If DC closes down: price impact OA 1 1

[Rick2you2]

A rumor was run as an article in Cosmic Book News attributing to Ethan Van Sciver a claim from an AT&T insider that DC is shutting down publishing in June, although AT&T will continue to produce movies and TV shows based on its property. While I find that hard to believe (and yes, Van Sciver is a bit ... unique), even if it doesn’t make AT&T much money. So, I was wondering what you all might think it would do to the value of art? Rarer? Yes. But less exposure to potential future buyers, leading to reduced demand?

Just something to kick around.

[ShallowDan]

19 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

A rumor was run as an article in Cosmic Book News attributing to Ethan Van Sciver a claim from an AT&T insider that DC is shutting down publishing in June, although AT&T will continue to produce movies and TV shows based on its property. While I find that hard to believe (and yes, Van Sciver is a bit ... unique), even if it doesn’t make AT&T much money. So, I was wondering what you all might think it would do to the value of art? Rarer? Yes. But less exposure to potential future buyers, leading to reduced demand?

Just something to kick around.

The slow collapse of the comic book industry that's been playing out over the last decade or so (and hopefully I'm not offending anyone with that assertion), doesn't seem to have affected the price of O/A, so I don't think it would necessarily have an immediate impact that would be noticeable in either direction.  I know that a general impression is that "there's new art coming out every month", but with more artists going digital and the number of books being put out on a monthly basis dropping over time, it seems like there's already less and less new art hitting the market each year.

Demographically, I'd love to know what percentage of floppy readers are under age 20.  I bought my first comic book at the local drugstore and had "collected" for three or four years before I ever stepped foot into a comic book shop.  These days, I imagine very few kids take such a path.  And with all the publishers having moved to higher (more expensive) paper/print standards, comics feel like a luxury even to me as a grown man when I make the rare purchase.  

That's to say that I've long been skeptical of things in the long-term.  I'd say you're safe sticking with top tier characters such as Spidey and Batman, but I'd be careful putting too many eggs in my Phantom Stranger basket 

[grapeape]

Blasphemy ShallowDan. Ixnay on the kickthephantomstranger!!!

signed

Phantom Stranger Nation

[aqn83]

54 minutes ago, ShallowDan said:

Demographically, I'd love to know what percentage of floppy readers are under age 20.  I bought my first comic book at the local drugstore and had "collected" for three or four years before I ever stepped foot into a comic book shop.  These days, I imagine very few kids take such a path.  And with all the publishers having moved to higher (more expensive) paper/print standards, comics feel like a luxury even to me as a grown man when I make the rare purchase.  

 

I really think that both big publishers are simply targeting the wrong demographic. They're too focused on trying to appeal to older and stubborn "mature" readers who hate any changes to their favorite characters, who have been collecting floppies for years.  I think by focusing on them, they're not appealing to newer and younger readers.

As you said, you didn't step into a comic shop until a few years after you started collecting. Not only do they need to focus on stories that appeal to a younger crowd, but they need to push and really advertise them in markets that are easily accessible to younger people like Target and Walmart.

[Varanis]

My interpretation of the speculation is DC is planning to focus future printed materials on graphic novels for sale through book stores, book fairs, etc and will end the production of monthly single issues. This feels like a long time coming as the demand has generally shifted that direction for the last several years. I think this will make it much easier to market and sell products and will generally be a boon for comic readership long term. I think it will be miserable for LCS's and potentially comic collectors. I think it will be somewhere between good and irrelevant for OA. Art will still be produced and the characters are still massive IPs with enormous demand for content and collectibles. I think it could catalyze the comic collecting populace to move into OA as they lose modern singles as a collectible. It may also drive up the market for out of print or original printing collected editions - which I believe has already been going up over the years.

It seems unbelievable to me they would cease the production of all comic media entirely. I expect they view the comics as a ripe opportunity for a new business model.

[Will_K]

@Varanis that seems too optimistic.

I think after DC Fandome, they basically stated that non-comic shop sales finally outsold comic shops in 2019.  So if AT&T is going to follow the money, DC was going to put the emphasis on selling trades (and I guess digital).  Hence, going without Diamond.  I'm not so sure about that revenue model.  The trades are collected issues of the floppies that were sold in the comic shops.  So if they don't really put out so many floppies, can digital comics sell enough that you can justify trades ??  I guess that also means there will be less one-shots, unless you end up gathering a few of them for a trade.  DC is assumed to be ahead of the curve on this and Marvel will be dictated to do the same thing by Disney.

AT&T and Disney don't care about the original art market. 

 

Edited November 17, 2020 by Will_K

[Will_K]

2 hours ago, aqn83 said:

I really think that both big publishers are simply targeting the wrong demographic. They're too focused on trying to appeal to older and stubborn "mature" readers who hate any changes to their favorite characters, who have been collecting floppies for years.  I think by focusing on them, they're not appealing to newer and younger readers.

Supposedly, they will start aiming at the YA (young adult, the things I've learned !!) market.

[Varanis]

35 minutes ago, Will_K said:

Supposedly, they will start aiming at the YA (young adult, the things I've learned !!) market.

I've heard that too. Thus book fairs. I can't imagine they stop all or even most printed material entirely. Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are some of the world's biggest IPs. You have to do more than movies and merch with them.

[RBerman]

Disney doesn’t even use Marvel to produce Mickey and Donald comics for kids, despite the IP value of Mickey and Donald. They don’t sell Marvel’s kids’ line And True Believer dollar books next to the Iron Man sweatshirts in the Disney store. The only comic books in Disney World AFAIK are in a Star Wars wall rack in Tomorrowland. They see the monthly format as played out, and I do not blame them.

[Will_K]

Not being a Marvel Zombie, I thought it was weird that Marvel would do adaptions of various movies (Wizard of Oz, For Your Eyes Only, Raiders of the Lost Ark, etc) and toys (Rom, Micronauts, Shogun Warriors, GI Joe, etc).  And also all the Robert E Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs characters.   And KISS !!!

But it seems now would be a good time to appeal to as many people as possible.

Edited November 21, 2020 by Will_K

[Rick2you2]

2 hours ago, Varanis said:

My interpretation of the speculation is DC is planning to focus future printed materials on graphic novels for sale through book stores, book fairs, etc and will end the production of monthly single issues. This feels like a long time coming as the demand has generally shifted that direction for the last several years. I think this will make it much easier to market and sell products and will generally be a boon for comic readership long term. I think it will be miserable for LCS's and potentially comic collectors. I think it will be somewhere between good and irrelevant for OA. Art will still be produced and the characters are still massive IPs with enormous demand for content and collectibles. I think it could catalyze the comic collecting populace to move into OA as they lose modern singles as a collectible. It may also drive up the market for out of print or original printing collected editions - which I believe has already been going up over the years.

It seems unbelievable to me they would cease the production of all comic media entirely. I expect they view the comics as a ripe opportunity for a new business model.

Dropping floppies is something more than a few insiders have said, but the problem with doing so is the floppies create a lot of exposure for new characters or reimagined characters to create the valuable IP that AT&T wants. They also create a fan base allowing for a level of guaranteed sales which might not exist. Would Deadpool have been made if there wasn’t fan awareness? I doubt it.

Going all digital might work for older readers, but not the casual reader who might just be getting his/her feet wet. It would require more searching, and little guidance. A long slow death, unless AT&T figured out a way to make them easily accessible.

I also think it would have a significant impact on OA if there were no comics published at all. Look at the prices of Pogo strips. How have they held up? They are not reprinted like Peanuts. So, secondary characters are likely to lose value (which is already less than main characters).

[Compson]

Bleeding Cool reported on rumors—not confirmed—that DC monthlies would be exclusively digital but trades would still be printed:  https://bleedingcool.com/comics/gossip-dc-comics-abandoning-comic-shops-and-comic-cons/.  This could be speculation that morphed into rumor, but if floppies are low-margin anyway, DC, under great pressure from corporate parent AT&T, could take out a lot of personnel cost not having to support the floppy business.  The question is whether the fan base would remain engaged with only trades and digital. We’ll see, but the current model, selling paper issues of 20 pages for $4 as all other periodicals go digital, and in the middle of a panemic to boot, does seem ripe for retuning.

[Rick2you2]

17 hours ago, grapeape said:

Blasphemy ShallowDan. Ixnay on the kickthephantomstranger!!!

signed

Phantom Stranger Nation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by Rick2you2

[JadeGiant]

I have it on good authority that this DC change will drive down the price of all Hulk art, especially Sal Buscema (it's a complicated algorithm, trust me). The time to sell all of this material is now, before it plummets to next to nothing. If you want to sell now before the collapse, let me know. I know a guy. 

[grapeape]

3 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Put a little love in your ❤️ 

Put the Phantom Stranger in your art!!!

[grapeape]

1 hour ago, JadeGiant said:

I have it on good authority that this DC change will drive down the price of all Hulk art, especially Sal Buscema (it's a complicated algorithm, trust me). The time to sell all of this material is now, before it plummets to next to nothing. If you want to sell now before the collapse, let me know. I know a guy. 

Is this the guy?

[Rick2you2]

1 hour ago, JadeGiant said:

I have it on good authority that this DC change will drive down the price of all Hulk art, especially Sal Buscema (it's a complicated algorithm, trust me). The time to sell all of this material is now, before it plummets to next to nothing. If you want to sell now before the collapse, let me know. I know a guy. 

If Hulk were a DC character, not in the short run. In the short run, they are likely to go up, at least as to the newer stuff. But as a character fades from conscienceness, it only seem logical that interest in the character’s art will decline (with some special exceptions, like the Spirit, but even there, the prices for his groundbreaking OA haven’t kept pace with increases of a lot of newer artists). 

Edited November 18, 2020 by Rick2you2

[ESeffinga]

Phantom Stranger art will plummet, all the way down from $50. Who knows what the bottom will be!

[JadeGiant]

3 hours ago, grapeape said:

Is this the guy?

fuhgeddaboudit

[AndyFish]

I've heard over and over again that the old stuff will die off as new collectors come in.  Well, I was a new collector at one point, when I was a kid you could get almost any Silver Age Comic for $1-$100 depending on the grade and when I would buy Batman's from the 1960s (this was probably 1979 or so) the older buyers near me would always laugh and tell me I was throwing money away because that stuff would never be worth anything.

When I first saw a Golden Age book in person (coincidently Batman #14 which I still have) I paid the ungodly sum of $50 for it and it's about a 4.5.   It opened a flood gate of chasing down Golden Age comics despite them being well before my time.

At a con last year I was talking to a twenty something collector who told me he had just discovered and loved Golden Age comics, so I don't think an era ever goes away interest wise.   The Spirit is a character many had forgotten about, but those "in the know" would never forget.   It's not hard to become a member of the "in the know" club.

As for the original question, DC Comics is not going away, there is way too much money in the licensing of these characters for WB.   They certainly could license out the characters to other publishers but I think the most likely scenario is that American comics follow the Japanese model; comics are released serialized in digital format and then collected into volumes as print editions.   There will still be artists making the art for these books, the fact that many artists are going digital is a factor but the whole blue line print out traditional ink thing seems to be gaining steam.  

So there will be comic art, it'll just be a little harder to get a penciler's work but I think there will still be a decent amount of inked work, and more and more (and I know this from experience) creators are getting hired and it's assumed you're going to ink your own work.

Edited November 19, 2020 by AndyFish