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What is happening to WD #1 value?!?!
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160 posts in this topic

19 hours ago, valiantman said:

Before the TV series, the Walking Dead comic wasn't nearly as popular as other recent Image titles like Saga.  Since there's no 3rd print variant (Saga #1 "RRP") equivalent for Walking Dead #1, it's likely that Walking Dead #1 would be slightly more valuable than Saga #1 (first printing) and possibly below Invincible #1, which is older than Walking Dead #1 and also a well-loved Kirkman series.

Well put. Without the TV show it likely would have struggled to hit the $1K mark and may have been cancelled by now.  

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2 hours ago, Jaydogrules said:

I addressed this a while back in another thread.  I linked about 16 recent sales at the time, grade for grade as well as raw that showed NO difference in pricing, and that remains the case now.

-J.

Thanks Jay, I vaguely recall the thread now that you mention it. 

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9 minutes ago, kimik said:

Well put. Without the TV show it likely would have struggled to hit the $1K mark and may have been cancelled by now.  

And the point is....? (shrug)

There's A LOT of books in every single Age of comics that would "probably" be worth less in the absence of some other kind of media giving them a wider or mass audience exposure.  

-J.

Edited by Jaydogrules
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Just now, Jaydogrules said:

And the point it? (shrug)

There's A LOT of books in every single Age of comics that would "probably" be worth less in the absence of some other kind of media giving them a wider or mass audience exposure.  

-J.

True enough. But the difference is that most of the other books had solid established value as a comic collectible before the TV show or movie, not because of it. Comparing WD #1 to AF #15 or IH #181 is not accurate as a result - Spider-Man and Wolverine were popular with comic collectors/readers for 2 decades+ before the movies hit. WD #1 prices were driven primarily by TV show viewers who were not comic collectors/readers. Those buyers do not care about a #1 1st print or black or white copy if they can get a TPB instead. WD will likely follow the same fate as the pre-unity and retailer incentive Valiants did after their speculative run up and bust.

FWIW, WD back issues have been cold the past couple of years at shows - demand has been droppingas the viewership of the show wanes which is an early warning sign of things to come (you can basically say the same for all Image back issues across the board except for Saga). There is price resistance on keys and all early issues. This is why my view is that WD #1 prices will drop nicely after the TV show ends. It may take a bit as speculators do not want to sell initially as prices continue to drop and book a loss, but without the TV show to fuel the hype/speculation the prices on WD #1 will drop for a few years and plateau well below the peak. That will be the time to buy and tuck a copy or two away for the long haul, but even then I am not certain since the whole zombie/vampire/horror theme has been played out numerous times over the years across different generations. If you are into a 9.8 for less than $1k you should be okay longer term after the TV glow fades on prices, but if you bought it at the $2K+ level then expect prices to continue to trend down (or expect to hold for a long time). 

 

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21 hours ago, Jaydogrules said:

A legitimate case could be made that Walking Dead 1 represents the real start of the "Modern Age".

Walking Dead is still a top ten selling title after 15 years.  

Walking Dead is Image's top selling title, month in and month out.

Walking Dead is a legitimate "run" title. 

As Image's best selling title for the last what, ten years straight, it has helped titles like Saga, Seven to Eternity, etc. be possible.  

It is a household name at this point. You can say "well it's because of the show blah blah blah".  Well without the comic there would have been no show.  

As I've already stated, Kirkman has the title mapped out for years after the show is done.  

And even if/when the comic ends, it is not likely the franchise will ever be completely abandoned.  And even if it was, there are plenty of series that hsve ended that still sell well and grow in value.  If you'e worried about that, how do you feel about, say, Saga, which will be lucky to get to 100 issues over the next 20 years at this rate lol, and won't have multiple TV shows that lasted ten+ seasons.  

WD is a bona fide multimedia phenomenon.  TV shows, video games, funkos, comic books, syndication, a movie at some point is inevitable.  These things will not disappear into a black hole simply because the show ends (whenever that will be, it has at least two more seasons coming up). 

As a (or "the") tent pole book of the Modern Age, if it goes down it's because everything else went down.  Similar to what would happen to every other SA key if AF 15 had a severe and protracted price correction or the BA if Hulk 181 ever did.  

That must about covers it.  But I'm sure I could come up with even more reasons if I thought about it a little more. 

-J.

 

 

While, I agree with some of your points, everyone seems to forget Marvel's Ultimate line, that is what started the modern age. Ultimate Spiderman was on fire for most of it's entire run and for a time ULS outsold Amazing. The Ultimate line and a lot of great Wildstorm books, The Authority, Planetary, got people back into comics again after long absences from the hobby.

Edited by maraxusofkeld
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1 hour ago, maraxusofkeld said:

While, I agree with some of your points, everyone seems to forget Marvel's Ultimate line, that is what started the modern age. Ultimate Spiderman was on fire for most of it's entire run and for a time ULS outsold Amazing. The Ultimate line and a lot of great Wildstorm books, The Authority, Planetary, got people back into comics again after long absences from the hobby.

I agree. Ultimate Spider-man #1 white variant, with a print run under Walking Dead #1, is likely to hold up as a better $500 investment than WD #1 at $2K.

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11 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

:popcorn:

Define "catastrophe."

Economic collapse thanks to war or natural disaster.

Or some sort of brutal price correction that sweeps through the entire hobby...kind of like what happened to baseball cards.

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Wow another thread claiming that WD is over priced. These come up 2-3 times a year and so far every single one has been wrong. Recently I had to sell my entire comic collection which included a complete set of the WD (#1-#171) in CGC 9.8 condition. I had NO PROBLEMS selling 90% of the series and I received close to GPA for most issues. I had 3 copies of issue #1 and sold two of them for $2,300 each without paying EBAY fees.

Historically the keys go down after the show ends and pick up when it starts again in October. The key thing to remember is the print run for issue #1. There were less than 7,300 copies made. The value of WD is fine guys. The sky is not falling. This annual topic is getting pretty hilarious. 

Edited by raybowles
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3 hours ago, newshane said:

Economic collapse thanks to war or natural disaster.

Or some sort of brutal price correction that sweeps through the entire hobby...kind of like what happened to baseball cards.

It would not take that sort of collapse for WD #1 to see sub-$1,000 prices.

Several books have done similar things in the very recent past.

Factoring for inflation both externally ("Inflation") and internally (the avg. cover price of a comic today), that has happened with books like Cerebus #1 and TMNT #1, both of which were $400-$500 books by 1986-ish or so. TMNT #1 was the Walking Dead #1 of its generation, as you know. 

By the end of the 90s, you could buy both books for $100 or less.

Thanks to its creation in the CGC age, there are plenty of ultra high grade copies available, so it stands to reason that supply will outstrip demand at some point.

It has had legs longer than most, for sure...but without characters that are sustained, to which successive generations can identify, once the idea has played out in the public consciousness, all that will be left are the collectors. And if Kirkman ends the series at some point, that's it.

Someone said earlier that WD might have been cancelled if the show didn't exist...? That's not true. Image has published, and continues to publish, books that would have been, and should have been, cancelled by other publishers, because that's what Image does. Without the show, I suspect we'd still be on issue #180 or wherever we are at the moment.

Edited by RockMyAmadeus
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1 hour ago, raybowles said:

There were less than 7,300 copies made.

Estimated comics shipped to North American comics shops is not "copies made" (AKA print run).

1 hour ago, raybowles said:

Historically the keys go down after the show ends and pick up when it starts again in October.

Exactly. Prices that reached their current levels largely because of the show drop when greater attention is briefly off TWD between TV seasons, so they obviously won't sustain when the extra attention is gone permanently.

40 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Someone said earlier that WD might have been cancelled if the show didn't exist...? That's not true. Image has published, and continues to publish, books that would have been, and should have been, cancelled by other publishers, because that's what Image does. Without the show, I suspect we'd still be on issue #180 or wherever we are at the moment.

No kidding.

But also, issue sales were steadily, if relatively slowly, increasing before the show was even rumored. The large increase didn't even happen until the show had been on for a few seasons. It's not some Marvel title from the same time period that started out pretty well but consistently dropped until it needed a relaunch boost, and then had that cycle repeated a couple more times.

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3 hours ago, raybowles said:

Wow another thread claiming the WD is over priced. These come up 2-3 times a year and so far every single one has been wrong. Recently I had to sell my entire comic collection which included a complete set of the WD (#1-#171) in CGC 9.8 condition. I had NO PROBLEMS selling 90% of the series and I received close to GPA for most issues. I had 3 copies of issue #1 and sold two of them for $2,300 each without paying EBAY fees.

Historically the keys go down after the show ends and pick up when it starts again in October. The key thing to remember is the print run for issue #1. There were less than 7,300 copies made. The value of WD is fine guys. The sky is not falling. This annual topic is getting pretty hilarious. 

Sounds like you got out when the going was good! :baiting:lol

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4 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

It would not take that sort of collapse for WD #1 to see sub-$1,000 prices.

Several books have done similar things in the very recent past.

Factoring for inflation both externally ("Inflation") and internally (the avg. cover price of a comic today), that has happened with books like Cerebus #1 and TMNT #1, both of which were $400-$500 books by 1986-ish or so. TMNT #1 was the Walking Dead #1 of its generation, as you know. 

By the end of the 90s, you could buy both books for $100 or less.

Thanks to its creation in the CGC age, there are plenty of ultra high grade copies available, so it stands to reason that supply will outstrip demand at some point.

It has had legs longer than most, for sure...but without characters that are sustained, to which successive generations can identify, once the idea has played out in the public consciousness, all that will be left are the collectors. And if Kirkman ends the series at some point, that's it.

Someone said earlier that WD might have been cancelled if the show didn't exist...? That's not true. Image has published, and continues to publish, books that would have been, and should have been, cancelled by other publishers, because that's what Image does. Without the show, I suspect we'd still be on issue #180 or wherever we are at the moment.

Speculation is fun. It's part of the allure of collecting, for many.

Only time will tell. It will be fun to revisit this thread in 5 years...then 10.

I'm just of the opinion that demand for this book will outstrip the supply, even after the show is toast. 

We might see a "panic" dip in price several months to a few years after the show is over, but I still don't think the 9.8s will dip to 1,000.

I don't have a dog in this hunt, however. I have never owned a WD1 and likely never will...unless I'm wrong and the price DOES dip to 1,000 and below.

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I don’t think this is the normal price drop between seasons. The comics are WAY down in all grades especially lower than 9.8. 

I think it has everything to do with people starting to really dislike the show and the continuing decline in viewers. Lowest ratings since season 2. From wiki:

C086D76C-3699-438B-935D-BF00B9D1F5C9.pngI

ps I miss th governor. Even tho he wasn’t as cool as comic governor, he increased viewership and a lot of people talked about the show when he was around moreso than negan.

Edited by jason4
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