Comic book collecting


Comic book collecting is a hobby that treats comic books and related items as collectibles or artwork to be sought after and preserved. Though considerably more recent than the collecting of postage stamps or books, it has a major following around the world today and is partially responsible for the increased interest in comics after the temporary slump experienced during the 1980s.

Overview

Comics are collected for several possible reasons, including appreciation, nostalgia, financial profit, and completion of the collection. The comic book came to light in the pop culture arena in the 1930s due to the popularity of superhero characters Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel. Since the 1960s, two publishers have dominated the American comic book industry: Marvel Comics, publisher of such comics as Spider-Man, X-Men, and Fantastic Four, and DC Comics, which publishes titles such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Other large non-manga publishers include Image Comics, IDW, Valiant Comics, and Dark Horse Comics.
As comic books regained their popularity in the 1960s during the boom of the Silver Age, fans organized comic book conventions, where they could meet to discuss their favorite comics with each other and eventually with the creators themselves., numerous conventions and festivals are held around the world, with Comic-Con International, held annually in San Diego, being the largest and best-known convention in the United States.
While some people collect comic books for personal interest in the medium or characters, others prefer to collect for profit. To assist both types of comic book collector, comic book price guides are available and provide estimates of comic book values as well as information on comic book creators and characters. The price guides assign values for comic books based on demand, availability, and the copy's condition. The longest running price guide is the annual Overstreet Price Guide, first published in 1970. Another current monthly price guide is Comics Buyer's Guide. The growth of the Internet in the late 1990s saw development of online databases to track creator, character appearances, and storylines, as well as websites combining comic book price guides with personalized collection tracking to provide collection values in real-time. The Grand Comics Database is a popular online resource for comic book creator and character information. Popular online price guide and collection tracking services include , , and GPAnalysis. The increased popularity of online auctioning services like eBay or Heritage Auctions for buying and selling comic books has greatly increased the visibility of actual comic book sale prices, leading to improved price guide accuracy, particularly for online price guides such as comicspriceguide.com and GPAnalysis. GPA only tracks sales of slabbed books, and therefore is not an accurate indicator of overall comic sales.
In response to collectors' interest in preserving their collections, products designed for the protection and storage of comic books became available, including special bags; boxes; and acid-free "backing boards", designed to keep the comic book flat.

History

Origins

Before the late 1960s, virtually no specialized comic stores existed and the notion of comics as collectible art was in its infancy. A few collector-based retail establishments existed, most notably Pop Hollinger's retail and mail order shop for new and used comics in Concordia, Kansas, which was in full swing by 1940. Claude Held had followed suit in Buffalo, New York, by 1946.
The origins of comic book collecting as an organized hobby has its roots in early science fiction fandom and comic book letters pages. In the early 1960s, DC Comics began publishing the full addresses of the people writing in, which allowed comic fans to reach out to each other.
Adzines like Rocket's Blast Comicollector, launched in 1964, brought fans together for the purpose of adding to their comic book collections. The Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom, launched in 1971, served a similar purpose.
In the U.S. a few specialist shops had opened their doors by the 1960s — such as Gary Arlington's San Francisco Comic Book Company in Apri 1968 — but were still a small market. The number of shops grew in the 1970s but remained relatively minimal — this is a list of notable early such retailers in the U.S. and the year they opened:
Amsterdam's Lambiek store opened in November 1968.
In the UK, the only distribution channels available were ordinary newsstands and mail order publications like Exchange and Mart or through zines run by the early panelologists themselves. Two early London-based comics speciality shops were Dark They Were and Golden Eyed and Forbidden Planet.
Two manga specialty shops opened in Tokyo, Japan, in 1979–1980:
  • Comic Takaoka, Tokyo, Japan — originally opened in 1880; shifted focus exclusively to manga in 1979
  • Mandarake, Tokyo, Japan

    Growth of the direct market

Denver, Colorado-based retailer Chuck Rozanski played a large role in the growth of the comics speculation market in 1977 when he acquired the high-value "Mile High Collection" – 16,000 comic books dating from 1937 to 1955 – and slowly began releasing select books into the marketplace.
During the late 1970s–early 1980s major comic publishers like Marvel and DC Comics started to recognize the new movements and started publishing material that was intended for sale in specialist shops only. When Marvel tested the new comics specialty market with the title Dazzler in 1981, the comic sold over 400,000 copies, a very respectable figure and one that astounded the company. Hereafter, comics publishers started tailoring ever-increasing percentages of marketing and production solely for the sale in specialist stores. While the bulk of the revenues still came from sales through regular channels, the ability to focus more specifically on specific target groups as well as distributing comics not on a sale-or-return basis, but in limited runs according to sales predictions from the retailers themselves, over-printing and overhead costs could be drastically reduced. From the 1970s to the present day, comics publishers have been targeting more and more of their titles to collector audiences with features such as limited editions, the use of high quality paper, or the inclusion of novelty items.

The speculator boom

From roughly 1985 through 1993, comic book speculation reached its highest peaks. This boom period began with the publication of titles like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen and "summer crossover epics" like Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars. After Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns made their mark, mainstream attention returned to the comic book industry in 1989 with the success of the movie Batman and again in 1992 with "The Death of Superman" storyline.
Once aware of this niche market, the mainstream press focused on its potential for making money. Features appeared in newspapers, magazines and television shows detailing how rare, high-demand comics such as Action Comics #1 and Incredible Hulk #181 had sold for thousands of dollars, with Action #1 breaking the $1 million mark.
During this time, mainstream comic book publishers began to pander specifically to the collectors' market. Techniques used included variant covers, polybags, and gimmick covers. When a comic was polybagged, the collector had to choose between either reading the comic book or keeping it in pristine condition for potential financial gain, or buying two or more copies to do both. Gimmicks included glow-in-the-dark, hologram-enhanced, die-cut, embossing, foil stamped or foil-embossed covers. Gimmicks were almost entirely cosmetic in nature, and almost never extended to improved content of the comics. However, many speculators would buy multiple copies of these issues, anticipating that demand would allow them to sell them for a substantial profit in the future.
Low-budget independent publishers also proliferated during this period. The low price of producing comics, and the ease and efficiency of the direct market enabled fly-by-night publishers to flood the market with product, much of it of low quality. A number of these publishers attempted to cash in on current trends – for every Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, there were multitudes of blatant rip-offs like Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, Geriatric Gangrene Jujitsu Gerbils, and Pre-Teen Dirty Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos.
This period also saw a corresponding expansion in price guide publications, most notably Wizard Magazine, which helped fuel the speculator boom with monthly columns such as the "Wizard Top 10", "Market Watch", and "Comic Watch".
The speculators who made a profit or at least broke even on their comic book "investments" did so only by selling to other speculators. In truth, very few of the comics produced in the early 1990s have retained their value in the current market; with hundreds of thousands copies produced of certain issues, the value of these comics has all but disappeared. "Hot" comics like X-Men #1 and Youngblood #1 can today be found selling for under a dollar apiece.
Veteran comic book fans pointed out an important fact about the collectors market that was largely overlooked by speculators: popular Golden Age comic books were valuable because they were genuinely rare. Since comic books were originally marketed to children and not viewed as collectible until much later, most Golden Age comics didn't survive to the present era. And before the 1990s, comic books were typically printed on cheap paper stock that aged very poorly. As a result, popular comic books published from the 1940s through the 1960s are extremely difficult to find and thus highly prized by collectors. By contrast, the speculator boom of the 1990s saw large print runs of comics on high-grade paper that were carefully stored by multitudes of collectors, creating a glut of product in the collectors market.