The speculator boom
A foil embossed
CGC-graded and authenticated copy of
Silver Surfer #50. Signed by
Stan Lee
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 (the first appearances of
Superman and
Wolverine, respectively) had sold for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
[2]
During this time, 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.
[2] 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.
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" (highlighting the "hottest" back-issues of the month), "Market Watch" (which not only reported back-issue market trends, but also predicted future price trends), and "Comic Watch" (highlighting key "undervalued" back-issues).
The speculators who made a profit or at least broke even on their comic book "investments" did so only by selling to other speculators.[
citation needed] In truth, very few of the comics produced in the early '90s have retained their value in the current market; with hundreds of thousands (or, in several prominent cases, over ten million) 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.[
citation needed]
Veteran comic book fans pointed out an important fact about the high value of classic comic books that was largely overlooked by the speculators: original comic books of the
Golden Age of Comic Books were genuinely rare. Most of the original comic books had not survived to the present era, having been thrown out in the trash or discarded as worthless children's waste (just like
baseball cards typically were at that time) by parents (stories of uncaring parents throwing out their kids' comic book collections are well known to the
Baby Boom generation), or recycled along with other periodicals in the paper
drives of
World War II. As a result, a comic book of interest to fans or collectors from the 1940s through the 1960s, such as an original issue of
Superman, Captain America, Challengers of the Unknown, or
Vault of Horror, was often extremely difficult to find and thus highly prized by collectors, in a manner similar to coin collectors seeking copies of the
1955 doubled die cent. In many ways, with an enormous supply of high-grade copies, the "hot" comics of the speculator boom were the complete opposite.
[edit] The bust of the speculator market
The comic book speculator market reached a saturation point in the early 1990s and finally collapsed between 1993 through 1997. Two-thirds of all comic book specialty stores closed in this time period,
[2] and numerous publishers were driven out of business. Even industry giant
Marvel Comics was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1997, although they were able to continue publishing. It is surmised that one of the main factors in Marvel's downfall was the decision to switch to self-distribution (via their purchase of
Heroes World Distribution). Up until then, many publishers went through secondary distributors (such as the current and only mass distributor,
Diamond Comic Distributors) and Marvel felt it could preserve some of its cash flow if it made the move to becoming one of the few publishers to also distribute directly to the comic market. This backfired terribly when the bottom fell out of the market, as they were stocked with multiple printings of variant and "collectible" issues that were no longer in high demand and they could not cover the costs of their distribution service.
The bust can also be linked back to some of the series that caused the boom, a few years earlier.
DC's decision to publish two blockbuster stories depicting the loss of their two major superheroes ("
Knightfall" the breaking of the Batman and "
The Death of Superman"), and their subsequent flooding of the press as to its supposed "finality", is considered by some collectors to have started a slow decay within the non-regular buyer comic community which then led to drops in sales. Many comic retailers believe that numerous comic speculators took the death and crippling of two major characters to signify the end of the Batman and Superman series. As many comic readers and retailers knew full well, very little in comics actually changes with any finality. Many aspects of the status quo returned after the story arcs were over (Superman died, but was resurrected, and Batman was crippled, but eventually recovered).
Many comic speculators who were only in the market to see important comics mature, then sell them for a tidy profit, didn't quite understand how quick the turn around would be on the story recant, and many rushed out to scoop up as many copies of whatever issues were to be deemed significant. Comic shops received not only staggering sales during the week that Superman died,
[2] but also had to try and meet the demand. This led to the saturation of the market and the devaluing of what was thought to be the end of an American icon. Some comic book retailers and theorists deem DC's practices in the press forum and their relationship with the non-specialized consumer to be grossly negligent of the status of the market, and that their marketing campaign, whereas most likely not malicious in intent, spelled doom for the speculator market and comic sales in general. Others place the blame for the comic market crash on Marvel (whose product line had bloated to hundreds of separate titles by late 1993, including the poorly received "
Marvel UK" and "
2099" lines) or creator-owned upstart
Image Comics (who fed the speculator feeding frenzy more than any other comics publisher).
[3]
Other publishing houses had different problems.
Valiant Comics at one point the third-largest comic book publisher was sold to the video game giant
Acclaim Entertainment for $65 million in June 1994.
[4] Acclaim renamed the line
Acclaim Comics in 1996. Their primary motivation was to make the properties more suitable for use in video game development. Eventually, Acclaim filed for bankruptcy following the collapse of its video game business. The miniseries
Deathmate a crossover between
Image Comics and
Valiant Comics is often considered to have been the final nail in the speculation market's coffin; although heavily hyped and highly anticipated when initially solicited, the books from the Image Comics side shipped so many months late that reader interest disappeared by the time the series finally materialized, leaving some retailers holding literally hundreds of unsellable copies of the various
Deathmate crossovers.
[5] Other companies, such as
Broadway Comics,
Comico,
Continuity Comics,
Defiant Comics,
Eclipse Comics,
First Comics, and
Malibu Comics also ceased publication in the period between 1993 and 1997.
[6]
;--though he did change the words that transform him which was cool.
If that's true, here we go again. It's the 90's re-hashed.
