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Moderns that are heating up on ebay!
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63,730 posts in this topic

5 hours ago, kairos70 said:

Just last week a local comic shop owner said he wasn't ordering any DC because the distributor was requiring a purchase minimum of $500 weekly. He said his DC sales weren't enough to support that kind of expenditure. There are two other local shops that order DC very heavily yet If you look at their shelves you can find runs 10 issues back. Cover prices for their regular issues have increased as well. Not the greatest comic business model.

My point exactly they have no clue what they are doing.

 

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3 hours ago, kairos70 said:

He said the only DC title that he sells consistently is Batman. He doesn't even have file customers for the other DC titles. His customers mainly subscribe and buy Marvel or independents.

Is this a tiny shop? I guess this is the drawback in DC cutting back on titles (has that happened yet?). It is almost like they want to fail at comics so they can get out of the business, Too bad they've been trying to fail at movies too. 

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48 minutes ago, the blob said:

Is this a tiny shop? I guess this is the drawback in DC cutting back on titles (has that happened yet?). It is almost like they want to fail at comics so they can get out of the business, Too bad they've been trying to fail at movies too. 

Yes, a small town shop but I guess it's a case of KYC (know your customers). He has a good subscriber base but like I said DC isn't a big seller for him. He wasn't the only local shop complaining about DC sales though. Another shop owner said he took a bath on all of the DC Future State titles. Those titles had $5.99,$6.99 and $7.99 cover prices. He's subscriber base is much higher so he was just starting to reconsider the number of shelf copies he actually needed to keep his walk-in customers supplied. Several customers come in weekly but they don't want to commit to a pull list.

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DC have become a joke and most of my customers are steering away from it. I have been a retailer for close to 25 years and sales never have been this low. Future state was a disaster and the Infinite Horizon titles are selling even less. I ordered 70 copies of Batman Urban Legends 1 and sold 15. Even Batman is down to a little under 60 copies now which is an all time low for me. I sold 20% of my Joker 1 order. It's like throwing money down the drain. I am not taking chances with DC titles any more and order low now. If the people in power at DC don't wake up soon they will lose the few readers they have left. Comic book sales have never been as low as in  the last 12 or 13 months, Covid hit us very hard. Sales were down to over 50% in some months but things are getting better now and they slowly rise again. I doubt that I will ever reach the amount of sales we had in our best years again but I'm pretty sure that better days are ahead of us. Probably not this year but I'm counting on 2022. Manga sales are up 50% and we are selling more every month. We don't have enough space for manga right now and are toying with the idea to open a store dedicated to them right next to our location because demand has been so high. It's actually nice to see some kids coming into the store again. But most of them don't care for comic books.

Independents and Marvel still sell on a decent level but the recent issues of Previews are quite depressing as there isn't much in them. Deliveries are getting smaller by the week. I have multiple accounts at Diamond, one for Previews orders, one for products and goodies and one for trade reorders. It's easier for us that way as we don't need to separate new books and trade reorders when we work on our deliveries. In the past we always received more new books than reorders (box count) and now it's the other way around. This means that we still have a lot of customers who just buy trades which is good but less and less people buy the monthly books. Sales stats confirm my thoughts, I sell more trades now than monthly issues.

Recent DC trade sales have been down. Customers do not want to buy over priced HC's and they are not attracted by the current story lines. A few books have stood out but we are far away from the quantities we sold a few years ago. I sold over 200 copies of White Knight (hard and soft). Curse of the White Knight sold less than 30 copies. Good sellers in the past were 50 copies or more. Now I'm happy when a DC trade sells more than 25 copies and that doesn't happen a lot. I have sold between 2 and 8 copies of the recent Joker War HC's just to give you an idea. I checked sales stats for the last 12 months the other day and DC now sells approximately the same amount Marvel does. In the past I sold almost twice as many DC trades than Marvel ones.

 

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6 hours ago, gojira said:

DC have become a joke and most of my customers are steering away from it. I have been a retailer for close to 25 years and sales never have been this low. Future state was a disaster and the Infinite Horizon titles are selling even less. I ordered 70 copies of Batman Urban Legends 1 and sold 15. Even Batman is down to a little under 60 copies now which is an all time low for me. I sold 20% of my Joker 1 order. It's like throwing money down the drain. I am not taking chances with DC titles any more and order low now. If the people in power at DC don't wake up soon they will lose the few readers they have left. Comic book sales have never been as low as in  the last 12 or 13 months, Covid hit us very hard. Sales were down to over 50% in some months but things are getting better now and they slowly rise again. I doubt that I will ever reach the amount of sales we had in our best years again but I'm pretty sure that better days are ahead of us. Probably not this year but I'm counting on 2022. Manga sales are up 50% and we are selling more every month. We don't have enough space for manga right now and are toying with the idea to open a store dedicated to them right next to our location because demand has been so high. It's actually nice to see some kids coming into the store again. But most of them don't care for comic books.

Independents and Marvel still sell on a decent level but the recent issues of Previews are quite depressing as there isn't much in them. Deliveries are getting smaller by the week. I have multiple accounts at Diamond, one for Previews orders, one for products and goodies and one for trade reorders. It's easier for us that way as we don't need to separate new books and trade reorders when we work on our deliveries. In the past we always received more new books than reorders (box count) and now it's the other way around. This means that we still have a lot of customers who just buy trades which is good but less and less people buy the monthly books. Sales stats confirm my thoughts, I sell more trades now than monthly issues.

Recent DC trade sales have been down. Customers do not want to buy over priced HC's and they are not attracted by the current story lines. A few books have stood out but we are far away from the quantities we sold a few years ago. I sold over 200 copies of White Knight (hard and soft). Curse of the White Knight sold less than 30 copies. Good sellers in the past were 50 copies or more. Now I'm happy when a DC trade sells more than 25 copies and that doesn't happen a lot. I have sold between 2 and 8 copies of the recent Joker War HC's just to give you an idea. I checked sales stats for the last 12 months the other day and DC now sells approximately the same amount Marvel does. In the past I sold almost twice as many DC trades than Marvel ones.

 

You're in France, right? Marvel and Image (Spawn at least) have been reporting good U.S. sales in the last 6 or whatever months since lockdowns started easing. Actually, i am pretty sure comic shops here in New York City opened up in June and we were one of the most restrictive (and hardest hit) areas, although there were probably capacity limitations (4 people in a small shop or whatever) and mask requirements (still are). DC seems to be in a lousy situation. They thought they could go the premium pricing larger format route and it seems to not be working. How is it that image managed to keep $2.99 cover prices through all of this?

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I feel like even me, a penny pinching miser, has gotten sucked into the madness here. I just paid $160 (shipped) for a CGC 9.8 copy of an early 2000s modern classic cover marvel (won't say which). While I think I got a decent deal, it was on par with recent auction results, but lower than recent BINs. I look at the book, which regularly sells for $50-65 in raw nice shape, and wondered why it is that price in 9.8 when there are"$20 raw" books like MCP 72 that are well into the $300s in 9.8 and $35-50 raw books that are hitting $400-500+ (x-men 282, 244). Admittedly, each of those is a little younger than the book I am looking at, which might impact things. 20 years ago the thought of paying that kind of money for a modern would never cross my mind, but here we are!

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23 minutes ago, the blob said:

I feel like even me, a penny pinching miser, has gotten sucked into the madness here. I just paid $160 (shipped) for a CGC 9.8 copy of an early 2000s modern classic cover marvel (won't say which). While I think I got a decent deal, it was on par with recent auction results, but lower than recent BINs. I look at the book, which regularly sells for $50-65 in raw nice shape, and wondered why it is that price in 9.8 when there are"$20 raw" books like MCP 72 that are well into the $300s in 9.8 and $35-50 raw books that are hitting $400-500+ (x-men 282, 244). Admittedly, each of those is a little younger than the book I am looking at, which might impact things. 20 years ago the thought of paying that kind of money for a modern would never cross my mind, but here we are!

who knows.. I did  that with batman beyond 1 a few years ago and that has appreciated well

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46 minutes ago, the blob said:

You're in France, right? Marvel and Image (Spawn at least) have been reporting good U.S. sales in the last 6 or whatever months since lockdowns started easing. Actually, i am pretty sure comic shops here in New York City opened up in June and we were one of the most restrictive (and hardest hit) areas, although there were probably capacity limitations (4 people in a small shop or whatever) and mask requirements (still are). DC seems to be in a lousy situation. They thought they could go the premium pricing larger format route and it seems to not be working. How is it that image managed to keep $2.99 cover prices through all of this?

You hit on a major point for me.  The premium pricing is a massive detractor.  

I know the Future State books were large, but they were too expensive. 

Doesn't help when they are both expensive and not very good quality.  

With Future State, I really hoped we'd see a radical different take on some characters.  With only a few issues, I thought it might happen.  That was really disappointing.  

As some have mentioned, it feels like things are far gone.  They really need a new vision.  

Patrick 

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28 minutes ago, Wolverinex said:

who knows.. I did  that with batman beyond 1 a few years ago and that has appreciated well

it is a book I assumed would be $250-300 in this market and it wasn't. it really hasn't done much at all since january (the ebay data I can see). although i guess this market is slightly less interested in classic covers because folks new to the hobby don't appreciate them for what they are and are thinking monetized first appearances ("rookie cards") and such. if i could just get a catwoman 51 for $160 I'd be pretty happy. i picked up a 9.8 46 for $50.. that is one of my favorite AH catwoman covers, although it doesn't push the cleavage, so fanboys don't care as much. it is hard figuring this market out. why is MCP 72 basically no more than a $20-25 book raw and is well into the $300s in 9.8. i just have a tough time believing something makes it hard in 9.8 as it has always been a "special" enough book to get a bag and board.

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1 minute ago, the blob said:

it is a book I assumed would be $250-300 in this market and it wasn't. although i guess this market is slightly less interested in classic covers because folks new to the hobby don't appreciate them for what they are and are thinking monetized first appearances ("rookie cards") and such. if i could just get a catwoman 51 for $160 I'd be pretty happy. i picked up a 9.8 46 for $50.. that is one of my favorite AH catwoman covers, although it doesn't push the cleavage, so fanboys don't care as much. it is hard figuring this market out. why is MCP 72 basically no more than a $20-25 book raw and is well into the $300s in 9.8. i just have a tough time believing something makes it hard in 9.8 as it has always been a "special" enough book to get a bag and board.

batman beyond is about to hit the rule of 25. ... Kids growing up with him are about to make bank.  

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1 minute ago, Wolverinex said:

batman beyond is about to hit the rule of 25. ... Kids growing up with him are about to make bank.  

BB is something I was barely aware of. indeed, i probably avoided it in dollar bins because it looked cartoony (not #1, but later issues). i did manage to find a nice #3 in my boxes that I sold for over $50. And it is totally rule of 25. This came out when I was an adult and I was not paying attention. But if I ever saw Thundercats #1 in a cheap box I definitely bought it. Yes, I was 13 when it first aired, so i was a little old for it and did not watch it (my younger brother did), but still. And I did not realize the comic came out so close to the cartoon.

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40 minutes ago, the blob said:

BB is something I was barely aware of. indeed, i probably avoided it in dollar bins because it looked cartoony (not #1, but later issues). i did manage to find a nice #3 in my boxes that I sold for over $50. And it is totally rule of 25. This came out when I was an adult and I was not paying attention. But if I ever saw Thundercats #1 in a cheap box I definitely bought it. Yes, I was 13 when it first aired, so i was a little old for it and did not watch it (my younger brother did), but still. And I did not realize the comic came out so close to the cartoon.

I guess you didn't have kids who watched it.  It was incredibly popular in 1999.  Also actually a really well done show, so check it out sometime!

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43 minutes ago, followtheleader said:

You hit on a major point for me.  The premium pricing is a massive detractor.  

I know the Future State books were large, but they were too expensive. 

Doesn't help when they are both expensive and not very good quality.  

With Future State, I really hoped we'd see a radical different take on some characters.  With only a few issues, I thought it might happen.  That was really disappointing.  

As some have mentioned, it feels like things are far gone.  They really need a new vision.  

Patrick 

It is one thing to have some "event" books with premium pricing like the batman dark thing a while ago, but to do it all the time... with that said, logically, if they are putting out 48 page comics then folks should be cool with $4.99 or $5.99 if they were ok with $2.50 or $2.99... but don't expect them to buy the same # of books. With that said, Marvel is managing with mostly $3.99 cover prices, not exactly cheap.

Of course, I am not the right guy to talk to about these things as I've never had a pull list and never had the patience to stick with a title off the rack for more than 5 or 6 months since the mid 90s. That's about how long I lasted with Walking Dead reading it in the 50s and 60s and the Goon. 

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4 minutes ago, Wolverinex said:

I guess you didn't have kids who watched it.  It was incredibly popular in 1999.  Also actually a really well done show, so check it out sometime!

My teenager might be watching it now on HBO Max, he said he was watching batman cartoons (I never liked the boxy style those cartoons used). As he was not born until 2005, no, i was not watching it with my kids in 1999. In 1999 I was a 27 year old corporate lawyer working 80 hours a week. No time for cartoons. Not much time for anything then. Anyway, we're paying for HBO Max, so bit by bit we will be working through the archives. The 90 minute cartoon movies are a nice "movie night" thing, especially when mom has passed out for the night.

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14 minutes ago, the blob said:

My teenager might be watching it now on HBO Max, he said he was watching batman cartoons (I never liked the boxy style those cartoons used). As he was not born until 2005, no, i was not watching it with my kids in 1999. In 1999 I was a 27 year old corporate lawyer working 80 hours a week. No time for cartoons. Not much time for anything then. Anyway, we're paying for HBO Max, so bit by bit we will be working through the archives. The 90 minute cartoon movies are a nice "movie night" thing, especially when mom has passed out for the night.

Batman Beyond Return of Joker is probably the best animated movie ever made.  Watch the uncut version. It's very adult oriented though.  

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8 minutes ago, Wolverinex said:

Batman Beyond Return of Joker is probably the best animated movie ever made.  Watch the uncut version. It's very adult oriented though.  

I have exposed my 9 year old to so much inappropriate stuff he is broken at this point. We watch Invincible.

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49 minutes ago, Wolverinex said:

Are you still doing corporate?  I heard that is where the big money is.   Although you may lose your soul.

No, I used to make money. I work for the government now. It took me almost 17 years, but I now make 60% of what I was making in 2004. When I first started I was only making 1/3 of my former salary.

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