John E.

This year I celebrated 10 years as a comic art collector. It’s hard to believe that I started off at Big Wow! ComicFest in San Jose, CA with a 2.5” x 3.5” sketch book and asking artists for doodles. And I can’t believe I had the balls to go up to the likes of Kevin Nowlan and Tim Bradstreet and ask for a “doodle” without the expectation that I had to pay them something. I mean, they were there for the fans, right? Flash forward 9-10 years and now the fresh-to-market art comes to me, thanks to an active and established CAF gallery. Sometimes I get approached for pricing advice from the unlikeliest of collectors and dealers. I find that unbelievable as I’m still the lowest budgeted collector and essentially a nobody in the hobby. But for those first 7-8 years I lived, ate, and breathed the hobby. It’s never been a perfect hobby and the mistakes, frustration, patience, and lessons I learned in the past decade has put some hair on my chest. Still, it’s been a good 10 years.

For what it’s worth, Barracuda is to the Punisher in 21st century what Jigsaw was to Frank Castle in the 70s & 80s. I mean, there’s also Ma Gnucci, but she just didn’t grow the legs to be a runaway hit with fans, nor does she have the reach for wider audiences, which is a real stumper, man.

I actually am aware that Yellowstone has grown in viewership since its first season. I am not one of those 12.1M viewers though. About the show I know that Kevin Costner is in it and I know that it’s set in the West. I know that Costner went through a nasty divorce. Otherwise I don’t care to watch it—but this is not a dig on the show; I also enjoyed Ms Marvel and She-Hulk and have watched them complete several times (a lot of that has to do with having a young family) so this is a matter of me having unrefined taste than the quality of Yellowstone. By season 4, Seinfeld had 20M viewers and Friends had 25M. The series finale of Friends (“The Last One”) in 2004 brought in 52M or more viewers. These are all pre-streaming numbers. I did not watch Game of Thrones with the rest of America. After season 1, a friend of my wife’s was so surprised that I hadn’t watch it she lent me her dvd set and I watched season one like that, and quite enjoyed it. Season 2 came and went. I bought the S2 set on Blu-ray but found it so boring I never finished it. It wasn’t until just before the delayed final season that I binged all the seasons upon the urgency of a friend saying that the show is “so, so much more” than where I stopped in season 2. Years before, I binged Breaking Bad on Netflix after the series was over. After the bingeing of both, which I enjoyed, I still had that “what was the big deal about the show?” feeling. That’s because I wasn’t part of the larger community and the larger phenomenon stretched over a period of years that is the secret sauce. In my previous post I wasn’t saying we’ll never have another hit show again. Statistically that’s impossible. I was arguing that it’s going to be harder to create a cultural phenomenon with disjointed viewership. Breaking Bad was a cultural phenomenon. The Shield (which I watched) was a hit show. Game of Thrones was a cultural phenomenon. Entourage was a hit show. Weren’t Walking Dead and Breaking Bad on the same cable channel, AMC? By cultural phenomenon I mean character recognition, star-making roles, when Barnes and Noble sends you emails the weekend before the premiere or finale to come buy the source material, the 4K boxed set, the calendars, the mugs, the party game, the chess set, the bobble head, the action figures, the licensed shoe horn. Yellowstone is a hit show. Word of mouth is very necessary for a hit show or the cultural phenomenon. It’s the one thing media conglomerates can’t buy and Nielsen can’t track. It’s my friend lending the complete season one of GoT or the other friend pressing me to catch up on the series. It’s you, Lucky Baru, talking about Yellowstone here. That counts. I won’t deny that Yellowstone’s growing viewership since season one is a phenomenon. But I do find it interesting that the show is on TWO cable channels (I had never heard of the Paragon Network and when I googled it, no network by that name exists. Did you mean Paramount?): it plays on “Paragon” and reruns on CBS and is streamed on Paramount Plus. Three platforms to get to 12M viewers. That’s what it takes to get a hit show TODAY. The first time I heard of the show was because I’m a Paramount Plus subscriber. The first time I heard about the show outside of that is because of Costner’s highly publicized divorce. I feel like that life event did more for the publicity of the show than the network ever could. The pioneers of cultural phenomenon in the age of streaming and disjointed viewership? Stranger Things and Squid Games. But with GS you had the pandemic and an audience who literally couldn’t go anywhere. Let’s throw Ted Lasso in there but I don’t watch it. Just sayin it’s going to be harder to achieve it. I predict that the future of “cultural phenomenon” is going to be created within streaming tribes, not necessarily because it touched the zeitgeist of the nation; however, so much depends on perfect storms gathering too—it’s not just the quality of the show. But that perfect storm is hard to predict, harder yet to concoct. I think all these phenomenal shows describe their success as catching lighting in the bottle. There isn’t less lightning, it’s just the bottle got smaller.

I was a hardcore WD fan who put up with the low points and thought I was going to be ride and die to the end. Then I couldn’t bring myself to finish the much looking-forward season 9. It felt like I was watching filler 3 or 4 episodes in. Have I already said this? What I found interesting about the WD cultural phenomenon was that it began just before streaming took off and consumers weren’t cutting their cable cords. As a result there was a perfect storm of captive audience looking for great tv content and then arrived this cinematic quality show. Now let me remind you, early WD was bogged down by some bad writing that made some scenes a chore to get through. I believe by 2011 I cut my cable cord and went full Netflix and Hulu which were very cheap at the time. I think I got my WD a little bit on Apple iTunes but I mostly binged when the season dropped on Netflix like clockwork in September. I remember in the meantime I watched the first season of FTWD on Hulu, which scratched the itch but wasn’t all that great—or felt necessary—to continue. To me the show’s high point was seasons 1-3 but the fervor continued well past that as fans were chasing that high and I admit that it was a very exciting time. But by 2018 more or less, it was no longer, as my brother described it, “must see TV.” And this was a guy who scheduled his sundays around the show. And by 2018–and this is important—you had the premiers of Walking Dead: New World (or whatever; the one with the kids) but so many consumers had cut their cable by then that you didn’t have that critical mass anymore. And because of the wars between streaming services and cable if you wanted to keep up with WD you’d had to subscribe to AMC’s service, but why, when WD was no longer must see tv? I think the death blow for me was the pandemic. Season 9 was delayed, extended and then it was way delayed on a Netflix. By then I didn’t care. Also, the spin-offs got too much to catch up. I just moved on with the rest of the world. im not sure if I’ll give these new shows a chance. I mean with Maggie and Negan…geez just kill him or hump him already. I feel like we’ll never have a cultural phenomenon like the TWD in a very long time because streaming and On Demand has disjointed viewership. I think that’s why comic to small screen adaptations haven’t caught on. I’m thinking YTLM and Deadly Class and Sweet Tooth. The Boys is good and apparently Invincible but that feels like insulated AMZ Prime thing (where’s the endless merch?). (I’m also not a Prime subscriber.) Maybe the closest thing to WD phenomenon is Stranger Things? Anyhow, when I look back fondly at TWD it may be for the nostalgia of the days before the endless streaming platforms. But then again, streaming creates an on-demand culture and so maybe I won’t even get a chance to miss it. Ever.

Bill stated in one of the early CAF videos that Mike has a financial stake in CAF after Bill had to reassure users that there was no conflict of interest, that Mike has no access to price data (nor Bill). CAF, or Collector’s Network, Inc., has gone through a lot of changes lately, so whether Mike still has a stake in CAF today is another thing. (Bill explained that Mike “lent” him money for Bill’s ailing mini golf business, and in exchange Mike was given a stake. I’m also working off memory from like 3 years ago so expect some details to be off.)

I saw ZERO marketing for this film outside of Facebook. Not one billboard. Not one bus shelter poster. I watched this on Friday opening weekend and there was no standee or poster in the movie theater. In fact, I saw ZERO merch at Target—no clothing, posters, toys aimed at toddlers. Nada. Zero marketing for this movie as if Marvel/Disney didn’t even have faith in their own production and tried to cut their losses. Sure I have notes for this movie, but had there been a marketing blitz people would’ve shown up and had a good time and it would done well for at least two weekends before the holiday prestige films come out.

I’ll be the lone dissenter and say it’s not the characters, it’s the writer. Where are the bigger stakes? Everything is resolved. No pissed off aliens coming to invade earth. No urgency to find their missing friend. No visit to Doctor Strange for keys to the multiverse portal (Hello, America Chavez!). And are the three a team? Or are they not a team? In Captain America: Winter Soldier, SHIELD is Hydra and the Avengers are on their own. In Civil War, heroes tore each other apart (War Machine suffers spinal injury; Team Iron Man sics The Vision on Team Cap) and some become outlaws. We are not getting these level of stakes from these films anymore. But I’m still watching them and enjoying (most of) them.

It wasn’t a convenient weekend so I had planned to sit this one out. But I’d peek in throughout the show and decided to jump in the fray on Sunday. I only posted 3 pieces and all repeat from the previous show. Sold 2. Small value and under market. After selling in 7 of the last 8 shows I’m low on inventory. I stopped going to comic cons where I’d pick up small pieces on impulse buys. Everything is so expensive everywhere that I can’t even do impulse buys on eBay anymore and just sell later when the novelty has run out. I had a theory that they’d be less art posted than last show because of this. I’ve noticed longtime collectors who brought the heat the first 2-3 shows are no longer setting up. Maybe they’ve run out of inventory too? But with 6500 pieces posted I was wrong. Maybe half are commissions as Mike points out. The spirit of “priced to sell” is getting away. I get why some pieces are priced to not leave meat on the bone. Others not so much. Sure, one can point out to greed, but there are a few predators out there who can smell a flip 49 states away. I don’t sell anything that I think can do better in auction, but if I do, I don’t put an “aspirational” price tag on it. I like to refer to the price tag as “anti-flip” or “dealer repellent.”

This was my experience in the May show. Tire kickers who turn to ghosts. CAL is never held during a convenient weekend for me and so I have to remove myself from the people I’m with to type out a long answer regarding the condition of the piece or whatever. Then zilch. A simple “I’ll pass, thank you” would suffice. No foul. I had a known figure in the hobby inquire about a piece but didn’t want to pay my asking price. Went back and forth a bit but someone was willing to pay the full price. And when I let this person know, I could feel the eye roll in the response. Okay, I’ll make note of that for the future.

Here’s my promo card from Cardsmiths

Your worry is equal or greater to mine 😵‍💫

Thanks Will_K. A lot of my observations match mine. The only exception is that I don’t tune in for those sales shows—during or after—so I don’t know what the attendance is like, nor do I get to hear Snyder or Burkey say where they get art. I'm well into my 10th year collecting. In years 9 and 10 I’ve spent my entire year’s budget all at once this year and last on private offerings and this is probably why I don’t eat and breathe comic art like I did years 1-8. That and in a post-vaccine world I have been so busy I just don’t have the kind of time I used to, to waste on scouring the hidden corners of the internet for art. I don’t even bother putting in punishing bids anymore which was a favorite past time of mine. That’s my excuse. Where have all the other small-time collectors gone that used to prop up the low-end 90s art in 2020-2021? In ‘20-‘21 when prices were going bananas, the attitude was “The tide raises all boats.” What I’m hearing now is “Everything’s fine!” as long as the “tide” is still raising the yachts of high-end premium art. Meanwhile, the sailboats are capsizing.

Wow runaway thread Is anyone keeping up with the live art sales shows, particularly the ones Bill Cox hosts? How are the sales going there?

This is how I understood it too

Not before he called us all skinflints as he walked out the door

I read rumors on news sites that Marvel killed off Kamala in order to resurrect her with powers closer to her MCU counterpart. Then I recently read from a more official source that Marvel is bringing back Kamala as a mutant in a new series co-written by Iman Vellani, the actress. Not sure how I feel about this. I liked Ms Marvel’s “embiggen” powers as an Inhuman but I concede stretchy powers look silly on film. I thought it was creative on MCU’s part to give her “solid light” powers instead. But I’m not jiving with this whole tail wagging the dog move.

Or ponytails.

I was the littlest biggest Superman fan as a tyke. It was brought on I’m sure by Christopher Reeve’s Superman and at the time it was brought on by the marketing push for Superman II. I carry a 3-inch scar on my ankle getting hurt pretending to be Superman. Here’s a page from my first Superman title book reimagining the whole coal-into-diamond bit: A commission of another important “first” Superman book: Then one day I was talking to one of the Hernandez Bros, Mario or Beto, and one of the two was telling me about the books they read as a kids and they kept citing Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane. I thought it was silly for them to have been reading—what I thought was a girl’s book—and asked if they read Superman at all. Their was response was “Superman is virtually invincible and unstoppable. There’s only so much you can do with that. So he was really boring to us.” I never looked at Superman the same way again. Probably explains why he gets stripped of his powers so much—to make him “interesting.”

The mid-90s did give birth to pony-tail Punisher. It might not be a mullet but it’s still 🤮

Sure, but then we got the cool af Kingdom Come Superman

Ironically, I gravitate toward pages with the Punisher in spandex Although I understand the practicality of the urban tactical gear look, I can not stand it. I think that’s when things got problematic—when Punisher donned the tactical gear so commonly seen worn by mass-casualty event perpetrators. The black and white spandex at least dialed it down like a parody. Much like the purple pants of the Hulkster. But to your point, back in our day heroes stayed dead a year or two.

As they did with Ms Marvel who’s now returning as a mutant The common thread here is that Ms Marvel and Moon Knight both have Disney+ shows . With the Punisher (who had a Netflix show), the comics didn’t kill-kill him, but I think Disney-Marvel want to strip him of his status quo that made them uncomfortable. Happy 50th anniversary, Frank.

Notice the weapons aren’t assault-style guns anymore and the “skull” is integrated into the costume as parts and not easily replicated as a windshield decal. Whatever this “Who is” is, it isn’t the traditional Punisher but a Disnification of him.

As someone who is not a John Buscema devotee or a Conan comic book fan, I’d say that is a very recognizable image so the price makes sense to me. If I could only have one Buscema piece that would be it. It’s also the only Conan #1 piece in the world without Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature scrawled in the live area which makes it all that much more valuable.