How My Lack of Discipline and Faith Cost Me

[bitman2]

In the late 60s 100.00 was TOO MUCH for an Amazing 1 I can remember buying a NM copy for 38.00 in 1969( a whole lot of money to 8 year old back then) in Tampa FL. I kept the book until 1987 when i sold at a Show in Dallas Dealer said at the time it was nicest 1 he had seen.( but I did make out like a bandit, even with inflation).(wonder where the book is now.) i am guessing it is probably CGC 9. whatever somewhere. The mistake was selling in 1987.( I have since purchased another # 1 but not as nice) but hey I'm happy with my current VG copy.(IT will be a lOOOOng time before I sell it)

[ghoulaid]

In the late 60s 100.00 was TOO MUCH for an Amazing 1

 

Hi, bitman2! I agree. I remember buying a Spider-Man #2 for $12 in 1970. That's the first time I ever paid more than 50 cents for a comic and I thought I had just bought the Mona Lisa (or something). After that, there was no turning back as every dime I made went to buying back issues. By 1975 I had nearly completed every Marvel and DC run (superhero, sci-fi & monster titles) from 1958 up. Sadly I made the same mistake you did and sold a few hundred comics in 1986 that haunts me to this day. Anyway, Sidey #1 could be had for less then $100 back then.

[Fabfrank]

dam60- You make great points about the lack of kids at the comic shops. When we were kids comics were part of our childhood. For kids today Nintendo, Yu-Gi-Oh, and DragonBall Z are the things they relate to. Your Little Brother (and other kids) know of HUlk, Spiderman, Batman etc, through movie hype and not through their original medium-comics. Kids today just need to be exposed and they'll start reading.

My son is 13 years old. Even though he makes the weekly trek with me to get my books. He showed very little interest beyond the Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon cards. When the Spiderman movie came out he loved it. I said "Well if you liked the movie, check these Spidey comics out". The kid is hooked. He now reads Ultimate Spiderman and X-Men, Amazing, JLA, Young Justice, Hulk, Titans and Extreme X-Men. He than started to bring them to school and now half his friends collect. What I notice though is that #1 kids prefer TPB's vs. the original comics and #2 they read their comics with disregard to condition. Every week we now buy one TPB and he reads it 2-3 times by the weekend.

This is what many of the dealers need to do. Get comics into the schools, boys and girls clubs and wherever else kids are and expose them to reading comics. You can't expect the kids to come to your shop.

[Bugaboo-migration]

I agree. Do any of you dealers out there contact the local grade schools in your area during the "free comic book day" promotions? Seems like at least some of the teachers would be glad to have you come in and give out free reading material to the kids that might get them away from the video games for a while. You could even stamp your store address on the books so the kids and their parents would know where to go to buy more.

[dam60]

Fabfrank - great post. I wish I had a link or something, but you should really try to find the CBG where they have a cover story of getting Crossgen books into schools as part of a reading education program. If I still have my copy in my apt I will make a photocopy and fax/email it to you.

 

My first experience with comics were when kids in school started bringing in the punisher, batman, etc. If it weren't for that social interaction, getting kids to start reading comics would be tough.

 

I would consider it a great marketing initiative if I owned a comic book store to take some worthless modern books (you know, the 7 cent a book overstock) and stamp them with my store info and give them out for free at schools. Heck, for the pennies that you would get for them, it would make more sense to try and get some long term customers.

 

I also agree with you on TPBs. I would like to say that I have an attention span (considering that I am an adult and not 12 anymore) and I have a real hard time with some of today's pamphlets. They can be quite challenging to get into and follow unless you have a strong, strong, strong foundation with the characters. Now translate that to the 12 year old with no foundation and no attention span and it's no wonder that only college kids and adults read new books these days. The TPB is a very powerful medium, the full power of which has yet to be realized.

 

Another aside, last time I was home (the little brother that I refer to is an inner city kid who is no blood relation, check out: http://www.cbbnyc.org/ - ironically, he is on the bottom left with his old big brother who has since moved out of NYC) my cousin told me (he's also 12) that people in his school have started buying comics. I agree - if you can get a few kids who like the movie and throw them a marvel essential or two (although you know I would prefer a DC archive ) and viola! A future collector is born!!

 

It doesn't really seem as hard as people make it out to be to attract new readers - it would just take a tremendous amount of $$$ and effort, but the dividends would be well worth it.

 

Also, fabfrank, I am sure as a parent you would rather have your 13 year old reading a TPB than playing on PS2 . . . .

 

DAM

[dam60]

I agree. Do any of you dealers out there contact the local grade schools in your area during the "free comic book day" promotions? Seems like at least some of the teachers would be glad to have you come in and give out free reading material to the kids that might get them away from the video games for a while. You could even stamp your store address on the books so the kids and their parents would know where to go to buy more.

 

Bug, as you saw, I totally agree with you. It seems to make so much sense! Even with the overstock that you could liquidate for 7 cents a book . . . . kids should have the opportunity to read comics for better than $3 a book.

 

DAM

[Fabfrank]

dam60- I did read that article in CBG. As a matter of fact Chuck dedicated 2 of his CBG columns to CrossGen's new innovations and it's educational/teaching package. I gave the info to some of my teacher friends and to one friend who is a Superintendant of schools. Unfortunately, dealing with the Board of Ed is worse than dealing with any government bueacracy.

I've given my local comic dealer suggestions ranging from doing school presentations, to giving away a comic from the 50 cent box to every kid that buys a comic. Unfortunately this type of marketing needs to be an ongoing effort and not a one time event.

The TPB's have been great and the comic companies should do more of them. Most of the trades have been storylines from the last 5-10 years. They really should do some of the earlier storylines too (aside from the Masterwork pieces). As a matter of fact, Marvel, DC, etc. should do a trade of every comic every 8-12 issues.