Oh Man I Sure Hope the Comics Market Never Crashes as Bad as the Stamps Market 13 13

[DavidTheDavid]

On 3/8/2022 at 9:02 AM, 1Cool said:

The orange line sure seems to be dropping fast over the last 6 years   At this rate we will drop below $250 million in actual comics in a few years.  That still seems like a lot of money but when comics cost $4 it's really only 62 million comics sold in totality.  It appears 60 million of these new comics are instantly sent in to get graded () so that does help to inflate the numbers a tad.

I'm slowly becoming an omnibus reader. I will grab tpbs for some titles. It's a much more affordable way to read and house the content I want. But trade readers aren't even the real juice for graphic novels. Visit your local public or school library, not to mention any retail bookstore. There's a huge market for these that extends well past the comic fare that comic readers consume.

Edited March 8, 2022 by DavidTheDavid

[ComicFill]

On 3/8/2022 at 2:26 AM, jjonahjameson11 said:

Comic community is young and expanding?

I doubt this very much

Look at youtube or instagram. There are plenty of comic influencers in their 20s and 30s.

[jjonahjameson11]

On 3/8/2022 at 6:25 PM, ComicFill said:

Look at youtube or instagram. There are plenty of comic influencers in their 20s and 30s.

Far less coming in than departing collectors 

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 3/8/2022 at 6:25 PM, ComicFill said:

Look at youtube or instagram. There are plenty of comic influencers in their 20s and 30s.

Influencers gonna influence 

[William-James88]

I'm assuming the trade sales are of current comics and not jus old ones so they would still benefit from releasing individual comics even if there is a dwindling crowd. But we are talking of 2 different markets here in the end. The health of the current comic industry and interest in reading comics is not indicative of how many people wish to own GA comics from Fiction House  or even the a 1 in 50 variant of a book from 3 years ago. Instead that graph shows the complete opposite, a higher interest in comics is inversely proportional to the amount of people collecting comics since that's the only bar that dwindles every year while the non collectible components (like digital and trade) go up.

Comic stores may still exist, as comics conventions still exist, but in both cases they will be focusing more and more on a bunch of other pop culture items and less on actual comics.

[Gregd]

Funny how I heard comic collecting was dying 20 years ago… yet records are still being set in 2021/2022. Also heard several years ago how GA collectors were all old men who would be leaving the market soon and prices would be back to the sub $100 mark (where they were before they went up so many years ago).

All I know is that the PCH books I bought 5-7 years ago have had a great run. Glad I didn’t listen then. So did the silvers and bronzes.

I am sure there are over bloated parts to the market but not sure we will see many of the iconic comics of the 40s-70s become worthless. 
 

 

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by Gregd

[Krydel4]

On 3/8/2022 at 3:25 PM, ComicFill said:

Look at youtube or instagram. There are plenty of comic influencers in their 20s and 30s.

The majority of them are more about the investing/speculation side of the hobby than current storylines, character studies, upcoming comics etc. The channels I've found that do talk about those aspects are hosted by older collectors. The pics are just 4 examples of the videos that came up when I typed "Comic Books" into YouTube search. 

[ComicFill]

On 3/8/2022 at 7:20 PM, Krydel4 said:

The majority of them are more about the investing/speculation side of the hobby than current storylines, character studies, upcoming comics etc. The channels I've found that do talk about those aspects are hosted by older collectors. The pics are just 4 examples of the videos that came up when I typed "Comic Books" into YouTube search. 

For SURE a lot is speculation. But that is also because that's what gets clicks. Some of these guys are just in it for business. Others are genuine geeks who love and read comics but want youtube subscribers so they put out some spec videos as well.

[ComicFill]

On 3/8/2022 at 3:33 PM, Gregd said:

Funny how I heard comic collecting was dying 20 years ago… yet records are still being set in 2021/2022. Also heard several years ago how GA collectors were all old men who would be leaving the market soon and prices would be back to the sub $100 mark (where they were before they went up so many years ago).

All I know is that the PCH books I bought 5-7 years ago have had a great run. Glad I didn’t listen then. So did the silvers and bronzes.

I am sure there are over bloated parts to the market but not sure we will see many of the iconic comics of the 40s-70s become worthless. 
 

 

 

CGC saved the comic collecting hobby in my opinion. Without grading companies I don't think we would have nearly the interest there currently is.

[D84]

On 3/8/2022 at 5:25 PM, ComicFill said:

Look at youtube or instagram. There are plenty of comic influencers in their 20s and 30s.

That term makes me throw up in my mouth.

 

[Krydel4]

On 3/8/2022 at 9:44 PM, ComicFill said:

CGC saved the comic collecting hobby in my opinion. Without grading companies I don't think we would have nearly the interest there currently is.

[William-James88]

On 3/9/2022 at 12:54 AM, D84 said:

That term makes me throw up in my mouth.

 

Same, as do those videos. 

 

[Coverless 9.8]

On 3/9/2022 at 12:54 AM, D84 said:

That term makes me throw up in my mouth.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by Coverless 9.8

[Coverless 9.8]

On 3/9/2022 at 12:57 AM, Krydel4 said:

 

Sometimes you have to destroy the village to save the village!  It's Vietnam all over again! *Sigh* Gone!  

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 3/9/2022 at 12:22 AM, Coverless 9.8 said:

Sometimes you have to destroy the village to save the village! 

Didn't care for that M Naught Shamalamadingdong flick..

[ComicFill]

On 3/8/2022 at 7:54 PM, D84 said:

That term makes me throw up in my mouth.

 

Ya, I get it. But that's what they are. What do you want? "Social media personalities"?

Edited March 9, 2022 by ComicFill

[Cat]

On 3/9/2022 at 5:41 PM, ComicFill said:

Ya, I get it. But that's what they are. What do you want? "Social media personalities"?

First, strike 99% of these losers off the 'influencer' register. They ain't influencing mess. 

Then go from there. 

[Stefan_W]

On 3/9/2022 at 12:44 AM, ComicFill said:

CGC saved the comic collecting hobby in my opinion. Without grading companies I don't think we would have nearly the interest there currently is.

This is true as far as it goes, but I would also add the impact of the Marvel movies has made a massive difference. For good or bad, the success and continued of the MCU has pushed the comic market from being largely flat to one where there is continual growth at least in some titles. 

[Gregd]

On 3/9/2022 at 6:57 AM, Stefan_W said:

This is true as far as it goes, but I would also add the impact of the Marvel movies has made a massive difference. For good or bad, the success and continued of the MCU has pushed the comic market from being largely flat to one where there is continual growth at least in some titles. 

Doesn’t explain Mag prices popping recently  though. The characters mostly aren’t MCU. I think it’s considered pop culture art and owning a piece is still desirable. 

[William-James88]

On 3/9/2022 at 2:41 AM, ComicFill said:

Ya, I get it. But that's what they are. What do you want? "Social media personalities"?

Just go with "youtubers"

On 3/9/2022 at 11:13 AM, Gregd said:

Doesn’t explain Mag prices popping recently  though. The characters mostly aren’t MCU. I think it’s considered pop culture art and owning a piece is still desirable. 

Doesn't directly explain new records for Fiction House books or pre code horror either. There being a grading company doesn't explain it outright either since they don't need to be graded to get those big prices.

CGC existing does help the hobby in giving grading a uniformity, so even though you may sell or buy a book raw, the price it sells for is related to the grade which in turn is determined through standards that CGC enforces. But I don't see how it saves the hobby, it seems more like just a tool to keep sellers on their toes. Books that CGC did turn into commodities at the beginning like DC's Shadow 1 and Harbinger 1 have lost massive value since CGC started. So neither grading not movies are the biggest factors keeping all aspects of this hobby alive. They are just some factors contributing to general interest of multiple facets of this hobby. Like I wrote previously, stamps had this whole grading thing perfected and none of you cared to become stamp collectors because of it. Grading companies weren't enough to stimulate continued interest.

And as the graph poste previously shows, the single comic market is declining at a rapid pace and yet CGC is more in demand than ever, so the correlation isn't there. Or maybe when talking of comic collecting, we should only be talking of back issues and particular eras. After all, we are seeing that a decline in weekly comic sales has no impact on collecting SA comics, GA comics, ect.