Why comic OA is better than fine art 1 1

[ComicConnoisseur]

11 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

I'd also add to this thread that maybe looking at Magic the Gatheting card art, or game card art,in general, might not be a bad investment.  

Yep, A big audience coming of age.  This is one to look into.

[ComicConnoisseur]

10 hours ago, vodou said:

Good answer. Today's library patrons on a budget may be tomorrow's transitionals to OA that also have more disposable then, which would make more expensive items more appealing too. Maybe. Let's not presume it's all over so quickly and easily!

Good point.

I think these Millennials/Gen Z are actually going to do good moneywise. A lot of them are quite tech savy,and a lot of them are educated. I think a lot of people are underestimating Millennials/Gen Z and their future buying power.

Edited August 29, 2017 by ComicConnoisseur

[comicwiz]

5 hours ago, delekkerste said:

They don't want our stuff either.  You really have to be indoctrinated into this hobby and know these universes and creators in a way that only comes from hundreds/thousands of hours reading and admiring the source material - NOT just watching the movies and TV shows - to have the burning desire to want to shell out large sums to own a piece of that.  

There will always be exceptions to this seemingly hard and fast rule. I've known collectors in other hobbies who jumped straight into preproduction pieces, not bothering with buying the actual items that linked them back to their childhood memories. It barely makes sense if you think about the fact that some of these pieces were unproduced, so at the surface, there was nothing there other than hobby lore to pull them in. More often than not, the biggest motivation to move into preproduction markets seems to be that there is always a constant supply of the source or production examples, and that doesn't seem to inspire confidence in some to pursue those items no matter how valuable, desirable or high in demand they may be. So they gravitate to acquiring the rarest: hardcopies, wax sculpts, protomolds, steel molds, first shots, engineering pilots, QC samples, and the original figures photographed for product packaging, and immediately become inducted to a club consisting of a handful of owners of such pieces. In these instances, bragging rights and stroking ego's seemingly plays a much greater role in people's desire to own something than nostalgia.

Edited August 29, 2017 by comicwiz

[SquareChaos]

6 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Yes, but I'm guessing that wasn't your gateway into the OA hobby, and isn't anybody else's either.  Like I said, I check out graphic novels from the library myself (probably average about a half dozen to a dozen a year).  Doesn't mean that the library is a springboard into anything else, though! 

My point being that actually buying and collecting physical comics has been the gateway to collecting vintage OA (newer OA is a different beast), and I haven't seen any evidence that libraries or movies or anything else has short circuited that process beyond perhaps a one-off example here or there - exceptions that prove the rule. 

You are correct - the library was not my introduction to comics, but it did allow me to keep some connection with the hobby when I was doing the totally broke student thing back in the late 90s / early 2000s. I can't say how much, if at all, it contributed to my eventual connection with OA.

[Bronty]

40 minutes ago, SquareChaos said:

You are correct - the library was not my introduction to comics, but it did allow me to keep some connection with the hobby when I was doing the totally broke student thing back in the late 90s / early 2000s. I can't say how much, if at all, it contributed to my eventual connection with OA.

The whole library / movie thing... if they were effective gateways people would largely be getting introduced to collecting books and movie related items.  

comics and comic characters are a marginal part of the overall content of libraries and movies.   I'm sure someone will take issue with the use of the word 'marginal' given the recent popularity of marvel movies but come on.... Hollywood has been around nearly a century so 15 or 20 marvel movies IS marginal and for how big hollyeood is it doesn't spawn as many collectors as it really should.    

Edited August 29, 2017 by Bronty

[SquareChaos]

Just now, Bronty said:

The whole library / movie thing... if they were effective gateways people would largely be getting introduced to collecting books and movie related items.  

comics and comic characters are a marginal part of the overall content of libraries and movies.   

I don't disagree (though someone posted graphic novels are a surprisingly high percentage of total library traffic), but my local library did a good job keeping me at least tenuously connected when I couldn't afford this expensive - even when just talking about buying monthly comics - hobby.

[Bronty]

10 minutes ago, SquareChaos said:

I don't disagree (though someone posted graphic novels are a surprisingly high percentage of total library traffic), but my local library did a good job keeping me at least tenuously connected when I couldn't afford this expensive - even when just talking about buying monthly comics - hobby.

Yeah I hear that and even hearing it's an option (didn't realize) has me thinking about checking some out - why pay $75 or whatever for a small stack of reading I could get free.   I take my daughter to the library already so it wouldn't even be an extra trip.  

It takes a lot more than simple reading or viewing to get one to collect though.    If all it took was viewing, and I say this with a straight face - vintage porn mags would be very collectible, newspapers would be (or have been) highly collectible, etc.   There's a lot that goes into why we collect certain things and not others, and it definitely starts with consuming the product, but it goes beyond that.    Watching a movie really isn't enough.    I mean.. did any of us watch sports movies and start collecting sports memorabilia?   It didn't even cross our minds.     Those who collect sports memorabilia generally started with an interest in sports memorabilia not something like a movie.

[zhamlau]

16 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

21 hours ago, Bronty said:

I agree the returns are terrible but I see some other factors at play.

Could be because of a lot of fakes and reproductions? I notice all the hobbies that have certfication are doing just fine,and it's the old hobbies that rely on 1980s model of grading that seemed to have lost most value.

An example is comic book keys and vintage rookie sportcards have exploded in value.

Also key Star Wars action figures that are certified have set records these last few years.

Certification = makes the hobbies more legit for investing/speculating,unlike old antiques which can be faked.

Whats funny about toys, is that most established star wars Toy collectors (the king late 20th century collecting toy wise) truly seem to hate AFA and disparage it routinely. They seem to love raw ungraded high grade. BUT when you go to market AFA 85 speaks loud and clear and dominates the elite variant collecting market. Dont know what to make of that, but its a thing.

[Bronty]

Well exactly, it's hot air.   People pay more with an impartial certified grade.   What they say is less important than what they do.    I'd also guess a lot of those people that love hg raw love it because it represents more of an opportunity than something that's already graded. 

[Bronty]

Honestly IMO the single biggest factor that plays into people's decisions on what to collect is the presence of a visible and active market.    Most people are scared "mess"less of blazing any kind of a trail and of spending any kind of real money on something that can't quickly liquidate if the need arises.    So almost all new money goes into established hobbies and new hobbies take a decade or two to get off the ground.  

[delekkerste]

36 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Honestly IMO the single biggest factor that plays into people's decisions on what to collect is the presence of a visible and active market. 

Good point. That is a huge advantage that OA has over fine art.  So much easier to sell and trade.  If people sold/traded fine art like they do OA, they'd get eaten alive by spreads and commissions.  I'm not sure if there is any other art that is as liquid as OA - it's easy to transact peer to peer, and even auction house commissions start at a rock bottom 10%.  HA's sell-through rate in its OA auctions is always very close to 100% as people have confidence in not having to place reserves given the general liquidity of the market. I do wonder how that will change over time, though. 

Of course, the liquidity in comics is greater still. 

[BCarter27]

I think the Boomer collections of OA coming up for sale are precisely why we have a healthy market right now. Look at the Charles Martignette collection of illustration art. That created a lot of excitement in that hobby. The more historic A+ pieces coming up for sale every quarter, the better. That marketing excitement will trickle down to even the collectors that cannot afford them (me).

I don't disagree that we are all due for a correction, but I think my Gen X peers will have to age off in about 20 years before that's truly a BIG problem. Silver Age art should maintain its value because of scarcity (and as I've argued in the past its already been culled to the better pieces when it was tossed by publishers and artists over the years), but mid-level Bronze will be the first to soften.

Copper seems to finally be shaking loose out of its initial black holes. I still think there is another 15-20 years of life in that market.

Edited August 30, 2017 by BCarter27

[BCarter27]

I think my experience is pretty typical. I was a comic "run" collector. Dollar box diver, indie gem hunter, etc. etc. That's the way you develop a breadth of knowledge in order to participate in OA. And even then there are artists whose markets I just don't know enough about to play in.

If you are a run collector, you probably aren't a key slab collector. They are different animals. In my opinion, it isn't going to be easy to convert a modern slab collector to OA. That said, I hope it happens in droves!

Btw, I have been selling off my comics over the last 2-3 years to move into OA. And it has been a disaster. Digital (and piracy) has absolutely killed the back issue market. If I had cashed out of comics just 4 years ago, I would have done much better. Any small paper resurgence is just a last gasp.

Also, everything is still in print! I walked in to Jim Hanleys Universe this week and everything you can possibly want is in oversized omnibus/HC/absolute/TPB. Why dig through boxes of floppies when you can get a nice bookshelf edition or the whole story on your phone?

So I think OA is actually the last refuge of the damned, so to speak. If a Gen Xer can read DKR on his phone at any time, the comic isn't necessary. If he wants to covet the object, the slab is his/her next stop. But the liquidity and the prestige of a hand-crafted piece of the process is going to trump that for those with means.

[delekkerste]

6 minutes ago, BCarter27 said:

I think the Boomer collections of OA coming up for sale are precisely why we have a healthy market right now. Look at the Charles Martignette collection of illustration art. That created a lot of excitement in that hobby. The more historic A+ pieces coming up for sale every quarter, the better. That marketing excitement will trickle down to even the collectors that cannot afford them (me).

I don't disagree that we are all do for a correction, but I think my Gen X peers will have to age off in about 20 years before that's truly a BIG problem. Silver Age art should maintain its value because of scarcity (and as I've argued in the past its already been culled to the better pieces when it was tossed by publishers and artists over the years), but mid-level Bronze will be the first to soften.

Copper seems to finally be shaking loose out of its initial black holes. I still think there is another 15-20 years of life in that market.

I agree that supply can create its own demand, as happened with Martignette for sure.  It seems as though Heritage's Illo sales have lost a lot of heat and the market has gotten a lot less liquid since they largely exhausted that supply.  I agree that Boomer collection supply is probably helping the OA market buzz (rather than depressing prices as some expected), though, there are definitely other factors as well.

The Gen X collecting cliff will, with metaphysical certainty, be a big problem for the OA market at some point. The only real question is will it take 20 years for the liquidations to come in earnest to cause the secular inflection point in the market, or will secular stagnation set in sooner as this cohort's buying drops off in the aggregate even before then?  That is debatable; the fact that there will eventually be a demographic car crash in this hobby, however, is settled science.  It's beyond obvious that this is unavoidable longer-term, and people might be surprised at the caliber of collecting minds who will readily admit as much off the record. 

 

 

 

 

[delekkerste]

2 hours ago, BCarter27 said:

Btw, I have been selling off my comics over the last 2-3 years to move into OA. And it has been a disaster. Digital (and piracy) has absolutely killed the back issue market. If I had cashed out of comics just 4 years ago, I would have done much better. Any small paper resurgence is just a last gasp.

You're probably like me - I never collected GA or SA, keys or otherwise. I collected what I liked and what I grew up with - late Bronze, Copper, Modern.  And most of that stuff has not done very well, which is probably why you're getting killed selling off your runs (which I'm inferring from your comments are mostly Copper and Modern).   I'm sure the GA and SA fans out there would say that the market has never been stronger, though (at least for keys). 

Edited August 29, 2017 by delekkerste

[BCarter27]

For me, contemporary art is too volatile and subjective to ever want to participate in.

And in my mind, most contemporary art is really decorative art because of its lack of narrative. (If only we had a museum dedicated to narrative in visual arts. Hmmm, somebody should get on that.) There are modern exceptions that I love such as Tracey Emin's My Bed, but again, that has a narrative.

For me, fine art has to be an established category - Cubism, Post-Imp, Impressionism, Salon/Academic/19th Century European, Orientalist, Pre-Raphaelite, Western. But because it is all dead art, it is tough to get excited about other than the prestige factor. It would just be an asset to be moved around (despite how much I love it. And my wife and I are the ONLY ones our age at any given Sothebys/Christies/Bonhams viewing or sale.)

Comic art is so much easier to jump into than fine art. And not just because of the price point. (As Vodou has pointed out, there ARE deals to be had out there in fine art.) It is just more recognizable and easier to understand. You don't need an art degree. You just go to artists' alley and start shaking hands.

[BCarter27]

14 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

or will secular stagnation set in sooner as this cohort's buying drops off in the aggregate even before then?  

Probably this. I think the "lifting up" effect of B and C pieces caused by A-level outliers will go away first.

 

4 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

You're probably like me - I never collected GA or SA, keys or otherwise. I collected what I liked and what I grew up with - Bronze, Copper, Modern.  And most of that stuff has not done very well, which is probably why you're getting killed selling off your runs.  I'm sure the GA and SA fans out there would say that the market has never been stronger, though (at least for keys). 

Exactly. I did collect a small group or high grade Silver DC in high school, but those were sold first about 2-3 years ago (thankfully?). The rest is not drek, but the definition of drek has expanded to include (and I'm not joking) anything printed post-1985. That's 30 years of comics that are barely worth anything.

In a way, it is a mirror of all of the moms who tossed their kids' comics in the 50s. I have a small voice in the back of my mind that wonders if there will be a small retracement in about 20 years when all of this modern "drek" will be seen as the last gasp of print and be coveted (see vinyl collecting). But even then, that current comics readership will not support object collecting. It will be a small subset.

How many of us started buying back issues because we were missing a piece of a story we wanted to read? And how many of us piled up a run and didn't read it until we found that last missing issue? That's how reader collectors were born. And digital killed all of that.

[BCarter27]

There is a gray area for me that I love... Modern illustration art is alive and well with so many exciting talents (fueled by the gaming industry and movie concept art.) This is a contemporary narrative art that I can get behind.

[suspense39]

I've experienced OA becoming slightly less liquid as prices go up, at least in collector to collector transactions

[cstojano]

2 hours ago, Bronty said:

Honestly IMO the single biggest factor that plays into people's decisions on what to collect is the presence of a visible and active market.    Most people are scared "mess"less of blazing any kind of a trail and of spending any kind of real money on something that can't quickly liquidate if the need arises.    So almost all new money goes into established hobbies and new hobbies take a decade or two to get off the ground.  

Absolutely, People always say to collect what you love. Fine. But if I did that, and your point wasn't 100% valid, then my low 5 figure Bakshi collection would be a high 5 figure Bakshi collection, and I would absolutely be dying holding that stuff. Feeling like the only guy in the room with money is not fun I envy the liquidity of old school OA and vintage SW collections.

Edited August 29, 2017 by cstojano