On the same vein-Spiderman 1. More harm or good for the industry?

[sckao]

 

 

That cartoon rests on the assumption that the pool of comic book readers is stagnant... which it is to a point. If a second Spawn movie were made and it was awesome, I'm sure some new collectors would want to own a NM+ Spawn #1 and wouldn't think twice about paying $10- $20 bucks for it. After all, they may have just paid $9.50 to see the movie in a theater.

[otherworldcomics]

Great cartoon. And very true. That's the biggest problem that has happened to the hobby, the speculative investor. I remember being in the comic stores and seeing people buying multiple copies of x-men: alpha (part of the Age of Apocalypse story) My wife asked me if I was going to get more than one copy and I told her, "Uh, no, I'm only going to read one." Yeah, I have a copy of Spider-man #1 but it's because I bought it to read, not to invest.

 

I hated that the speculators got in thinking they were going to get rich off these books but I do like that it at least got others interested in the hobby and hopefully a fair number of those people actually read their books and stuck with the hobby. With all the bad that happened in the 90's the good thing that happened is that comics got wider exposure than every before.

[otherworldsj33]

Hi otherworldcomics. Your first paragraph about greed and business being what it is, and really we are talking about human nature here, that is never going to change. No disagreemant there.

Your second paragraph, about more of everything, like games, cards, comics, comic stores. Thats just my point. More is not always better. In the begining of the boom, I thought it was great, but it got real old, real fast (for me anyway). If someone enjoyed the ride, well, then great for them. Far be it from me to rain on anyone's parade. And I guess like most things in life, one can say it was a mixed bag. I just think, for reasons stated in my other posts, this was more harm then good.

[otherworldcomics]

Oh, I can see where you're coming from and can agree with ya up to a point, but I do have to disagree and say more is definitely better here. Yes, there were a lot of books that just plain sucked or at least sucked in my opinion. But the way I look at it is like this: In the 70's and 80's you had two major comic companies putting out a limited amount of product. So almost anything you got was considered great because that was all there was. (Anyone else remember those Secret Wars action figures?). The 90's hit and you finally had a vast amount of products/books you could now choose from. I think the more you have available of course, the more chance you have of substandard books/products being made. I agree 100% that it was just a mixed bag. Lots of good stuff came out. Lots of BS came out as well. But honestly, I think over all it was much more helpful than harmful.

[otherworldsj33]

I can't disagree too strenuously with a guy who has the good taste to have a log-in name otherworld(comics) !!

[otherworldcomics]

My sentiments exactly! You are obviously of high intelligence and great moral fiber and an all round ladies man. I can tell because all those with the Otherworld name share these qualites.

[otherworldsj33]

I'll go with all the other stuff, but I am a comic book nerd, so alas, maybe not the "all around ladies man" part....

[Kevin76]

I thought the early 90's were great,I was also only a teenager in the early 90's so I was like 13 or so when Spiderman 1 came out and 14 when X-Men 1 came out so I was all over those books and was at the perfect age for it.Mcfarlane was God back in those days,even though his writing sucked to no end the art was awesome,bad storytelling but he just made everything look cool.Wish they didn't do the special covers and such. I was never the "gotta get'em all" type of collector either, I picked the cover I liked the best and just bought that one. I don't think really anyone should be bitter about those days really, it was a fun time and sometimes frustrating to the older readers.But Marvel made thier bed and they had to lie in it

[Psiknight]

 

That cartoon rests on the assumption that the pool of comic book readers is stagnant... which it is to a point. If a second Spawn movie were made and it was awesome, I'm sure some new collectors would want to own a NM+ Spawn #1 and wouldn't think twice about paying $10- $20 bucks for it. After all, they may have just paid $9.50 to see the movie in a theater.

 

I'd say the pool of comic readers has declined over the past ten years...so, the point the cartoon makes is ever more salient.

[Psiknight]

I thought the early 90's were great,I was also only a teenager in the early 90's so I was like 13 or so when Spiderman 1 came out and 14 when X-Men 1 came out so I was all over those books and was at the perfect age for it.Mcfarlane was God back in those days,even though his writing sucked to no end the art was awesome,bad storytelling but he just made everything look cool.Wish they didn't do the special covers and such. I was never the "gotta get'em all" type of collector either, I picked the cover I liked the best and just bought that one. I don't think really anyone should be bitter about those days really, it was a fun time and sometimes frustrating to the older readers.But Marvel made thier bed and they had to lie in it

 

I was like 8 when Spider-Man # 1 came out...I bought a copy, read it, and enjoyed it. I thought McFarlane's art was great - the cover caught my eye immediately.

 

Still, the book hurt the comic industry as much as anything else, I think.

[mica]

Marvel and Spiderman1 share a big load of blame on this. But I don't give Image a pass. Many of Marvel's bad decisions were counter moves to Image.

There's a lot of blame to go around.

 

But back to Spiderman, once they started drawing him like an Alien bug and enlarged White Eye Sockets I quit reading him. Between 1991 and 1992 I stopped buying.

Sure McFarlane is good, so was Larsen and then Bagley but look at Spiderman now, and see how he's gone too buggy.

[mister_not_so_nice]

The indie records equivilant of the polybagged comic: