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The Future of Comic Books
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The Future of Comic Books

Me and my coworkers had a discussion today, because I recently bought a Hulk 181. They decided to bring up how baseball cards used to be worth a lot before, but currently the interest is slim to none.

 

With today's generation, how does everyone feel the market will be in the future for comics? Do they think it'll continue to grow, or eventually die out?

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It will be just fine. The only question is, when some sort of a correction takes place, how far back will it set us and for how long. 

Apples to oranges, almost a decade later, the real estate market hasn't fully recovered since '08 even though some areas recovered much faster than others. And that's real estate, which is far more lucrative and essential to modern living than comic books.

How inflated are we today? No one knows. But we can guess 

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8 minutes ago, Aweandlorder said:

It will be just fine. The only question is, when some sort of a correction takes place, how far back will it set us and for how long. 

Apples to oranges, almost a decade later, the real estate market hasn't fully recovered since '08 even though some areas recovered much faster than others. And that's real estate, which is far more lucrative and essential to modern living than comic books.

How inflated are we today? No one knows. But we can guess 

True, but you can't say these constant come out of variants is helping it any. Isn't variants what caused the 90s crash?

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7 minutes ago, FineCollector said:

The internet made baseball cards obsolete.  Not hard to find pictures and stats from your favorite players anymore...

The same can be said about comics, you can download the virtual books from online too.

not saying I agree with them by any means, but it does make you think.

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4 minutes ago, TheSSurfer said:

The same can be said about comics, you can download the virtual books from online too.

not saying I agree with them by any means, but it does make you think.

No, not the same at all.  A comic is meant to be read.  What is a baseball card for?

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With the title I assume you meant just the medium of comics, which will be fine, there's probably more being made now than ever before, the amount of self published comics and comics outside the mainstream superhero marvel/dc stuff is bigger and more diverse than ever. Now the money collector side of it? Who cares.

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Baseball Cards and Comics are both affected by real world influence.   I remember back in the late 1980's when Baseball Card Shows were big, Hall of Famers like Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams,  Joe Dimaggio, etc., got huge crowds, and even back then they were getting $50-$100 per signature.   Baby Boomers couldn't get enough of the 1950's/1960's Topps sets.  So modern speculation began, and then traded sets became the hot rookie cards, then Upper Deck and Ken Griffey Jr. came along. 

Now since then, we had a strike that basically killed a season, the steroid revelations, and a younger generation not even paying attention to baseball games on tv, so the baseball card industry today is  shell of itself.   Yeah the blue chip cards will still sell (a recent Ty Cobb stash of cards from an old man's dresser drawer, and didn't another Honus Wagner card just auction off for big money?), but the stuff coming off assembly lines today...pffftt...You can't even find a baseball card show in many major cities anymore. 

Now comic books.  This boon of movies, and reintroduction to pop culture has given comics a bit of a mainstream renaissance.  Comics, t-shirts, posters, bed sheets, this stuff is everywhere in stores.  There definitely needs to be a correction, as pointed out earlier, but this is really up to the comic companies to screw up (and Marvel is definitely trying its best to screw up).  I think print comics will still be around a long time, they just need to write a good story, give us some good art, and stop screwing with the characters so much. 

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Baseball cards aren't the original source-material for so many significant modern cultural stories, characters and icons. These characters and stories are the modern equivalents of King Arthur, Sherlock Holmes, Icarus, Frankenstein, Prometheus, Hamlet, Robin Hood, Hercules, Oedipus, Huck Finn and so many others.

 

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The Future of Comic Book collecting is a bright one in my opinion.  Of course world events, economic events, political events ebb and flow markets and those affect all things money based.

Comic movies have obviously brought new blood into the hobby.  There is still a huge knowledge gap I feel though between this new blood and many Silver and especially Golden Age books. Hell I've been collecting for decades and still come across stuff I never new existed.

As information transfer in the hobby improves and more younger collectors have better means to discover the depth of the hobby it will only improve.  High Tech paying jobs for this echelon of new or upcoming collectors also helps to keep a bit of a floor.

Think of what went into comic books.  You had creative teams producing a product from their creativity, you had companies that supported them, manufacturing process, you had distribution channels, etc; this is a ton of energy that went into producing these sought after Cultural Relics.  What they represent often transcend the ages.  There is a general scarcity that will only increase as more and more realize what is really out there and certain books become more favored by the next generation.

I'm still discovering.

 

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1 hour ago, Mercury Man said:


Baseball Cards and Comics are both affected by real world influence.   I remember back in the late 1980's when Baseball Card Shows were big, Hall of Famers like Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams,  Joe Dimaggio, etc., got huge crowds, and even back then they were getting $50-$100 per signature.   Baby Boomers couldn't get enough of the 1950's/1960's Topps sets.  So modern speculation began, and then traded sets became the hot rookie cards, then Upper Deck and Ken Griffey Jr. came along. 

Now since then, we had a strike that basically killed a season, the steroid revelations, and a younger generation not even paying attention to baseball games on tv, so the baseball card industry today is  shell of itself.   Yeah the blue chip cards will still sell (a recent Ty Cobb stash of cards from an old man's dresser drawer, and didn't another Honus Wagner card just auction off for big money?), but the stuff coming off assembly lines today...pffftt...You can't even find a baseball card show in many major cities anymore. 

Now comic books.  This boon of movies, and reintroduction to pop culture has given comics a bit of a mainstream renaissance.  Comics, t-shirts, posters, bed sheets, this stuff is everywhere in stores.  There definitely needs to be a correction, as pointed out earlier, but this is really up to the comic companies to screw up (and Marvel is definitely trying its best to screw up).  I think print comics will still be around a long time, they just need to write a good story, give us some good art, and stop screwing with the characters so much. 

I agree the new Cap America story isn't the best. I was just wondering because I collect for the art, history, and story. Also as a way to spend money and eventually make the money back or even earn a little if possible, but I make sure I buy characters I like so I'm not disappointed entirely. I do consider the chances of said comic going up though, that's for sure.

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1 hour ago, bounty_coder said:

The Future of Comic Book collecting is a bright one in my opinion.  Of course world events, economic events, political events ebb and flow markets and those affect all things money based.

Comic movies have obviously brought new blood into the hobby.  There is still a huge knowledge gap I feel though between this new blood and many Silver and especially Golden Age books. Hell I've been collecting for decades and still come across stuff I never new existed.

As information transfer in the hobby improves and more younger collectors have better means to discover the depth of the hobby it will only improve.  High Tech paying jobs for this echelon of new or upcoming collectors also helps to keep a bit of a floor.

Think of what went into comic books.  You had creative teams producing a product from their creativity, you had companies that supported them, manufacturing process, you had distribution channels, etc; this is a ton of energy that went into producing these sought after Cultural Relics.  What they represent often transcend the ages.  There is a general scarcity that will only increase as more and more realize what is really out there and certain books become more favored by the next generation.

I'm still discovering.

 

Yeah I can see that. My biggest concern is most people this day and age could care less about comic books. There are some, myself included, that grew up watching the cartoons and such, but just seems a lot of the millennial care more about social media and such then comics. I guess that's where I'm trying to get at.

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Didn't feel like reading "everything", but I read some....

back when the big thing was Mickey Mantle, Joe Dimaggio, etc they eventually quit and go back to there lives. As far as comics you "still" can pick up Peter Parker, but I don't think comics will go the way of baseball cards until old heroes are forgotten.

Such as Logan replaced with X-23, Thor with Lady-Thor, Spiderman with Spidergwen, Incredible Hulk with ??? Iron Man with female Iron-man, these may all be precursors to a time of comics that "could" be forgotten.

Until then or even now it could go either way.....

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I dont have beef with marketing collectibles straight out of the gate. Even if they are not being used (read)

Do people who spend 10s of thousands of dollars on limited edition Nike shoes get to wear them?

Do the companies market these with the intent of their users wearing them?

But that doesnt stop 100s of thousands of people from lining up outside of a store rain or shine and hoping to get a pair and pay stupid amoutns of money

Do they end up flipping them on eBay?

Sure

Is Nike going out of business anytime soon?

No

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1 hour ago, TheSSurfer said:

I can agree with that. I mean they're cool but I feel they are losing their meaning.

Too many variants each Wed. e.g. Mighty Mouse #1 for some reason had 5 different covers so a pure marketing ploy by Dynamite Comics to increase direct sales. Good business or leading to a new issue market crash in 2018? :news:

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42 minutes ago, aardvark88 said:

Too many variants each Wed. e.g. Mighty Mouse #1 for some reason had 5 different covers so a pure marketing ploy by Dynamite Comics to increase direct sales. Good business or leading to a new issue market crash in 2018? :news:

That Alex Ross Variant :sick:

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