Are we experiencing a comic book renaissance? 1 1

[delekkerste]

On 2/24/2017 at 2:12 PM, LordRahl said:

Gene (delekkerste) was telling us all this in 2002 when I joined these boards. How's that worked out so far?

By all accounts, things worked out pretty well for Gene since 2002. 

I also heard he has long since disavowed any forecasts made 15 years ago. 

 

Edited March 1, 2017 by delekkerste

[1950's war comics]

It seems as if most all established collectibles are seeing a big resurgence

[1950's war comics]

One of my favorite, bucket list coins, the rare and famous: 1916 Standing Liberty Quarter (mintage 52,000 surviving mintage with a readable four digit date 10%)

It is actually looking Quite affordable compared to many key first appearance silver age comics these days...

Edited March 1, 2017 by 1950's war comics
add mintage

[1950's war comics]

I think many of the coin dealers may have diversified and moved into selling comics- much more lucrative !!!

[Junkdrawer]

People want to be nostalgic. People like to collect something/anything. Stuff is better than money. I like having stuff and buying stuff.

[1950's war comics]

I'm trying to get rid of "stuff" but i keep buying more too !! eBay has been such a wonderful game changer for all the collector minded people among us !!

[LordRahl]

4 hours ago, delekkerste said:

By all accounts, things worked out pretty well for Gene since 2002. 

I also heard he has long since disavowed any forecasts made 15 years ago. 

 

Smart man. I didn't mean to single you out, I just know we debated this quite a bit back then but there have been plenty of people that have called it a bubble throughout my time here. My only point was that people have been calling it a bubble for 15 years and said "bubble" hasn't burst yet. It may burst tomorrow if indeed it is a bubble but then again it may keep on bubbling for another 15 years. Lots of potential opportunity lost (financial and enjoyment of the hobby) if you get all wrapped up in the "it's a bubble" mentality.

[crassus]

When I saw the thread title I thought by "Renaissance" there would be a discussion of the creative and artistic side of comics, i.e. are we experiencing a blossoming of new creative energies in the art form? Granted the business side of it and the creative side of it to some degree rise and fall together, but they are not strictly speaking always synonymous. Whether or not there is a bubble that may or may not burst, to me there is no doubt that comics as an artistic medium has never been stronger, more diverse or more respected as an art form. IMO there is currently a comic "Renaissance" in the artistic sense and it will leave a permanent mark on popular culture and art. Whether there will always be the wealthy corporate patrons to fund and market it, I guess is another question.

[Ken Aldred]

2 hours ago, crassus said:

When I saw the thread title I thought by "Renaissance" there would be a discussion of the creative and artistic side of comics, i.e. are we experiencing a blossoming of new creative energies in the art form? Granted the business side of it and the creative side of it to some degree rise and fall together, but they are not strictly speaking always synonymous. Whether or not there is a bubble that may or may not burst, to me there is no doubt that comics as an artistic medium has never been stronger, more diverse or more respected as an art form. IMO there is currently a comic "Renaissance" in the artistic sense and it will leave a permanent mark on popular culture and art. Whether there will always be the wealthy corporate patrons to fund and market it, I guess is another question.

I've been reading comics for over 40 years and can still find new material with great stories and artwork. 

[comicquant]

I don't feel everyone is trying to be a dealer.  Two of my friends I collected with growing up and myself all started collecting again in the past year or so after not buying a single comic for 22+ years.  None of us knew the other had started back up until one of them sent a pic of an X-Men #1 they just bought.  For me, it just took a couple superhero movies for me to start poking around again which quickly turned into full-time collecting.  I don't think its irony or an uncommon occurrence.  I feel there's a legitimate resurgence in collecting, especially with people in my age group.  My kids also feed off comics, posters and anything else superhero.    

[Silver Ager]

I can't help but wonder what's going to happen when (assuming there's a 'when;' there generally is in life) the masses get bored with the comic movies and shows. But then again, I guess it isn't the masses who are doing the heavy comic collecting.

[Ken Aldred]

14 minutes ago, Silver Ager said:

I can't help but wonder what's going to happen when (assuming there's a 'when;' there generally is in life) the masses get bored with the comic movies and shows. But then again, I guess it isn't the masses who are doing the heavy comic collecting.

Or the heavy flipping.

[Mercury Man]

5 minutes ago, Ken Aldred said:

Or the heavy flipping.

Once the flippers run out of dance partners, they will bail out.   This will mostly be the Modern speculators.  It happened in the 1990's and it will happen again.  No crystal ball, no magic date, but for every boom there is (not going to say bust, but definitely) a soft market.   People are paying hundreds of dollars for a book printed a few years ago that has some sort of 'variant', and 'limited print run' attached to it. Whoooopie.   90% of collectors don't care.  At the last MegaCon I went to a dealer was extolling the greatness of his Ri Ri Iron Man Variant #1 9.8 he had.    I see a few on ebay right now for a fraction of what he was trying to get for his, and that was only about 6 months ago.    There are far more 'opportunists' than we need in the hobby right now. 

Gold/Silver books will continue to do well. 

[90sChild]

One of the few areas where I really see collectors buying to actually read is all the big omnibus books that print 30-40 issues in a nice hardcover.  Very few speculators for these.  Sites like instocktrades sell them for 50% off retail before they even release, and I'm not sure if that is an indicator of health or not.  The margins are likely small.  When things go out of print the market will support $200-300 for a book that may have come out at $60 for preorder.  An example being Thor omnibus vol 1.  People aren't buying these to speculate but to collect and read.  

It gives me hope that we have more going on than just small collectors acting like dealers selling to medium sized dealers, selling to larger dealers. With ebay, anyone can see a price immediately and decide to flip something if they like the profit margin.  The more people you have doing this, the more and more margins will shrink.  Is that good or bad in the long run? I dunno I guess you have to ask an economist.  Shrinking margins with a huge amount of buyers and sellers - comics are a commodity.

I don't think a bubble will happen unless everyone suddenly loses interest in superhero movies.  The biggest threat to that is rebooting over and over.  I'm anxious to see what happens when marvel movies run to the end of the timeline, (ie killing off popular characters).  Can they just rewind time and start a new story arc all over again?  The way they set up the current MCU would make that pretty strange to do when all the films are connected to eachother.  

Edited March 5, 2017 by 90sChild

[FN-2199]

On ‎2‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 0:36 AM, LordRahl said:

This is mostly true. Maybe not everyone is a dealer, but most do a little selling and buying. However, maybe that's not a bad thing in the long term. I know I spend wayyy more on comics because I'm able to fund it through selling than I would if I didn't do that. Because of the internet mostly and 3rd party grading secondly, it has become easy to sell books at/close to/above what you paid for them in order to finance other purchases. Let's face it, everyone has some sort of budget, whether it be thousands per month or $10 per month. The fact that you can in effect "trade" one comic for another by selling and buying something else that appeals to you more at the moment just makes collecting easier. 

Pre-internet days, it was difficult to do this. If you spent $100 on a book you were lucky to get $50-60 in trade at an LCS, assuming they had what you now wanted to begin with. You needed a constant flow of new funds and you lost a lot of money on books that you had lost interest in. These days, if you spend $10K on a bunch of books, you can likely cycle that same $10K indefinitely and constantly get new books. That makes it fun. It also keeps money in the hobby. Of course there is also new money coming in but just the fact that most people aren't getting fleeced every time they lose interest in a book and liquidate it is keeping that money in the hobby. Of course there are exceptions to this, like buying at the height of movie speculation and expecting a windfall a few months later. However, I think the amateur dealer mentality a lot of people have in this hobby is likely a good thing for the long term health of the hobby.

I agree, not everyone is a dealer but when I flip through Instagram, it seems like almost everyone is doing some buying and selling. That is fine so long as there is some new money coming into the pool. There are a lot of private sales and trades being facilitated by social media that was never around before. Social media keeps me more involved in the hobby than Wizard Magazine ever did. Sharing your new score with distant friends and strangers is something that we couldn't do in the 90s and keeps the hobby interesting.

[ComicConnoisseur]

6 hours ago, FN-2199 said:

I agree, not everyone is a dealer but when I flip through Instagram, it seems like almost everyone is doing some buying and selling. That is fine so long as there is some new money coming into the pool. There are a lot of private sales and trades being facilitated by social media that was never around before. Social media keeps me more involved in the hobby than Wizard Magazine ever did. Sharing your new score with distant friends and strangers is something that we couldn't do in the 90s and keeps the hobby interesting.

Yep,Instagram and now Pinterest have really changed the game of selling. They kind of make Ebay seem so 1999. 

Edited March 6, 2017 by ComicConnoisseur

[GM8]

8 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Yep,Instagram and now Pinterest have really changed the game of selling. They kind of make Ebay seem so 1999. 

I know people sell through other venues like this, and ones like FB and these boards as well.  But my question is that how does it work selling lots of books without an ebay as arbiter in between?

[1Cool]

40 minutes ago, GM8 said:

I know people sell through other venues like this, and ones like FB and these boards as well.  But my question is that how does it work selling lots of books without an ebay as arbiter in between?

I've never had an issue but as long as you do everything thru Paypal they offer adequate insurance for both the buyer / seller.

[ComicConnoisseur]

2 hours ago, 1Cool said:

I've never had an issue but as long as you do everything thru Paypal they offer adequate insurance for both the buyer / seller.

+1

It is a whole new game. Some stuff gets sold on Instagram before it ever sees Ebay. I found out about Instagram because I was selling Yeezys(my son introduced me to that hobby). That introduced me that people are now using whole new markets like Instagram,Facebook and Pinterest to sell comics and other collectibles. 

 I have even seen coinees on Instagram selling their stuff.  

[STORMSHADOW_80]

14 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Yep,Instagram and now Pinterest have really changed the game of selling. They kind of make Ebay seem so 1999. 

+1 I was just talking to my buddy about this. I've almost exclusively bought from people off of IG this past year or so. It's great! I just hate when people try to charge full retail or higher on there. Great for trading on there sometimes too.

20 hours ago, FN-2199 said:

I agree, not everyone is a dealer but when I flip through Instagram, it seems like almost everyone is doing some buying and selling. That is fine so long as there is some new money coming into the pool. There are a lot of private sales and trades being facilitated by social media that was never around before. Social media keeps me more involved in the hobby than Wizard Magazine ever did. Sharing your new score with distant friends and strangers is something that we couldn't do in the 90s and keeps the hobby interesting.

I love scrolling through IG and just seeing comics, comics, comics. I started the #IGComicFamily a few years ago and is almost up to 170,000 hits so far. Amazing!