Are prices still climbing or have they eased up a bit??? 43 43

[Northwest]

On 2/28/2023 at 5:35 PM, EastEnd1 said:

Unlike the other genres which many of us love, the superhero was uniquely born in the comics. 

While this is true in terms of character origins, I do think it's beneficial to take a longer historical view.

Modern superheroes started in comics, and had  influences from characters in pulps dating back decades including Shadow, Doc Savage, and many others. The original publishers of both DC and Timely worked on pulps before shifting to comics. The roots of superheroes date back well before the term was coined and well prior to pulps; Western folk literature and Mythology contain a number of heroes with superhuman powers.  

Yes, it is true that collector markets have their own lifecycles; paper also doesn't persist forever. That being said, superheroes appear to be grounded in culture in a way that transcends any particular generation. The emotions evoked when young children are inspired by superheroes builds upon something deeper. That is why I believe comics, while cyclical, will transcend the traditional cycle that afflicted other collectible markets as they age. Time shall tell, and history is a helpful guide when we take a longer view.

 

[Robot Man]

If one considers age groups, trends and movies, how does one explain the huge surgence in Pulp magazines? Published long before any of us were born and rarely if ever contained any “superheroes”.

I brought one long box of them to a recent show and sold 3/4ths of them very quickly. 

[PopKulture]

On 2/28/2023 at 8:39 PM, Robot Man said:

If one considers age groups, trends and movies, how does one explain the huge surgence in Pulp magazines?

What has been the driving force for so many recent converts to pulps, many of them from comics themselves? That’s easy, but people might feel uneasy with the answer:

Misogyny. 

Pulps aren’t collected for their insides as much as they used to be: they’re collected these days for their covers. And so very many of the recent top sales of pulps feature two classes of women: those as adornment, and those in dire peril. Not all, but way more than you’d imagine.

These beleaguered women are either being herded into tubes or ice baths… entombed in gold... about to have their heads chopped off… receiving some strange, deadly transfusion… all while bound in accordance with the sadistic whims of their captors.  

Those women not imperiled too often have peacock wings or bat-costumes, like the ladies on Weird Tales. Once in a while, they have a cat-o-nine-tails, and they’re about to whip another woman - see again, Weird Tales.

This trend has been similarly obvious in comics, and what we consider those oft-discussed “classic” covers, like Shock Suspense Stories 6, Terrific 5, Suspense 3, Startling 49, and so on. Do we more often gravitate to covers where women are self-determined and fully-actualized, or portrayed as equal to men, or downright heroic in their own right?? The answer is pretty obvious: no - no we don’t. 

Now, I’m not suggesting that this is the only reason people are casting a second glance at pulp magazines, as they are thoroughly engrossing artifacts for a multitude of additional reasons, nor am I asserting that this is happening consciously as so many new collectors are drawn to this whole class of covers, but there’s something going on at or beneath the surface worth considering. 

Edited March 1, 2023 by PopKulture

[Jesse-Lee]

From a collector standpoint, I wonder how many of us had our love for comics cemented at a very early age by a trusted adult (parent, grandparent, aunt/uncle, etc.)? I know that was the case for me - I loved the super hero cartoons, but when my grandpa shared with me a box of comics that belonged to him and my dad, I was hooked, and I stayed hooked. I was also a voracious reader as a kid (and still am). I lost interest in collecting over the years, but I never got rid of the books I had as a kid, and when I came back into the hobby, I was all-in.

I've tried to instill the love of comics into my own kids, but they never really cared about them - and they barely care about the movies either. Now that they're teenagers, I don't think they'll really ever get bitten by the collecting bug. I think it takes more than just liking the movies and characters - it seems like there has to be a connection made in the formative years that ultimately draws someone into the hobby.

[PopKulture]

On 2/28/2023 at 7:15 PM, the blob said:

Yeah, but that's what drives collectordom right now and new comic sales

It does drive the stratospheric segment of the hobby, but dozens of times a week, I get outbid on comics on the Bay, and they’re mostly western, romance, war, teen, funny animal, etc. I can’t recall the last time I even bid on a superhero comic. Try buying a nice mid-grade Four Color at a steal these days: you can’t. Clearly there are others hunting these books besides me.

If tomorrow a fine copy of Action 1 fell from $1,000,000 to $100,000, I still couldn’t afford it. Truth be told, if in this dystopian future where the whole comic market crashes, it fell another 90% to $10,000, I honestly still might not buy it, as no comic is really worth that to me. It just isn’t. I know I’m in the overwhelming minority here - perhaps singularly so! I held it to be true in 1973, and still hold, in part, that view in 2023. 

But… I’d still be buying and collecting comics, because it’s the artform I love, not the dizzying heights.

Sincerely,

  x infinity

Edited March 1, 2023 by PopKulture

[lou_fine]

On 2/28/2023 at 5:15 PM, the blob said:

On 2/28/2023 at 4:04 PM, PopKulture said:

Except a clear majority of comics ever published weren’t superhero comics… 

Comics go way beyond the capes for some of us. 

Yeah, but that's what drives collectordom right now and new comic sales

Are you quite sure about this, because I certainly don't see any capes at all in these 2 books here from this past HA Sunday/Monday auction:  

https://comics.ha.com/itm/modern-age-1980-present-/science-fiction/dejah-thoris-v2-1-che-virgin-edition-dynamite-entertainment-2018-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/a/122309-17259.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Inventory-BuyNowFromOwner-ThisAuction-120115

https://comics.ha.com/itm/modern-age-1980-present-/miscellaneous/savage-tales-1-virgin-edition-dynamite-entertainment-2007-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/a/122309-17692.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Archive-ThisAuction-120115

[Aman619]

On 2/28/2023 at 9:39 PM, Robot Man said:

If one considers age groups, trends and movies, how does one explain the huge surgence in Pulp magazines? Published long before any of us were born and rarely if ever contained any “superheroes”.

I brought one long box of them to a recent show and sold 3/4ths of them very quickly. 

That’s too easy:  cool covers and upcoming slabbing fueled speculation.  

Edited March 1, 2023 by Aman619

[Bookery]

On 2/28/2023 at 9:39 PM, Robot Man said:

If one considers age groups, trends and movies, how does one explain the huge surgence in Pulp magazines? Published long before any of us were born and rarely if ever contained any “superheroes”.

I brought one long box of them to a recent show and sold 3/4ths of them very quickly. 

It's currently being driven by cover art, and by the realization that the kinds of covers that were driving people to spend thousands of dollars on comics were available in pulps for a fraction of the price.  If anything, the pulp covers are better drawn and certainly more over-the-top.  PopKulture isn't wrong... though I hadn't really thought of it in that specific way before.  And, as has already been stated, the slabbing announcement had a huge impact.  I began receiving multiple calls from all over the country just days after CGC's announcement from speculators (most who never dealt in pulps before) hoping I might have some of the hot books cheap (as if I wouldn't be keeping up on these things) so that they might cash in down the road once they got them graded.  Now... that doesn't mean only pulps with exotic covers are taking off.  But it took the "hot" covers to ignite the trend... once begun, and again, often with future slabbing in mind, then pulps "in general" began picking up the pace.

But even as pulp collecting is accelerating there is waning interest over time in the actual authors, just as comic collectors rarely are concerned with who wrote the golden-age stories, choosing their favorites based more on artwork.  Go to a pulp convention 15 o 20 years ago, and a number of collectors would be walking the room looking to pick up issues they didn't have containing Hugh B. Cave, Neil R. Jones, Varick Vanardy, W. Ryerson Johnson, Steve Fisher, Judson P. Phillips, etc.  Few getting into pulp collecting now will know, nor care, who these names are.  On the other hand, they will likely choose to learn about H.J. Ward, Norman Saunders, Robert Gibson Jones, Robert Graef, Margaret Brundage, Allen Anderson....

[Robot Man]

Other than my Spider and other horror pulps, I have to admit, I’ve read very few. I have always been a cover guy. Natural extension of my love and fascination of PCH comics. I have mostly been a buyer of “opportunity” for many years as opposed to one who seeked out specific issues as a general rule. 

I obviously knew the answer to my question before I posted it. Was trying to make the point that a lot of folks are scooping up something who’s glory days are long past.

It’s all about the Benjamin’s…

[Dr. Balls]

On 2/28/2023 at 8:11 PM, PopKulture said:

Do we more often gravitate to covers where women are self-determined and fully-actualized, or portrayed as equal to men, or downright heroic in their own right?? The answer is pretty obvious: no - no we don’t.

Not to disagree with you - because you do have a point with why collectors gravitate towards that, but I offer another viewpoint: artistic craftsmanship and styles of the era.

My CAF is almost exclusively women who are self-determined and fully-actualized and equal to men. I collect powerful female imagery because I like the female form, and badazz female warriors in battle situations make for cool compositions to me. I'm no Internet White Knight though, I have my fair share of classic female-in-distress PCH comics, but all those things I collect in the vein of the art I enjoy of each era. My pulps are female flying warrior women, a woman frying a dude with a death ray, etc. I enjoy the soft, realistic painted styles of the pulp era with the genre-specific typography and headlines. I enjoy the graphic stylings and sensationalism of the PCH era comic covers, and I love the angular, kinetic styles of the 90's Bad Girl craze.

The female form is artistic gold in any era. It almost transcends definition for me, and I wouldn't want to delve into it too deeply to the *why* as I'd hate to ruin how I see it. All I know is that I grew up in a Greek household and we had statues and friezes of naked, topless women all over the place when I was a child - that is likely what influenced me as an artist, and probably what influenced what I gravitate to. My wife, on the other hand, grew up in an outdoorsey household with pictures of elk and fish, and it took her many years to get used to my style of art that I like.

[Aman619]

yeah.  when I judge these tortured women covers on pulps, Im weighing how she is drawn, the pose and the cover painting itself. Im not attracted to them because the women are tied up or in danger.  For fun, we should recreate some covers where the torturers are scantily clad women torturing tied up scared men! Im thinking the attraction will be the same cause we will be ogling the painting of the women.  or ahem, admiring the layout and painting technique...

[Bookery]

On 3/1/2023 at 10:28 AM, Robot Man said:

Other than my Spider and other horror pulps, I have to admit, I’ve read very few. I have always been a cover guy.

To be fair, I do think most modern readers would find the majority (not all) of pulp writing to be fairly uninteresting by today's standards.  When I was in 4th-5th grade, I was so desperate for science-fiction to read, and simply didn't know about the contemporary authors working at the time, that I read  the old H.G. Wells and Jules Verne material.  Later when I discovered Ray Bradbury and others, nothing would make me go back to those Victorian fantasists again.  Just last year I read a collection of Cornell Woolrich stories (supposed to be among the best of the best), and while he created great atmosphere and sense of scene, I found his plots to be terribly predictable.  But it wasn't Woolrich's fault... I realized that his work was so influential that over the years so many other stories, movies, and TV programs (Hitchcock, Twilight Zone, etc.) had copied his ideas and style that it was no longer fresh (for me, anyway).  

A few years back I tried a G-8 and his Battle Aces... very juvenile writing and I only made it through 3 pages.  But great covers, though!

[waaaghboss]

On 2/28/2023 at 6:39 PM, Robot Man said:

If one considers age groups, trends and movies, how does one explain the huge surgence in Pulp magazines? Published long before any of us were born and rarely if ever contained any “superheroes”.

I brought one long box of them to a recent show and sold 3/4ths of them very quickly. 

They used to put coccaine in the paper.  Only reasonable explanation 

[the blob]

On 3/1/2023 at 1:50 AM, Aman619 said:

That’s too easy:  cool covers and upcoming slabbing fueled speculation.  

Bingo. I have had periods where I buy pulps simply because they look cool. I have a few boxes of them. Since I have no idea, for the most part, what I am buying, I keep within a budget. If it is pre 1950ish, has a cool cover, and isn't a wreck I don't mind paying $10 or less.

[the blob]

On 3/1/2023 at 2:05 PM, Bookery said:

To be fair, I do think most modern readers would find the majority (not all) of pulp writing to be fairly uninteresting by today's standards.  When I was in 4th-5th grade, I was so desperate for science-fiction to read, and simply didn't know about the contemporary authors working at the time, that I read  the old H.G. Wells and Jules Verne material.  Later when I discovered Ray Bradbury and others, nothing would make me go back to those Victorian fantasists again.  Just last year I read a collection of Cornell Woolrich stories (supposed to be among the best of the best), and while he created great atmosphere and sense of scene, I found his plots to be terribly predictable.  But it wasn't Woolrich's fault... I realized that his work was so influential that over the years so many other stories, movies, and TV programs (Hitchcock, Twilight Zone, etc.) had copied his ideas and style that it was no longer fresh (for me, anyway).  

A few years back I tried a G-8 and his Battle Aces... very juvenile writing and I only made it through 3 pages.  But great covers, though!

My great grandfather wrote a somewhat early science fiction book..the Land of the Changing Sun (1894) (I know Jules Verne was much earlier) ...I wanted to read it, I really did, but had to stop after 10 or 15 pages, it was pretty bad, and he was actually a popular writer back then, this was his first and only attempt at sci fi, so much popular fiction back then was just horrible

 

[alexgross.com]

On 2/28/2023 at 7:11 PM, PopKulture said:

What has been the driving force for so many recent converts to pulps, many of them from comics themselves? That’s easy, but people might feel uneasy with the answer:

Misogyny. 

Pulps aren’t collected for their insides as much as they used to be: they’re collected these days for their covers. And so very many of the recent top sales of pulps feature two classes of women: those as adornment, and those in dire peril. Not all, but way more than you’d imagine.

These beleaguered women are either being herded into tubes or ice baths… entombed in gold... about to have their heads chopped off… receiving some strange, deadly transfusion… all while bound in accordance with the sadistic whims of their captors.  

Those women not imperiled too often have peacock wings or bat-costumes, like the ladies on Weird Tales. Once in a while, they have a cat-o-nine-tails, and they’re about to whip another woman - see again, Weird Tales.

This trend has been similarly obvious in comics, and what we consider those oft-discussed “classic” covers, like Shock Suspense Stories 6, Terrific 5, Suspense 3, Startling 49, and so on. Do we more often gravitate to covers where women are self-determined and fully-actualized, or portrayed as equal to men, or downright heroic in their own right?? The answer is pretty obvious: no - no we don’t. 

Now, I’m not suggesting that this is the only reason people are casting a second glance at pulp magazines, as they are thoroughly engrossing artifacts for a multitude of additional reasons, nor am I asserting that this is happening consciously as so many new collectors are drawn to this whole class of covers, but there’s something going on at or beneath the surface worth considering. 

i could probably try to phrase this more politely, but your assertion is ridiculous. all or most collectors of pulps today are misogynists? really?? are you an 18 year old majoring in women's studies at sarah lawrence?

comics and pulps were geared 100% to a male audience back in the golden age. everyone knows that. was this area of entertainment very misogynistic and based on titillation? certainly. 

but to assert that this is the reason that today, people of all ages, shapes, sizes and genders, including some female collectors who are even on these boards, are getting into old pulps is insane. collectors of old comics and pulps love them for the remarkable beauty of the art, (the pulp covers were almost always oil paintings) the nostalgia for the bygone era, and for the way it makes them recall either their youth, or an idealized imaginary time before they were born, when things might have been more innocent. there are plenty of better options for the man/ person who wants to see women demeaned today than old pulps from 90 years ago. its called the internet. 

plus, what is this doing in this thread? see page one. it says:

"are prices still climbing or have they eased up a bit?"

 

[waaaghboss]

On 3/1/2023 at 1:02 PM, alexgross.com said:

i could probably try to phrase this more politely, but your assertion is ridiculous. all or most collectors of pulps today are misogynists? really?? are you an 18 year old majoring in women's studies at sarah lawrence?

comics and pulps were geared 100% to a male audience back in the golden age. everyone knows that. was this area of entertainment very misogynistic and based on titillation? certainly. 

but to assert that this is the reason that today, people of all ages, shapes, sizes and genders, including some female collectors who are even on these boards, are getting into old pulps is insane. collectors of old comics and pulps love them for the remarkable beauty of the art, (the pulp covers were almost always oil paintings) the nostalgia for the bygone era, and for the way it makes them recall either their youth, or an idealized imaginary time before they were born, when things might have been more innocent. there are plenty of better options for the man/ person who wants to see women demeaned today than old pulps from 90 years ago. its called the internet. 

plus, what is this doing in this thread? see page one. it says:

"are prices still climbing or have they eased up a bit?"

 

I think there is a hint of truth in what he says, but he imo misses a lot of context.  The shudder pulps are obviously misogynist,  but that isn't really why I collect them.  I find it fascinating that such over the top media was produced in the 1930s and sold on newsstands, so I love the books as examples of what was once produces.  I don't think that makes me a misogynist, nor do I have any real interest in similar media produced decades later.   I like old stuff that I find rare and interesting. 

[Bookery]

On 3/1/2023 at 4:02 PM, alexgross.com said:

i could probably try to phrase this more politely, but your assertion is ridiculous. all or most collectors of pulps today are misogynists? really?? are you an 18 year old majoring in women's studies at sarah lawrence?

I think you are making a huge leap to assume he meant the collectors are misogynistic.  He's saying the cover-art can be described as "misogynistic" by today's standards.  Collecting Nazi memorabilia doesn't mean you are a Nazi.  In fact, I think you will find the opposite is often true of collectors.  The fact that times have changed makes these artifacts all the more interesting... a window into a time when things were viewed differently.  This is especially true with pop culture... the nature of art, logos, anything that gives us a feel for the kinds of advertising (and that's all cover art is) that was used to attract an audience.  There's no denying the sensationalist covers are the most sought-after.  Most art critics would agree the western pulps, especially those of the 1920s, showcase what would be considered a finer class of art.  But it's the controversial qualities of the former that makes them all the more collectible.  Forever, people have been drawn to the taboo (e.g. Grande Guinol theatre, which was also attended by both men and women).  The most popular low-budget films, even today, aren't highbrow arthouse films about the human condition, but are cheesy horror films.  

[lordbyroncomics]

"comics and pulps were geared 100% to a male audience back in the golden age. everyone knows that."

I would have to respectfully disagree with this; the Golden Age had the largest number of readers of any period in comics and the amount of genres were plentiful. While it wasn't until the late forties, it was still the Golden Age when we had titles like Patsy Walker, Millie the Model, Candy, Junior Miss, Miss America and so forth- titles that weren't Phantom Lady (which was geared towards males), and that is a significant difference. 

 

[VintageComics]

On 3/1/2023 at 5:57 PM, Bookery said:

Collecting Nazi memorabilia doesn't mean you are a Nazi.  In fact, I think you will find the opposite is often true of collectors.  The fact that times have changed makes these artifacts all the more interesting.

I agree but there is actually a divergence happening across culture in real time. 

In the West, if you talk about negative aspects of society or history, you are considered a sympathizer. It's offensive, it triggers and it needs to be quieted. 

In the East, if you talk about negative aspects of society or history, you are considered to be raising awareness. It's considered necessary, it's taught openly and needs to be kept alive to forever avoid it again.

This seems to be one of the deepest rooted problems in society currently. 

Edited March 2, 2023 by VintageComics