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Collectible Comics You Bought Years Ago and Have Gone Nowhere
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Started by Tafkap,

38 posts in this topic

Tafkap

Tafkap

Posted
Posted

I'm talking about comics you paid a  premium for; not new issues.

Way back when, in the 1980's I bought a copy of Daredevil #158 when everything was basically sold as VF/NM for, I believe, $36.00 when that issue was just heating up.

Got it slabbed long ago as a 6.0.   After being slabbed it's worth about $30.00 for this grade.

I have so many like that, classic Neal Adams Batman stuff, and because of the grade and because no one cares about "the death of Alfred" they're worth about the same when I bought them 30-40 years ago.

Of course, there's plenty I bought that did go up.

Y'all?

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MatterEaterLad

MatterEaterLad

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Posted

Legion of Super-Heroes 287. 

In the 80s there was a brief moment when this comic spiked because Keith Giffen was growing in popularity and this was his first work on the Legion. I paid $25 for a nice copy.

Then shortly after, it was discovered that Giffen had been swiping the work of Argentinian artist, Jose Antonio Munoz, and all of Giffen's work took a hit. 

It's probably worth less now than what I paid for it.

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Qalyar

Qalyar

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Posted
14 minutes ago, SuperBird said:

Let me tell you a tale about Fish Police, Trollbloods, Samurai, Elflord, Gizmo, Flaming Carrot, Faust, and so many others...

Fish Police had all the signs of success. Moncuse is a good writer and artists, and the books had support from headline-tier people (Sam Kieth! Stan Sakai! Harlan Ellison!). It was one of the handful of indie titles to eventually make it to one of the mainstream publishers (going from "true" indie Fishwrap to Comico to Apple Press to Marvel). And was licensed into a Hanna Barbara animated tv series adaptation, with a solid voice cast (Tim Curry is a lawyer shark!), that aired on CBS in prime time to compete with The Simpsons!

Unfortunately...

The animated series was pretty objectively terrible. Only six episodes were even produced, and few (if any) CBS stations in the US even aired the last three of those. Then, Moncuse more or less retired from comics entirely to become a teacher, and Fish Police slowly (okay, quickly) faded from interest. IDW reprinted a TPB at some point, and there's a short Fish Police piece in Dark Horse Presents (v2) #22 from 2011, but Moncuse's goal of returning to comics with a New Fish Police sequel series seems to have fallen through.

Unlike many of the post-TMNT indies, Fish Police is a book that I think still has a chance to matter someday. The Fishwrap issues aren't rare, but they're not everywhere, and certainly not in grade (good luck with 9.2+ copies of issue #3 in particular). However, the bottom line is that the future value of the property depends on the future of the property. If we eventually see New Fish Police at, say, Dark Horse, and a second (and more successful) attempt at an adaptation somewhere, well... Otherwise, the first few issues will continue to chug along at a few bucks better than cover, and everything else will be dollar box residents, much as they are now. In any case, it's a pretty fun read.

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Ken Aldred

Ken Aldred

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2 hours ago, MatterEaterLad said:

Then shortly after, it was discovered that Giffen had been swiping the work of Argentinian artist, Jose Antonio Munoz, and all of Giffen's work took a hit.

Very interesting. I’ve always liked Giffen’s work, but I’d never heard that about his Copper Age LOSH run.

I’d only noticed obvious stylistic similarities such as his Kevin Maguire- influenced period in the late 80s, but not outright swiping.

 

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Morganmi

Morganmi

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Posted
3 hours ago, MatterEaterLad said:

Legion of Super-Heroes 287. 

In the 80s there was a brief moment when this comic spiked because Keith Giffen was growing in popularity and this was his first work on the Legion. I paid $25 for a nice copy.

Then shortly after, it was discovered that Giffen had been swiping the work of Argentinian artist, Jose Antonio Munoz, and all of Giffen's work took a hit. 

It's probably worth less now than what I paid for it.

Same I probably only paid about 12$ for it in the $80's which was a lot for me at the time and it was considered a hot comic but now 40 years later it dosnt even register on Gocollect.doh!

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CatskillMike

CatskillMike

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5 hours ago, 1950's war comics said:

i bought my Howard the Duck off the rack and sold it a year later for $20  !! (a small fortune back then for a 16 year old !!) i'm not sure if it even worth $20 today ? some 40+ years later

In the late 70's I also came into possession of my 2nd Howard the Duck #1 by trading my extra copy of xmen 94 for it. Straight up.  The xmen 94 was a newstand copy in great shape. Maybe even unread. Seemed like a good deal at the time.doh!

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Qalyar

Qalyar

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Posted
26 minutes ago, ThothAmon said:

The Bronze Age Atlas publishing line of books have been fool’s gold for me for going on 5 decades. Much below 9.8 still aren’t worth slabbing.

Yeah, the '70s Atlas was interesting for a really brief window of time when everyone was sure it was going to be the next major publisher. Instead, it lasted less than a year, hobbled by internal management issues and the extra-high costs demanded by creators who were (rightly) concerned about contracting with a new publisher with an uncertain future.

This one is still kicking around, though. Goodman's grandson relaunched Atlas via Ardden Entertainment in 2010ish, but that didn't do much better ... in part because of a dispute over the Atlas name, which would up getting trademark-sniped and handed off to Dynamic Forces. I'm not sure that Goodman even actually got the Atlas name back, but Steven Paul's SP Media Group has the rights to the Atlas characters and IP now (with Goodman involved), and at least claims to have contracted for film adaptations with Paramount. Of course, I'll believe that when I see them release; I'm not sure how interested the public would be in Devilina, Ironjaw, Scorpion, or Wulf the Barbarian films. I've always thought the Atlas character roster was pretty weak; it didn't do them any favors then, and won't now.

Ironjaw #1 and #2 have Neal Adams covers; Destructor #1 and #2 have Steve Ditko and Wally Wood, so those books will always retain a little value for completionists, but their other ~20 books? Meh.

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the blob

the blob

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Posted

Unfortunately the Barks Ducks have not done that well and they're great books and collected, I guess supply is always the issue. They all got astronomical prices in Overstreet when they were harder to locate and it was never really adjusted downward as the reality of how man copies are out there set in. I used to get them 30-50% off at my LCS thinking I was getting a great deal, and aside from whether they might have been a little overgraded by future CGC standards, I guess he knew they were slow sellers, another batch would eventually come in and they were totally replaceable, so the deep discount was still profitable. You'd think with the popularity of these abroad that would suck up the copies and is probably why they still get decent money at all vs. some other cartoon characters that were once more collected (bug bunny (four colors), another one I used to buy). Dealers at shows still try to push these at guide though.

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