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The Future of Comic Books
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160 posts in this topic

3 hours ago, ygogolak said:

Yes, but there weren't comic book, gaming & magic shops then.

I think Magic:The Gathering is going to be huge in the future if we go by nostalgia.

Another good bet is Harry Potter.

This nostalgia has a huge affect on people when they get older.

My 27 year old nephew who I may point out is a psychologist and married with children collects Pokemon cards and Jurassic Park action figures.lol

He grew up collecting Pokemon cards and the Jurassic Park movie was his Star Wars. So yeah there is a lot of truth to what people buy when they are young they get nostalgic for when they get older.

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1 minute ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

I think Magic:The Gathering is going to be huge in the future if we go by nostalgia.

Another good bet is Harry Potter.

This nostalgia has a huge affect on people when they get older.

My 27 year old nephew who I may point out is a psychologist and married with children collects Pokemon cards and Jurassic Park action figures.lol

He grew up collecting Pokemon cards and the Jurassic Park movie was his Star Wars. So yeah there is a lot of truth to what people buy when they are young they get nostalgic for when they get older.

Agreed. Wish I knew more about Magic and Pokemon for when I hit yard sales and such.

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3 hours ago, exitmusicblue said:

Also, even this opening post shows a lack of knowledge.

Go on ebay, search for "Bowman Chrome," and sort via Highest Price.

At top should be a 2009 Mike Trout superfractor auto listed at a best offer price of 500k, with hundreds of watchers.

Yep, modern sportscards is thriving hobby and made a comeback. The dead cards are those 80s and 90s ones that were over produced. 

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3 hours ago, exitmusicblue said:

Plus, this is like equating the demise of Blockbuster stores (happened) to the demise of movie viewing (not gonna happen)... it's the death of a medium, nothing more.

Wouldn't worry, the market will be stronger than ever for your books in 15 years.

100 percent agree with this. For a decade I have been hearing that comic books were going to fade away, and just about every comic book key with a few exceptions has doubled in price in the last decade.

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1 hour ago, ygogolak said:

Agreed. Wish I knew more about Magic and Pokemon for when I hit yard sales and such.

For Magic, the most valuable cards were from the first few sets and expansions, because they contained the most powerful cards in the game (many which would not be produced later) and also because there simply was not enough Magic cards to meet demand when they first came out in the Early 90's. You probably could find a website out there that tells you how to determine which series a card is from. I got a multi-row box of them sitting in my storage bin that I will go through at some point.

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3 hours ago, FineCollector said:

Does anyone know how many Archie digests are sold through grocery stores, and how that number compares to floppies sold through specialty comic shops?

 

2 hours ago, ygogolak said:

Perhaps RockMyAmadeus will have some solid data on this. In the meantime, I did come across some info that before Archie was relaunched in 2015, the digests were selling about 4x the number of the regular sized comics. The distribution of the regular size comics was roughly around 10,000 copies an issue or so at that time. 

Edited by VegasJeff
can't spell
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On 2017-07-10 at 5:00 AM, exitmusicblue said:

Meanwhile as the world's population continues to increase and superheroes become all the more internationalized, comics remain a luxury for most, but perhaps will be less so.  An ever-expanding market with no end in sight.  The US is but one front in the big picture.

This is a factor that only the largest companies seem to take into account.

Disney is setting up shop in Asia.

What was the world's population when Action #1 hit and when FF #1 hit the newsstands?

I don't think we really know which direction things are going to go for sure but most large companies have started to realize that population growth is a real factor to account for in business.

Edited by VintageComics
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On 2017-07-10 at 11:49 AM, exitmusicblue said:

Plus, this is like equating the demise of Blockbuster stores (happened) to the demise of movie viewing (not gonna happen)... it's the death of a medium, nothing more.

I wouldn't even call it the death of a medium. I'd just call it a diversification of the medium.

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On 2017-07-10 at 0:08 PM, ygogolak said:

Right, like I said, it's different depending where you live. To paint a broad brush across the entire country is not accurate.

Are you talking about Vintage stores?

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1 hour ago, Quicksilver Signs said:

What's your take on this, do you see many comics only stores? I'm struggling to think of 1 I've seen in th past 10 years, I usually check out comic shops when I travel. 

Comics and comic toys. Usually they will have some toys laying around. There are 3 around me that's all they have. No gaming or anything.

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1 hour ago, Quicksilver Signs said:

What's your take on this, do you see many comics only stores? I'm struggling to think of 1 I've seen in th past 10 years, I usually check out comic shops when I travel. 


You know,  I misread your previous post and thought you said there were more comic stores in the 1970's which could not have been true,

Now I see you said the 80's.

Comics only stores don't survive but that alone doesn't mean it's because comics are declining. There are a zillion venues to buy books now.

And to my recollection comic stores always had other things in them (my recollection goes back to the mid-late 80's. They just have more of those other things now than they used to.

But to answer your questions, it is regional.

 

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On 6/21/2017 at 7:20 PM, TheSSurfer said:

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?

Your coworkers are insufficiently_thoughtful_persons.

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On 6/22/2017 at 9:20 AM, TheSSurfer said:

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?

I haven’t read the whole thread, so some folks have probably already said this, but there have been massive sales for sports cards in the past couple of years. I remember reading about several multi-million dollar sales last year. 

That said, I believe comics are a different beast. The trading card scene relies much more heavily on nostalgia and people knowing the great players of the past. As an Australian, I can only name a couple of famous baseball players. But I can name countless characters from comic books… comics are universal and (while I haven’t sat down and worked it out precisely, my gut tells me that) the big and small screens keep new fans coming each generation or two almost like clockwork. (Wilson > Lowery > West > Keaton > Conroy > Kilmer > George “The Nipples” Clooney > Bale > Arnett > Affleck > Pattinson etc)

I firmly believe the future of comics is solid. It will evolve, but not die out. The medium will change, and (as we’ve recently seen with the Substack positioning) we’re going to see more creator-owned IP. But it’ll take an apocalyptic event for interest in IH181 to be slim to none. 

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On 2/13/2022 at 10:11 PM, Arkham said:

I haven’t read the whole thread, so some folks have probably already said this, but there have been massive sales for sports cards in the past couple of years. I remember reading about several multi-million dollar sales last year. 

That said, I believe comics are a different beast. The trading card scene relies much more heavily on nostalgia and people knowing the great players of the past. As an Australian, I can only name a couple of famous baseball players. But I can name countless characters from comic books… comics are universal and (while I haven’t sat down and worked it out precisely, my gut tells me that) the big and small screens keep new fans coming each generation or two almost like clockwork. (Wilson > Lowery > West > Keaton > Conroy > Kilmer > George “The Nipples” Clooney > Bale > Arnett > Affleck > Pattinson etc)

I firmly believe the future of comics is solid. It will evolve, but not die out. The medium will change, and (as we’ve recently seen with the Substack positioning) we’re going to see more creator-owned IP. But it’ll take an apocalyptic event for interest in IH181 to be slim to none. 

And should that day come, I'll happily pick through them like fresh raspberries, and buy what I can. They were always real to me. 

Edited by Mecha_Fantastic
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Reading through this thread has been fascinating and many great points were made. I do think it's worth considering that an entire generation is growing up bombarded with these characters as the new Pop Culture but, unlike us, their first exposure is likely to film rather than the printed page. That might make collecting back issues more of a niche thing than it already is. Let me put it this way; if someone goes to a movie based on a book, let's say "The Three Musketeers" and they walk out and you stop them and ask them, "are you going to go out now and buy the actual novel by Dumas?"  Chances are, they're going to say no because why would they? They just saw the film. A variation of this will happen as time goes on. How can Marvel's endless reboots and recycled ideas and lack of consistency compare with the MCU? They have enough of the MCU to binge, they won't want the comics.

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Looking at the old Mile High comic ads and prices who would have thought we would be where we are today? Of course, that isn't evidence either way. The past is not a predictor of the future.

So all I can go with is my own sentiment. And that is, as a future buyer I want prices to drop. But with 10,000+ comics stored away and available to read any time I want, high prices aren't a chore either.

I do, however, feel sad for younger and newer collectors with the increased cost of owning and reading the original funny books. 

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My kids are teenagers and they like the Marvel movies and videogames, however they have no interest in the old comics. (Although my daughter does read manga.) 

I am a little concerned that once the 30-somethings work their way through the system, there will not be sufficient demand from the following generations. 

Regarding baseball/sports cards... that hobby is hotter than ever after being pronounced dead many times. Hopefully that is good news for comics! 

Edited by Mr. Zipper
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On 2/14/2022 at 6:51 AM, Mr. Zipper said:

My kids are teenagers and they like the Marvel movies and videogames, however they no interest in the old comics. (Although my daughter does read manga) 

I am a little concerned that once the 30-somethings work their way through the system, there will not be sufficient demand from the following generations. 

Regarding baseball/sports cards... that hobby is hotter than ever after being pronounced dead many times. Hopefully that is good news for comics! 

100%

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