Jim Starlin hates CGC! 3 3

[CKinTO]

Definitely some interesting points made here. I understand the argument that "what we do with our signed comics" is none of the creator's business (ie. whether we slab or not), but I think the person who brought up the analogous situation with professional athletes and "fans" getting things signed made a good point that can help provide perspective: 

- Athletes used to sign for free - balls, shirts, bats, cards, whatever - after a game, at their hotel, they did it happily as they understood "fans are what makes the entertainment system go, and if not directly, indirectly are why athletes get paid such big bucks" (not dissimilar to comic creators - at the end of the day, it's fans buying books that help make a creator successful)

- There's always been a sports memorabilia market, and ones with autographs often (but not always) tended to sell for more

- Memorabilia "professionals" and speculators saw that demand, and $ signs, and over time started lining up with 10s/100s of items. Athletes see (and hear) how much these signed items get sold for, and begin to get soured on the prospect of signing things (primarily for these "pros" / speculators, but even for regular fans (especially if you're not a kid!)). They either start charging for it, or they stop doing it altogether

- Is it the any of the athlete's business what we do with our signed items? (especially if we've paid for it)? You could argue technically no, but I can see why the athlete got soured on the whole process - "professionals" are making money off of their signatures, which is a bit of different proposition than when they were just signing for fans

As someone else mentioned, this is playing out in the comic / collectible market (maybe 5-10yrs behind what happened in sports). A facilitator (or other "professional") brings in 10s/100s of books to be signed (all with windowed bags), and to the creator, this just seems like a flipper / speculator, and that sours the creator on wanting to sign (either for free, or for the same price as their "true fans"). The comic market though has the ease of witnessed slabbing, which unfortunately creators have associated with these flippers / speculators.

Convincing creators that they shouldn't care about what happens to their signed items afterwards may have some merit, but looking at it from their perspective, I can see being a tougher sell (I see the argument from both sides). The more important thing here I think, to keep "fans" who want CGC SS from being penalized and lumped into the same camp as "professional flippers / speculators", is to help creators realize that a LOT of "real fans" want their sigs witnessed and slabbed!

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

15 hours ago, SteppinRazor said:

You're deciding whether it's worth it to you.  Price is available for discourse, but it absolutely is none of your business how someone values their house, or their signature, or whatever.  It's your business to choose whether you want to pay that price, but you have no standing to declare how the owner must price it. 

Of course, that's not what I said. Never did I say that anyone has any "standing to declare how the owner must price it", because that, as you quite correctly point out, is not the buyer's PLACE. Let's not change the argument to make the point.

But WHAT the good/service is priced at , and WHY, are, indeed the buyer's business. 

 When you offer something for sale, you are making it available to whomever wishes to buy it (and whomever you wish to do business with.) Everything, at that point, is up for negotiation, whether negotiation actually occurs or not.

Now, a seller may choose not to ANSWER why they've priced it at thus and such, but the buyer has every right to ask WHY it is priced at thus and such. 

When someone says "oh, for YOU it will be $20, but for this guy, it's just $5"...for the exact same service...that is discrimination. No, keep your socks on, not "OMG CAPITAL "D"!!!" discrimination...but it is discrimination, nonetheless. The price changes based on what you, the buyer, intend to do with it...which actually IS none of the seller's business. 

And not to get too far into the weeds here, but there's no difference between "you're deciding whether the item being offered for sale is worth YOUR money" and "You're deciding whether it's worth it to you. "

Those are identical expressions of the same idea, just using different words.

[ADAMANTIUM]

I'm surprised no one has shown them an ill-placed Stan Lee sig, and said, "this is why I tape my book..."  especially if your sitting there holding the CGC slab with Stan Lee written over the faces of the cover.....and said, "I want to protect what I'm buying etc"

[RockMyAmadeus]

3 hours ago, CKinTO said:

Convincing creators that they shouldn't care about what happens to their signed items afterwards may have some merit, but looking at it from their perspective, I can see being a tougher sell (I see the argument from both sides).

I see the argument from both sides. Always have. But having two sides of an argument doesn't mean both sides are equally valid or legitimate.

I perfectly understand why some creators get bent out of shape by what they perceive. And...they would have a point, IF their signature, added to anything, always increased value.

They do not.

Again...as with the professional athletes, these creators are very much in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. "What?? Some people turn around and SELL my signature for a PROFIT??? How DARE THEY??" is how the internal dialogue goes, which is an emotional...not rational...response. And, because of this emotional response, in the process of trying to micro-manage the "flippers", they end up hurting the "real fans" in the process.

Convincing creators that they shouldn't care about what happens to their signed items afterwards is not only a tough sell, with some, it will always be impossible. That's human nature at work. There will ALWAYS be many, many, many someones who take things personally, and get offended, at things that aren't, in any way, personal. That's a fact of life.

But acknowledging that very real fact of life doesn't alter the truth being expressed, nor the need to express it....someone, somewhere, will be positively influenced by it. It's just part of growing up. I perfectly understand why people have these emotional reactions...but that doesn't make those emotional reactions legitimate.

And...when someone comes up with the perfect delineation between "real fan" and "flipper/speculator", then this problem will go away...which cannot happen, because there is no such line.

[RockMyAmadeus]

By the way...the answer to not having anything you sign be sold to anyone else is quite simple:  either sign everything in sight, driving down the "value"  of every signature out there...or don't create anything that other people want.

The reason these things sell to others...even for, GASP!...a PROFIT...is because there is demand for it.

There are some creators who understand this, and rather than be offended, are flattered by it. "Someone paid HOW much for this comic signed by me...? That's pretty cool!"...even if they don't understand that condition, not their signature, is the overwhelming driving force behind that value.

No one wants my signature. I haven't created anything that people want. But if I did...I'd think it was pretty cool that someone wanted that connection to me so much, they were willing to pay a premium for it.

Ya know...just for a different perspective.

[Lucky Baru]

35 pages on this? 

[Get Marwood & I]

7 minutes ago, Lucky Baru said:

35 pages on this? 

Next stop, The Amazing Fantasy 15 Club ?

[RockMyAmadeus]

9 minutes ago, GoJimGo! said:

That's karma. You guys are just reaping what you've sown.

Plus it's not the exact same service anyway.

It's the exact same service.

A signature on a comic book.

If "reaping what you've sown" is code for "you created this market, you can't complain when it comes back and bites you in the rear", one more time: the majority of the value of almost every book is 

in

its 

condition

NOT its signature.

A signature only amplifies what must already be there. 

J. Scott Campbell's signature on a 9.0 copy of Amazing Spiderman #500 doesn't increase the value of that book. At all.

You not understanding that doesn't make it "karma." And I am not part of the "you guys" that have paid creators and promised them even bigger paydays with the SS program. I am not part of the "you guys" that come with truckloads of books for scores of other people. I am not part of the "you guys" that interferes with others getting their books signed, costing people time, effort, money, and business to CGC.

[kav]

Sorry but  a frazetta sig on a worthless book will become valuable.  Not amplified, the sig is the valuable part.  You can yell and scream all you want but what you are saying is just not true.  

[revat]

58 minutes ago, kav said:

Sorry but  a frazetta sig on a worthless book will become valuable.  Not amplified, the sig is the valuable part.  You can yell and scream all you want but what you are saying is just not true.  

of course there are exceptions, I don't think anyone disputes that.  But it certainly doesn't happen enough to make the assumption that EVERY SIG adds significant value to EVERY BOOK.  Not that NO ONE makes any money flipping sigs, sometimes it happens, and some people do it really really well.

But the majority of comics don't earn any significant profit, you can just go on ebay and do some very basic math looking at completed listings, and see how many SELL for a profit after CGC and shipping fees and ebay fees, and how many DON'T sell even though they're being sold for less than total costs, or SELL at a loss after CGC fees and ebay/paypal fees (and possibly facilitator fees).

[kav]

1 minute ago, revat said:

of course there are exceptions, I don't think anyone disputes that.  But it certainly doesn't happen enough to make the assumption that EVERY SIG adds significant value to EVERY BOOK.  Not that NO ONE makes any money flipping sigs, sometimes it happens, and some people do it really really well.

But the majority of comics don't earn any significant profit, you can just go on ebay and do some very basic math looking at completed listings, and see how many SELL for a profit after CGC and shipping fees and ebay fees, and how many DON'T sell even though they're being sold for less than total costs, or SELL at a loss after CGC fees and ebay/paypal fees (and possibly facilitator fees).

Yes but RMA is speaking in absolutes again-someone needs to stop him.

[STORMSHADOW_80]

7 minutes ago, kav said:

Yes but RMA is speaking in absolutes again-someone needs to stop him.

Only the Sith speak in absolutes

[SteppinRazor]

2 hours ago, kav said:

Sorry but  a frazetta sig on a worthless book will become valuable.  Not amplified, the sig is the valuable part.  You can yell and scream all you want but what you are saying is just not true.  

It's beside the point in any case.  If a creator could prove an added value of X dollars, it still doesn't mean anything.  The problem is they see SS seekers as vultures, not that they want percentage based compensation for value added.

[Prince Namor]

There CAN be two different prices for an item, based upon what happens to it after the sale... I just thought of an example.

Some of you youngsters might not remember this, but back in the day, they used to rent movies at shops called 'video stores', because the movies were on VHS tapes and you could rent them.

You'd rent them for a night and forget to rewind them and get charged an extra fee, or misplace it and pay late fees - it was a lot of fun, just for a chance to watch 'Navy Seals' in the privacy of your own home.

Anyway... the studios realized initially, that these movies would be used for 'rental' purposes, so the retail price of these things was like $105. And the video stores would pay that, per COPY (well, they got a discount, so they were $65-$75), because they knew they'd rent them 50-100 times and make their money back. But if YOU, as a customer, wanted to BUY a copy, it was $105.99 or whatever.

Eventually, the idea of selling them at a lower retail price, became more common, but they still started out at the higher price for a few months, so the studios could milk the video stores, and then eventually they'd be rereleased at a 'sell through' price for regular consumers.

[kav]

42 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

There CAN be two different prices for an item, based upon what happens to it after the sale... I just thought of an example.

Some of you youngsters might not remember this, but back in the day, they used to rent movies at shops called 'video stores', because the movies were on VHS tapes and you could rent them.

You'd rent them for a night and forget to rewind them and get charged an extra fee, or misplace it and pay late fees - it was a lot of fun, just for a chance to watch 'Navy Seals' in the privacy of your own home.

Anyway... the studios realized initially, that these movies would be used for 'rental' purposes, so the retail price of these things was like $105. And the video stores would pay that, per COPY (well, they got a discount, so they were $65-$75), because they knew they'd rent them 50-100 times and make their money back. But if YOU, as a customer, wanted to BUY a copy, it was $105.99 or whatever.

Eventually, the idea of selling them at a lower retail price, became more common, but they still started out at the higher price for a few months, so the studios could milk the video stores, and then eventually they'd be rereleased at a 'sell through' price for regular consumers.

Bulk price and resale price have always been lower than retail-not sure this example fits.  Of course every store buys the items they sell you for cheaper.

[Logan510]

2 hours ago, kav said:

Yes but RMA is speaking in absolutes again-someone needs to stop him.

It's madness.

[kav]

1 minute ago, Logan510 said:

It's madness.

[Dick O.]

On ‎5‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 9:33 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

I think that one of the neatest things about Starlin's career...and this is quite rare, in ANY of the arts...is that he enjoyed a wonderful renaissance in the early 90's, a second flowering after his first initial big splash in the mid-70's.

Not that he went away or anything, but, you know, people move on, interests change, etc. Starlin essentially quit comics for a couple of years after the publication of Avengers Annual #7 in 1977...yeah, he did work on Detective here and there, and covers here and there, but mostly he was taking a break. MGN #1 was great, and that was definitely the last chapter of his first Cosmic Marvel era.

 It wasn't until Dreadstar from Epic that he really got to do what he wanted. I think, from what I've red, that he chafed under Marvel and DC editorial, so when Archie (Goodwin) lured him to Epic, with its much more progressive royalties program, he jumped at it. But Dreadstar wasn't a megahit, and that's all he did for most of the 80's.

Ok, yes, Batman was big for him, but it wasn't because it was STARLIN, but because it was THE DEATH OF ROBIN. He had substantial success with the Cult (best Batman story he ever did), but really, BATMAN, rather than Starlin. Cosmic Odyssey was good, and even Gilgamesh II wasn't too bad.

Then...he caught lightning in a bottle twice. He brought Thanos back, totally revolutionized Surfer, and created the monster crossover hit of 1991, Infinity Gauntlet. He was firing on all cylinders, and once more, Jim Starlin was a name to be reckoned with in comics.

I love that, and THAT is the era into which my young self wandered...I loved every bit of it, and his fleshing out of Norrin Radd...especially issue #50...gives me chills just thinking about it while typing.

Starlin has had some duds, for sure. Death in the Family, while highly entertaining, isn't high art by any means, and some of the dialogue is groan-worthy.

But man did he knock it out of the park on his SS run. Just knocked it right out of the park.

Very few creators get to have a second bite at the top of the comics world apple. Byrne didn't, Neal Adams didn't, you could argue for BWS and Valiant, but it's a stretch. Not even McFarlane has managed that (though Jim Lee did, with Hush.)

Starlin did it. He's in very rarified air.

Well put! For those interested, here's more on Starlin and his OA:

https://comicbookinvest.com/2017/04/28/artist-spotlight-jim-starlin/

 

On ‎5‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 10:52 PM, jools&jim said:

Have these ever been collected in TPB form?

I remember reading them when they came out because of Starlin's involvement, but they didn't make much of an impression.  Sounds like I need to take a second pass at 'em...

The Infinity Gauntlet Omnibus collects Silver Surfer #34-38, 40, 44-60, and a bunch of other titles:

https://www.amazon.com/Infinity-Gauntlet-Omnibus-Marvel-Comics/dp/078515468X

 

[bronze_rules]

I almost thought you were letting me have the last word, the other night.

  Well, I don't want to clutter up board space, so I'll do my best to make this mine.

On 6/4/2017 at 8:54 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

The point that you have missed is this: whether CGC is making a profit or not isn't relevant. It's none of the creator's business.  It's no one's business but CGC's what profit they are making, just like it's no one's business what a slabber does with his or her property. CGC is an unrelated third party. The transaction is between the creator and the fan. If the fan chooses to have their book slabbed by CGC, that's not the creator's business. It's not the creator's property. And yet, several creators...and you, now...are arguing as if CGC is some part of the transaction between creator and fan.

Keep in mind, your comments are just opinions (as are mine).  Anyone engaged in any type of business would generally be wise to understand everything about that business, including profits and money flow.

On 6/4/2017 at 8:54 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

You just contradicted yourself, in the span of two sentences. If it's none of their business AFTERWARDS...which is the heart of this argument, here...how is it their business BEFORE? It is never their business what the fan does with his or her property, at any point, prior to, or after, the item is or is not signed. It's none of their business, ever. It's not their property.

I see no contradiction here, other than one you've artificially created.  If I say, something is none of their business afterwords, and something is their business before, and you say, it is never their business ever, there is only a contradiction if your assertion is a fact, which it is not-- it is an opinion.

On 6/4/2017 at 8:54 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

What happens to the item being signed...before, during, and after...is none of their business.

Who says they're "getting paid nothing for it"? Some are, some are not. As to the rest of your paragraph...let's not reductio ad absurdum, here.

I posed the question earlier, does CGC pay artists a cut of the fee-- the posted answer was NO.  If they are, could you post a source? I will stand corrected.

On 6/4/2017 at 8:54 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

I DO see a reason to vilify anyone who makes poor economic decisions based on ignorance...which is what is happening in many of these cases. "You're going to keep that book raw? Ok, $5. You're going to slab that book? Ok, $20"

It's madness, and deserves to be vilified.

There's nothing wrong with setting a value on what they feel it is worth...but what they feel it is worth should be based on reality, and not misperception...certainly you agree with that, do you not...?

Well again, that's your opinion and I have mine and they have theirs. There are all kinds of items in this world with valuations that are not based on rational or common perception; the only reality is what buyers are willing to pay (or not) and what sellers are willing to accept (or not).

Hey, if the market wants to pay up the $20, then let them, if not, fine --If the value is not right, maybe the artist will readjust their valuation over time, based on the response -- who are you (or I) to tell them (or advocate) what to do?

On 6/4/2017 at 8:54 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

That's very nice of you. But do you see the problem inherent in such a statement? What does "making their lives better" mean to you? What does it mean to others? When you appeal to emotion, you're always on shaky ground, because what is "generous" to you may be "stingy" to others, and vice versa. Who is the correct judge of the generosity of others? You? Me?

Who is the accurate judge of who actually needs help, through no misdeeds on their part, and who is just suffering because of the poor choices they've made?

Peter David wasn't responsible with his taxes for years. Yet, he appeals to his "fans" to bail him out...which is the worst possible thing that could happen for Peter David, because it means a very valuable lesson will go unlearned. But people "feel sorry" for Peter David, so they help, because they "want to be nice."

Again...who is the accurate judge of these things...?

Well, that's great that you want to rescue us from being taken, but not all of us are naive suckers or neophytes in this world.  You do realize, it's just as 'shaky' for you to give one anecdotal example of a bad apple, and then condemn the rest of them for that, don't you? Look, there will be good ones and bad ones in the batch-- first of all, with respect to personal transactions, we each have the ability to make that determination for ourselves (and live with the consequences).. With regards to giving them a 'cut' of the profit, I have no problem, paying a small surcharge to ensure that the ones who deserve or benefit from it, get some of the cut.  If some of them don't deserve it, then so be it. I'd prefer that to giving everyone nothing -- but that's me. Well, actually, anyone providing a signature does deserve something, they are after all, providing the signature in the signature services.

 

I accept that these are all just my armchair QB opinions of course. The only ones who can change that arrangement are the artists, and the parties that benefit from them. And I certainly didn't intend to say anything negative towards CGC; I'll straight up apologize for any negativity I've generated and invite them to delete any negative posts with no hard feelings.

Edited June 6, 2017 by bronze_rules

[Ares]

If he signed books for Free but each must be personalized (first and last name) I wonder how the fan would react.