is the difference between someone who purchases comics primarily as a monetary investment, and one who purchases comics primarily for their entertainment/nostalgic value.

 

I would put myself in the latter category. I know most of the books in my collection have little monetary value now and probably never will have.

 

However, the way you've worded it, you make it sound like the group who collects primarily for entertainment's sake gives NO consideration to monetary value. I don't see how that can be the case in the absolute sense.

 

True, when I purchase comics I give no thought to the day when I'll sell them for a profit to supplement my retirement/kid's education/whatever. And the fact that an opportunity to make a profit on the comic may never occur doesn't bother me too much either.

 

But anytime a person takes their hard-earned money and spends it on 1) something other than life's necessities and 2) spends more than the item's retail price there has to be some consideration to "is this the best use of my limited funds?"

 

When the going rate for a comic jumps from $2 up to $200 because of a movie announcement, yes I can still afford to purchase the book at the new price, but is that the best use of my collecting funds? If the bottom falls out and the book drops back down to $2 (or less) can I afford that?

 

There are some things in my collection that I've spent (for me) quit a bit of money on that, if it lost all of it's monetary value, it wouldn't matter. I paid $600 for a set of 6 Mego Star Trek figures MOC. If overnight their monetary value dropped to zero, I wouldn't bat an eye; their nostalgic value is priceless to me.

 

But on my budget, I can only afford to make that kind of purchase - spend a considerably amount of money with NO thought to the financial consequences - so many times.

 

There's a big difference between having a collection made up of $2 books that all drop in monetary value to 50 cents a piece, and a collection of $200 books that drop to $50 (or less) a piece.

 

Unless you're picking up everything in your collection for spare change, at some point even the non-investing collector has to give some thought to a comic's long-term value.

 

[FineCollector]

I was and still am a run collector. Fortunately, I was a Marvel zombie back then, so I never got caught up in Image/Valliant/Topps rage. I also had the good fortune of being driven away from new comics before the crash because I was fed up of the big crossovers. The issue before Maximum Carnage was my last new comic for a while, which sheltered me from the market crash.

 

The bad part about the causes of the 1990s 'crash' was it killed the full run collectors. Prior to the advent of the variant covers, it was very common to hear of fellow collectors with complete runs of titles, including the minute number of variants, if any. Since the 1990s, that completist mentality is gone. It is very rare today to hear of collectors who have full runs anymore. They have been conditioned by the publishers to not care about having a complete collection. It seems to me that the publishers were better off with that mindset, because they had guaranteed sales and title loyalty. Now, collectors have no problem dropping titles.

 

I have to disagree. Most titles didn't have variant covers at the time, and 2nd prints were shunned as undesirable.

 

Before the crash, not everyone had reliable internet, and there were certainly not as many online resources as there are now. Rarity wasn't a factor, so collectors would look at what titles had lots of back issues available, claim that as their niche, and start building that run. It didn't matter how many copies of Perez Teen Titans the store could turn up, as long as everyone was able to get their own. When the quality went bad, people still bought out of brand loyalty in the hopes that the book would improve. However, when they were told their collections were worthless, combined with paying good money for bad books, that's what turned them off.

 

There were bozos chasing hyped books then, as there are now. Those are the guys who sunk money into whatever Wizard told them to buy, and got burned buying up multiples. I'm sure the same additive personalities are driving the guys chasing modern keys and variants now. They're racing to the cliff, same as the monkeys of the past were. The difference this time is that modern speculators aren't hoarding common books of popular titles anymore, just keys. Their effect when leaving the back issue market will be minimal.

[Larryw7]

It was a good time to buy back issues. Silver was on the wane at the time, so you could find lots of good discounts. My local comic store, Fat Jack's, had a 50% off sale every Summer just to increase cash flow, and I was able to get a ton of really good Gold and Silver.

 

I never went for the foil covers or the gimmicks. I had stopped collecting new issues right after the Batman boom in 1989.

[Gaard]

There's a big difference between having a collection made up of $2 books that all drop in monetary value to 50 cents a piece, and a collection of $200 books that drop to $50 (or less) a piece.

I can agree with that ... in a way. I don't recall ever paying that much for a comic. But, I do have some books that guide out to that value. Example: ST 114 that I paid around 5 bucks for guides out these days around $200. (My comics are around VG condition ) Let's say the value of that book dropped to $50; I'd probably feel differently about that than if say my FF 300 dropped to 50 cents.

[Ken Aldred]

 

But anytime a person takes their hard-earned money and spends it on 1) something other than life's necessities and 2) spends more than the item's retail price there has to be some consideration to "is this the best use of my limited funds?"

 

When the going rate for a comic jumps from $2 up to $200 because of a movie announcement, yes I can still afford to purchase the book at the new price, but is that the best use of my collecting funds? If the bottom falls out and the book drops back down to $2 (or less) can I afford that?

 

 

But on my budget, I can only afford to make that kind of purchase - spend a considerably amount of money with NO thought to the financial consequences - so many times.

 

 

Yup. I reached a point where budget limitations began to alienate me from any involvement in the current speculator market. Already tough enough for me several years ago, and now something for the deeper-pocketed high rollers to support.

[Gaard]

I never went for the foil covers or the gimmicks.

I got sucked in once. I was sitting at home one day reading about Spiderman #1 coming out. All these different covers - green, black, gold. I was out of the hobby at the time, but remember thinking "This is wild! I have to get in on this!" The next day I went to the LCS in my neighborhood.

[fastballspecial]

I don't think the market crashed so much as adjusted to reflect the actual readership. Sure, we lost a few long term collectors, but we lost far more speculators, people that were not buying the comics for the content. That is the only parallel that I see to today's market. There are a bunch of people buying comics today who do not read them. And I have no doubts that we'll see an adjustment at some point to reflect the actual readership. So, I see this 90s 'crash' as a good thing from the regard of purging the hobby of speculators and would love to see the same thing again someday. But, as others have pointed out, smart retailers will be fine and the ordering system we have today will also prevent the 'crash' we saw in the 1990s.

 

The bad part about the causes of the 1990s 'crash' was it killed the full run collectors. Prior to the advent of the variant covers, it was very common to hear of fellow collectors with complete runs of titles, including the minute number of variants, if any. Since the 1990s, that completist mentality is gone. It is very rare today to hear of collectors who have full runs anymore. They have been conditioned by the publishers to not care about having a complete collection. It seems to me that the publishers were better off with that mindset, because they had guaranteed sales and title loyalty. Now, collectors have no problem dropping titles.

 

If you look at the top selling comics today, they all have multiple variant covers. Variant covers have become the crutch for publishers to increase sales and publishers know that is what is propping up the industry right now. You take away those covers and I would not be shocked to see the top selling books in the 70,000 - 80,000 range and many of the small publishers like Dynamic Entertainment, IDW, and Boom would probably fold. Today's market is more about the cover art than the content. You have new comics selling for hundreds of dollars because of cover art. And publishers are continually increasing the number of variant covers a comic has. Does anyone see the day when a comic has 100 variant covers? 150? 200? This is the game publishers are playing, and this will have to happen if they want to continue to show an increase in sales. Either that, or they just raise the price of comics again.

 

 

 

 

Yes Yes and Yes

 

The content went to . Marvel was more interested in pimping its characters thanks to Pearlman and the card collecting hobby had the bottom fall out of the hobby.

 

So you get a glut of books that were god awful, some kids who thought they could run a comic book company by themselves, an owner of Marvel who had no clue what to do with the company and a bunch of greedy card collectors looking for their next hobby to make a buck from.

 

It greatly devalued our medium and as rjrj said the full run collectors almost completely died off from lack of loyalty from Marvel and DC.

 

I left for around 5 years as I had just got out of college and was starting my career. I didn't return till around 2002 or so I think. I didn't miss much from a collector stand point during those 5 or so years, but I still to this day hate seeing card collectors selling comics. They don't love the hobby one bit.

 

[Comicdey]

I quit all books "new" in the 90's and focused on stuff I enjoyed from prior decades. It prevented me from burning a lot of money into books that today I buy as part of collections that I don't even want now.

 

It was good for me as it helped me focus on gold silver and bronze. It didn't help the hobby as the reader part of me died a bit and now I only read a book on rare occasions when I want to see the GA content. I haven't followed a story arc in decades.

 

I will read a silver or bronze when I upgrade and sell my undercopies.

[Larryw7]

I never went for the foil covers or the gimmicks.

I got sucked in once. I was sitting at home one day reading about Spiderman #1 coming out. All these different covers - green, black, gold. I was out of the hobby at the time, but remember thinking "This is wild! I have to get in on this!" The next day I went to the LCS in my neighborhood.

 

I knew that the "death" of Superman was wildly_fanciful_statement, no matter how the media tried to prop it up. I remember reading stories of parents buying whole cases of the book from a dealer who set up on a sidewalk in New York! They talked about funding their kids college educations with the books. People will fall for anything.

 

For the record, I did read the Death of Superman arc in trade form, and thought it was pretty good.