The McAllen (Texas) Monitor breaks down the economics of comics, the law of supply and demand, and the important lesson we should all learn from the industry of the 1990s:
These comic book “speculators” began buying huge quantities of the “Death of Superman” and “Knightfall” story arcs, said Helgi Davis, owner of Myth Adventures in McAllen. Some people would walk in and sweep armfuls of issues off a shelf and buy them, he said, while others would place orders for large shipments. To keep up with competition, other comic book companies created limited edition issues of their own popular comics, which were also snapped up in record time.
The result was twofold. One, comic book stores struggled to provide issues to meet the demand. For the copies they did manage to get, either through the distributor or through re-sellers, they had to pay more, and therefore charged more for the product. Issues that once cost $3 were selling at “four and five times their original value” within months, Davis said.
Then the bubble burst:
Rather than make a finite number of popular issues, comic companies instead produced more. The increase in comics led to a decrease in their value. When the speculators realized they were selling valueless comics, they quit buying them. Their disappearance coincided with the departure of average consumers, who felt frustrated with high prices. This brought the comic book industry to a grinding halt, Davis said.
I’ll add that it wasn’t just higher prices and the speculator mentality that had me buying less mainstream comics in the 1990s … it was also the fact that they weren’t all that good.
Related: The Monitor on the recent comeback of comic books
August 2nd, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Unfortunately, I am seeing a slight return to this mode of business. Variant covers are becoming popular again, and given the fact that retailers must order a certain amount (often times a much higher amount than normal) to recieve these special covers, stores are often left with an above normal amount of back stock. Also, Wizard’s monthly price guide does not help matters, since they often price up “hot” books and variants covers one month, then mark them down the next. (This is why I tend not to pay attention to Wizard and rely on Overstreet and my gut.) The only thing that’s keeping another 90s bubble-burst at bay is the fact that Diamond and many publishers have become more relaxed with return policies and order/reorder cut-off dates. I hope that we don’t see another speculator rush, because while it may be good for retailers in the short-run, we all know it’s bad in the long run.
August 2nd, 2006 at 4:37 pm
The big diffrence between now and then is the presence of graphic novels and manga in bookstores. If the direct market stalls this time it may not recover.
August 2nd, 2006 at 5:38 pm
I suspect there is a dirty little truth to the 90s boom and bust that nobody wants to say.
WE were the speculators. That’s right. US, the comic readers.
I know I bought more than one of certian comics, bought many multiple & “special” covers and almost every #1 that came out. I wasn’t alone either in doing this. Most of my friends were doing the same.
But eventually, it got crazy with everybody trying to cash in and we had to stop. After college I was unemployed and couldn’t afford it anymore. I had to do some serious title dropping and I only stuck with the ones that was giving me the most enjoyment without costing me a fortune. Out went X-Men and Spider-Man titles because of all the BAD crossovers.
I’m sure there were some non-readers buying armloads of books thinking they’d go up in value. But did they really represent the majority of the spike in sales?
I tend to think it was the average comic reader buying multiples and the gimick covers that was the majority, but we as an industry (and retailers in particular) don’t want to blame the (still current) customers. Instead we stick the entire blame on another group of people that we can villify.
August 2nd, 2006 at 8:12 pm
This may be impossible, but can anyone pin down an approximate year for the “crash”? Was it a sudden thing for all companies, or did it occur over a few years?
August 2nd, 2006 at 8:35 pm
I’ve always heard it was DeathMate, the big crossover between Image and Valiant.