Marvel's Falling Sales 6 6

[Hamlet]

11 minutes ago, VintageComics said:

I wasn't referring to teachers. I was referring to the parents who use digital devices as babysitters.

It's not a teacher's job to establish behavioral patterns. That's on the parent.

My youngest daughter was reading at the age of about 3 and remains an avid reader to this day.

Kids are VERY smart these days as they are exposed to much more with the world at their fingertips, but the social skills being developed and embedded into kids these days are not the same because there is a large reliance on digital interaction and not personal interaction.

Also, my statements are not meant to be a blanket statement for all parents. It's meant for those who rely on digital devices to raise their children. It may or may not be a majority but from my experiences based on kids in the neighborhood there are MANY of them.

I think you are overstating the amount this has really changed.  I remember people talking exactly the same way about my generation ( Xer ) because we watched a lot of TV and played video games endlessly. 

Heck, for the generation before that, comics were the thing that was supposedly rotting their minds.

For my kids, it is Netflix/YouTube and some Frozen version of Gemdrop. 

On summer days, I remember as a kid that my mother sometimes had to push me out of the house because I wanted to spend all day playing with my Atari 2600.  Back then, good parents pushed their kids outside at some point, and I see nothing that makes me think its different in any meaningful way today.

 

[kimik]

1 hour ago, SquareChaos said:

I agree with what you are saying about the trades, it mirrors my own observation (and practices).

My main point is that the collections a 'generation back' have a flood of books no one is going to want, especially at whatever price an heir or unknowing relative may find in a price guide. I'm dubious as to whether whatever collectors are left in two or three decades can even absorb all of the key issues of the silver age at all, let alone the rest of it.

I agree 100% with the flood of books that noone wants. This is why I just toss most low grade SA books (or mid grade Dell/Gold Key or others) in my $1 boxes. The funny thing is, a lot of them still sit for ages as run collectors have been a dying breed since the early to mid 00s.

Just like other collectibles, the A tier keys will across all age groups will hold their value longer term as they are more widely accepted as investment collectibles, not just collectible comic books. For the past decade I have seen the evolution of teenagers that buy moderns, then Copper Keys (e.g. 1st Harley, Venom or Deadpool) and then move back to BA, SA, and even GA keys when they start earning decent wages. It is fun to see these new collectors "grow up" over the years.

[revat]

26 minutes ago, lizards2 said:

My wife has been teaching elementary education for 28 years and my daughter for three years.  They do have some success stories, but basically, many kids are already ruined by the time they get to elementary school. 

Most of this is due to no or lack of parenting.  While the parents breed like rabbits, the kids are thrown out in the back yard with the pit bulls and a box of cereal. A lot of the problem has to do with parental use of drugs, and the disintegration of nuclear family. 

My wife has some pretty tough ideas about how to 'cure' this - you can have all the drugs you want, but we're going to sterilize you first.

I've been in favor of all manner 'alternative' solutions similar to what your wife proposed in the last line.  There's clearly some people who shouldn't have kids, and/or at least shouldn't have so many.  And in related news, there's some criminals who just shouldn't be allowed to live, even in jail, who have no chance of rehabilitation.  Obviously some cases seem VERRRYYY obvious, but its hard to know where to draw the line when the punishments are so strong and irreversible or invasive, and that's where it gets sticky.  And do you trust the justice system or our government (or any government) to draw the appropriate line?  Its a slippery slope....

Edited September 15, 2017 by revat

[lizards2]

2 minutes ago, revat said:

I've been in favor of all manner 'alternative' solutions similar to what your wife proposed in the last line.  There's clearly some people who shouldn't have kids, and/or at least shouldn't have so many.  And in related news, there's some criminals who just shouldn't be allowed to live, even in jail, who have no chance of rehabilitation.  Obviously some cases seem VERRRYYY obvious, but its hard to know where to draw the line when the punishments are so strong and irreversible or invasive, and that's where it gets sticky.  And do you trust the justice system or our government (or any government) to draw the appropriate line?  Its a slippery slope....

As a society we will have many tough choices ahead, as the infrastructure will not hold up as we sink into socialism with no controls on our citizens - we'll disintegrate as a nation.  Many governments do take a harsher line on this BS.

I realize it is a slippery slope.  I retired from the Federal government after working for them for 38 years.  While they employ many great folks, there are a lot of insufficiently_thoughtful_persons, and a lot of agencies that are running amok, and who answer to no one.

[VintageComics]

1 minute ago, lizards2 said:

As a society we will have many tough choices ahead, as the infrastructure will not hold up as we sink into socialism with no controls on our citizens - we'll disintegrate as a nation.  Many governments do take a harsher line on this BS.

The drug problem is a MASSIVE one. It's hard to fathom how big it is, but when both Canada and the US label it an epidemic you can be certain it's bigger than anything we can cope with right now.

We tried attacking the drug problem with hard line stance but maybe we should be looking into other countries who have success fly reduced their drug problem, while ours has continue to grow.

Portugal is an example I throw out. They decriminalized drugs many years ago and their substance abuse numbers fell off a cliff. They now direct all that money that was spent on policing them to providing abuse education and health care...and it has been working for something like 15 years now.

[revat]

4 minutes ago, lizards2 said:

11 minutes ago, revat said:

I've been in favor of all manner 'alternative' solutions similar to what your wife proposed in the last line.  There's clearly some people who shouldn't have kids, and/or at least shouldn't have so many.  And in related news, there's some criminals who just shouldn't be allowed to live, even in jail, who have no chance of rehabilitation.  Obviously some cases seem VERRRYYY obvious, but its hard to know where to draw the line when the punishments are so strong and irreversible or invasive, and that's where it gets sticky.  And do you trust the justice system or our government (or any government) to draw the appropriate line?  Its a slippery slope....

As a society we will have many tough choices ahead, as the infrastructure will not hold up as we sink into socialism with no controls on our citizens - we'll disintegrate as a nation.  Many governments do take a harsher line on this BS.

I realize it is a slippery slope.  I retired from the Federal government after working for them for 38 years.  While they employ many great folks, there are a lot of insufficiently_thoughtful_persons, and a lot of agencies that are running amok, and who answer to no one.

Pretty tangential (but still related) from why Marvel is failing, but I agree with it.  And I do think it's somewhat related to parents not paying attention, and not instilling a love and passion for reading and art and imagination in their kids, and allowing the kids to be distracted (or worse) while they themselves are distracted (or worse) either by necessity or by choice.  Its not any one thing (though as mentioned drugs is a bigger part of it than a lot of people think), but it all adds up to kids and young adults who lack patience, who have a tougher time taking the time to appreciate something (including nature, which I think is underrated as it relates to modern parenting).  But I think parents (and people) need to push reading, and not just one type of reading, diverse reading, not just of topics, but of types of writing.  Novels, autobiographies, short stories, blogs, romance, classics, essays, academic writing, comics, newspapers, fluff magazines, religious text, everything else.  A more flexible mind is a stronger, more adaptive mind which helps you understand and associate with people better, which will always be a useful skill set, not matter what else happens.  Which ostensibly should be something everyone wants for their kids.

[90sChild]

I am still only buying moderns for the cover art.  There are still decades of silver and bronze stuff I have never read that I would consider to be better quality content.  I am sure there are many others thinking the same.  

Only two books I picked up in the past 3 months.  Maybe they will turn it around with legacy.

 

 

[FutureFlash]

3 hours ago, SquareChaos said:

I feel very comfortable saying there is absolutely no way the collector numbers will be there - think of the number of comics printed in the 60s, 70s, and 80s for what was, at the time, a considerably larger reading audience. Comic readership and print numbers have steadily dwindled to where we are today. When the prized books from of our older collectors start to hit the market in larger numbers in the next decade or so - whether due to death or liquidation for retirement or what have you - many of those non-key books will have nowhere to go at their current prices. If you envision it as a cascade of older collector's comics being consumed by the tiers below them, and consider as already stated that readership has steadily dwindled for decades... it appears deductively obvious that there are too few collectors for the number of books in the collections a generation above them. 

 

The relatively recent laser beam focus on key issues may be a sign that this is already happening... that cherry picking the best out of what is essentially a flood of too many books for the shrinking hobby to absorb is the new normal. This may be confirmation bias, but I know when I first started in the 80s there was much more focus on collecting storylines - today that seems like a relatively lost art... I don't even do it any more.

I started in the 80s too and that is what you did back then collect runs. Kinda sad that it is all about the keys nowadays, people are really missing out on great story-lines of yesteryear...but for the most part it is just easier and cheaper to pick up the trade now. But I'm even getting to the point where I'm finishing the runs I'm working on and that is it and slowly reducing my monthly purchases. Ugh what a depressing thread.

But yeah I tend to think there will not be enough new collectors to absorb everything other than keys and maybe certain small runs.

[90sChild]

I dont think there will need to be more collectors to absorb more books, there are plenty of speculators out there that continue to drive prices up over and over again.  Competiton between dealers and stores for items to resell will always drive up prices.  If there is a reduction in comic prices over the coming years it will be based on the economy in general and not supply based. 

[lizards2]

1 minute ago, 90sChild said:

I dont think there will need to be more collectors to absorb more books, there are plenty of speculators out there that continue to drive prices up over and over again.  Competiton between dealers and stores for items to resell will always drive up prices.  If there is a reduction in comic prices over the coming years it will be based on the economy in general and not supply based. 

[VintageComics]

25 minutes ago, 90sChild said:

I dont think there will need to be more collectors to absorb more books, there are plenty of speculators out there that continue to drive prices up over and over again.  Competiton between dealers and stores for items to resell will always drive up prices.  If there is a reduction in comic prices over the coming years it will be based on the economy in general and not supply based. 

Books are also deteriorating over time.

As time goes by there will be less and less of them.

 

[lizards2]

2 minutes ago, VintageComics said:

Books are also deteriorating over time.

As time goes by there will be less and less of them.

 

  Yeah - I'm thinking a bunch probably disappeared in the south just recently.

[ADAMANTIUM]

1 minute ago, lizards2 said:

  Yeah - I'm thinking a bunch probably disappeared in the south just recently.

Too soon?

[lizards2]

1 minute ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

2 minutes ago, lizards2 said:

  Yeah - I'm thinking a bunch probably disappeared in the south just recently.

Too soon?

If that happened to me, I would be looking to get out of the hobby for sure.

[SquareChaos]

4 minutes ago, VintageComics said:

Books are also deteriorating over time.

As time goes by there will be less and less of them.

 

This is true, but somewhat unknowable as well, and people also actually go out of their way to try to protect their comics these days, so I have to imagine it is a smaller number than it used to be. I mean, how many collections do we think the US loses each year (collections anyone would care about) to something like natural disasters or accidents? 250? 5000? More? Less? I have no clue.

[VintageComics]

3 minutes ago, lizards2 said:

6 minutes ago, VintageComics said:

Books are also deteriorating over time.

As time goes by there will be less and less of them.

 

  Yeah - I'm thinking a bunch probably disappeared in the south just recently.

In the many storms for sure. And the south has a TON of good stuff that I see popping up at shows.

I also heard that someone lost a collection in 9/11 in WTC

But also they are lost to time, the passing of people, etc.

The old stuff is every shrinking and getting older.

[kav]

6 hours ago, lizards2 said:

My wife has been teaching elementary education for 28 years and my daughter for three years.  They do have some success stories, but basically, many kids are already ruined by the time they get to elementary school. 

Most of this is due to no or lack of parenting.  While the parents breed like rabbits, the kids are thrown out in the back yard with the pit bulls and a box of cereal. A lot of the problem has to do with parental use of drugs, and the disintegration of nuclear family. 

My wife has some pretty tough ideas about how to 'cure' this - you can have all the drugs you want, but we're going to sterilize you first.

What gets me about these parent is they abuse their kids like crazy call em stupid etc but if a teacher calls them in for a conference  MY KID WOULD NEVER DO THAT HE'S A GOOD BOY!!  MY SON DOESN'T LIE!  WE CAN FADE RIGHT NOW BEEZY!!

Edited September 16, 2017 by kav

[lizards2]

5 minutes ago, kav said:

What gets me about these parent is they abuse their kids like crazy call em stupid etc but if a teacher calls them in for a conference  MY KID WOULD NEVER DO THAT HE'S A GOOD BOY!!  MY SON DOESN'T LIE!  WE CAN FADE RIGHT NOW BEEZY!!

That's right - they over protect their kids from perceived harm, or any consequences for their misbehavior.  I don't know how these kids survive when they get out in the working world and have actual expectations, and no mama to protect and insulate them.

[kav]

Just now, lizards2 said:

That's right - they over protect their kids from perceived harm, or any consequences for their misbehavior.  I don't know how these kids survive when they get out in the working world and have actual expectations, and no mama to protect and insulate them.

Meanwhile the protector herself beats the kid regularly.  But god forbid some teacher should put hands on him to break up a fight.

[chrisco37]

28 minutes ago, lizards2 said:

36 minutes ago, kav said:

What gets me about these parent is they abuse their kids like crazy call em stupid etc but if a teacher calls them in for a conference  MY KID WOULD NEVER DO THAT HE'S A GOOD BOY!!  MY SON DOESN'T LIE!  WE CAN FADE RIGHT NOW BEEZY!!

That's right - they over protect their kids from perceived harm, or any consequences for their misbehavior.  I don't know how these kids survive when they get out in the working world and have actual expectations, and no mama to protect and insulate them.

My daughter calls me a "meany" on the regular.  I tell her that I'm "tough" but not "mean".  It's difficult in these times to raise a kid that can deal with, what to me was, growing up.  As parents we want to protect our kids.  I think it's been taken too far.  Life isn't easy and it isn't "fair".  I try to demonstrate that to my daughter.  Sometimes it works, sometimes I fail miserably. 

Am I a jerk?  Some people would probably say yes.  Some would say no. 

I think I "give in" more than I should.  Certainly more than what I was afforded at her age, and my childhood was pretty darn good (I was very lucky).  It's a sticky-wicket.