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Ranking the genres
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57 posts in this topic

43 minutes ago, Dr. Love said:

A more interesting question is: what are the most relevant genres?  Imagine you're a dealer who wants to have an e-commerce solution.  You hire a web designer, and in that first meeting, the consultant is talking to you about your vision and what you want to accomplish.  Soon the conversation gets to specifics, to "requirements".  A database must be created - is your whole inventory going to be listed alphabetically, or will it be sorted and searchable in some more sophisticated manner?  If the answer to that is yes, then you'll have to make decisions about genres.

Why re-invent the wheel?  You can look to see how the big boys do it, the ones with the most data.  #1 of course is Ebay.  With a dataset of about 4,250,000 comics, how do they break it out?  Then from there you can consult the #2 source for data, HA with about 688,000 records.  Then you can look at various dealers and see how they work it up, like MCS, CC, Dale Roberts, Bob Storms, Steve Ritter.  The amount of genres a site will display can go from 10 to as much as 34. 

Overall, the ones below seem to be the most consistently used genres that comics are sorted into (as compared to collecting niches).  How many of us have something in every one of these genres?  What would your best set look like, your comic "all star team", one book to represent each genre?  Some would be strong in certain areas, weaker in others.  What would a sweet all around set look like?

 

Adventure (would include Jungle)

Cartoon, Movie, TV

Crime         

Funny Animals

Horror

Humor

Romance

Sci-Fi

Superhero

War

Western

Other (would include Religious, Sports, Classics Illustrated, Non-Fiction, Underground, etc)

 

                                                                                                             

 

Awesome. However I’d still want to see your best fish in the face cover too

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10 hours ago, 1950's war comics said:

i agree that funny animals have a slight lead over westerns lol heck i never even heard of that Wakely guy lol 

im just giving @Sqeggs another chance to post his super sweet  Peter Panda #5 !!!

Oh he got the Peter Panda 5. An 8.5 if I remember correctly. I bid on that, more out of respect for verzyl than anything else. But I actually did like the cover

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9 hours ago, Dr. Love said:

A more interesting question is: what are the most relevant genres?  Imagine you're a dealer who wants to have an e-commerce solution.  You hire a web designer, and in that first meeting, the consultant is talking to you about your vision and what you want to accomplish.  Soon the conversation gets to specifics, to "requirements".  A database must be created - is your whole inventory going to be listed alphabetically, or will it be sorted and searchable in some more sophisticated manner?  If the answer to that is yes, then you'll have to make decisions about genres. 

Why re-invent the wheel?  You can look to see how the big boys do it, the ones with the most data.  #1 of course is Ebay.  With a dataset of about 4,250,000 comics, how do they break it out?  Then from there you can consult the #2 source for data, HA with about 688,000 records.  Then you can look at various dealers and see how they work it up, like MCS, CC, Dale Roberts, Bob Storms, Steve Ritter.  The amount of genres a site will display can go from 10 to as much as 34. 

Overall, the ones below seem to be the most consistently used genres that comics are sorted into (as compared to collecting niches).  How many of us have something in every one of these genres?  What would your best set look like, your comic "all star team", one book to represent each genre?  Some would be strong in certain areas, weaker in others.  What would a sweet all around set look like?

 

Adventure (would include Jungle)

Cartoon, Movie, TV

Crime         

Funny Animals

Horror

Humor

Romance

Sci-Fi

Superhero

War

Western

Other (would include Religious, Sports, Classics Illustrated, Non-Fiction, Underground, etc)

 

                                                                                                             

 

Whatever you do just don't lump Horror and Sci-Fi together... god I get so tired of scrolling through hundreds of horror books to try and find my sci-fi. Sure there are like 3 books that overlap the genres, but that's no excuse!

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Remember Paratrooper and his parachute covers and who was it that collected playing card covers (I should know his screen name but I can't come up with it),  Someone I remember posting a WTB for golf covers.  Some went after the Gerber Photo-Journal dust jacket cover books.  And it goes on.

That is what I love is there is so much diversity in collecting and I enjoy seeing what interests other collectors and it has turned me on to new books as well.  

 

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9 minutes ago, Jayman said:

I started to collect Precode horror bowling covers, wait! I think I’m done! :grin:

 

Now you've got me thinking about other bowling covers.  Sensation #13 - cross-genre with Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini.  Bomber Comics #4 with the three Axis leaders. 

And obviously more but this is what I mentioned in my post above.  I see a genre and sometimes I think that is cool and start looking for other covers in that genres.  I am not necessarily going to collect them but it does open my eyes to other possibilities. 

@Jayman great book, J.

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21 hours ago, Junkdrawer said:

 

I’m not even sure I know all of the niches that folks collect. I’m almost positive that superheroes are number 1.

Not in any order..,yet, but what do collectors collect mostly and down the line? I know there’s cross over books. 

1. Superhero 

2. Pre code horror

3. Westerns

4. Military/war

5. Good Girl Art

6. Teen Humor

7. Cartoon/funnies

8. Classic covers

9. Christmas covers

10. Under water covers

11. Romance

12. Jungle

13. Crime

14. Sci Fi

15. Robots

16. Aliens

17. Skull covers

18. Bondage covers

19. Soti books

20. Photo covers

21. TV/Movie covers

22. Fish in face covers

23. Infinity covers 

24. Flag covers

25. Hitler covers

Well, strictly speaking these are not "genres", rather labels one uses to aid classification.
If you wish to stick to genres, the list becomes a lot shorter.

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4 minutes ago, vaillant said:
21 hours ago, Junkdrawer said:

I’m not even sure I know all of the niches that folks collect. I’m almost positive that superheroes are number 1.

Not in any order..,yet, but what do collectors collect mostly and down the line? I know there’s cross over books. 

1. Superhero 

2. Pre code horror

3. Westerns

4. Military/war

5. Good Girl Art

6. Teen Humor

7. Cartoon/funnies

8. Classic covers

9. Christmas covers

10. Under water covers

11. Romance

12. Jungle

13. Crime

14. Sci Fi

15. Robots

16. Aliens

17. Skull covers

18. Bondage covers

19. Soti books

20. Photo covers

21. TV/Movie covers

22. Fish in face covers

23. Infinity covers 

24. Flag covers

25. Hitler covers

Well, strictly speaking these are not "genres", rather labels one uses to aid classification.
If you wish to stick to genres, the list becomes a lot shorter.

True dat!

Andy's (Dr. Love's) list is much more of a "genre" list.

 

 

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Just now, MusterMark said:

True dat!

Andy's (Dr. Love's) list is much more of a "genre" list.

I would add that if there is a thing I love about Golden Age (and early comics publications, also from other countries, which fall under different cultural/time classifications) is the variety and richness of themes/approach/ideas within the same book (title). Quality aside, the stories were unrestrained.
My favorite titles generally fall into two or three genres at once:
– Military/Uncle Sam is classified by the GCD as war / superhero / occult
– Zip Comics can be seen as superhero / crime (gangsterism)
– Daredevil Comics and Boy Comics have stories falling in superhero / war / crime / horror
Same goes for various Timely or MLJ titles which – unfortunately – I can’t afford. :)

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20 hours ago, szav said:

Not my thing but ya gotta have Photocover Western/Romance/TV etc.

SOTI books...

Will probably think of more later...

Photo cover western romance would definitely be last on the list. In fact you may not need to include that genre any longer...the guy who collected photo cover western romance passed about a decade ago, may he rest in peace.

Anyone looking for a nice Romantic Western #2? ...

 

romanticwestern2.jpg

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3 hours ago, telerites said:

Remember Paratrooper and his parachute covers and who was it that collected playing card covers (I should know his screen name but I can't come up with it),  Someone I remember posting a WTB for golf covers.  Some went after the Gerber Photo-Journal dust jacket cover books.  And it goes on.

That is what I love is there is so much diversity in collecting and I enjoy seeing what interests other collectors and it has turned me on to new books as well.  

 

I once met a guy about twenty years ago who collected Schwinn Bicycle ads...on the back cover! Since all of our books are bagged and boarded it took forever to accumulate a pile (mostly Dells). He bought them all though. I though about starting to catalog things like that but I have never had another specific request as esoteric as that so I am glad we didn't devote the time or resources to being that particular.

 

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1 hour ago, MrBedrock said:

I once met a guy about twenty years ago who collected Schwinn Bicycle ads...on the back cover! Since all of our books are bagged and boarded it took forever to accumulate a pile (mostly Dells). He bought them all though. I though about starting to catalog things like that but I have never had another specific request as esoteric as that so I am glad we didn't devote the time or resources to being that particular.

 

I would go after the foot fungus ad.

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You can't beat Space Western, which features cowboys, Nazis, space ships, and nukes from Mars.  One of the issues, 45, includes an appearance by Adolf himself.  Space Western 44 shown below.

 

Space Western 44.jpg

Edited by BitterOldMan
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On 2/4/2019 at 6:16 PM, rjpb said:

Once you get past the superhero keys, nearly everything in demand is cover oriented, regardless of genre: Classic covers, GGA/headlight covers, bondage covers, violent covers, Covers by hot artists, villain covers, WW2 covers, themed covers, like Hitler, skulls, robots, flags, etc., even just well drawn covers with nice color and composition. If it's not the cover, then it's genuine scarcity, or early appearances by Superman and Batman. Content has it's fans, generally for the art or particularly wild stories, or just a lot of violence, but that's secondary.

Except for Barks ducks.  They have good demand, not based on covers, but based on interior content.

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