Comic Book Investing - High Risks and Low Gains :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

A few years ago, the popular media of the United States focused on the comic account book world for one dramatic, tragic event - the death of dosage. After months of hype, the long-awaited death issue, Superman 375, was released, packaged in a black bag bearing a cherry logo, complete with a black arm band. The books price immediately skyrocketed. Thousands of people who normally paid no attention to the comic universe swarmed local shops, operate the books value to upwards of thirty dollars overnight. Over the next few weeks, the book could be found with a price tag of as high as $100. Today, Superman 375 is valued in Wizard The Guide to Comics at a disappointing, anticlimactic ten bucks. What happened? To start, the book was printed in enormous quantities. After the first few weeks of sales, when bare-assed shipments of the issue arrived in comic stores, the books price began to drop. The long-term value of the book was also adversely affected in two ways. First, Superman ret urned to the comic scene, existing and well, a mere four months later. This may have been a surprise (or an outrage) to many of the non-collectors who purchased the book, but was not much of a shock to the average fifteen-year doddering Superman fan, well acquainted with the dead today, back tomorrow mentality of the genre. Finally, the black package or polybag, while supposedly designed to preserve the book, was actually made of a cheap, slightly-acidic plastic that would eventually turn the issues once-white pages to a plaque-like brown. Thus, collectors were forces to decide between damaging their copy of Superman 375 by opening it or by keeping it in its corrosive wrapping. Both paths ultimately led to a drop in the books value. Sadly enough, this sort of hype with no follow-through occurs on a near-monthly primer in the world of comics. Major publishing houses routinely emphasize the collectibility of their output, hoping to snag the attention of young collectors eager to va lidate their hobby by earning a part of cash on the side. The simple truth is that the vast majority of the comics that are produced today are highly unlikely to become valuable, mostly because of one simple, incontrovertible fact. Todays comics are published in enormous quantities. A typical issue of The Amazing Spider Man will have a print leech between 300,000 and 500,000 copies.