From: jcomeau@unixg.ubc.ca (Joe Comeau)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Re: Valiant sucks
Date: 27 Aug 92 19:38:17 GMT
Organization: UBC Pulmonary Research Lab., St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, B.C., Canada

In article <BtnI3H.BDs@acsu.buffalo.edu> v070km6q@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (John B Schutkeker) writes:
>In article <1992Aug26.211646.2140@unixg.ubc.ca>, jcomeau@unixg.ubc.ca (Joe Comeau) writes...
>
>>The only people it seems to bother are those that wish to go out and purchase
>>2, 3 or 4 copies of #1s.  I don't feel sorry for these people at all.
>
>I knew you would say this, eventually.  Philosophically arrogant people (like
>you) irk me.  They don't care if people get tricked and hurt.  They only care
>if they're right, and they laugh when people who disagree with them suffer.
>Anybody who laughs at the suffering of another has mental health problems.
>

Nobody is getting heart except speculators, and they can be hurt on any number
of books.  How many "DEATH of Superman are you going to buy?!"  For any given
market there is a saturation limit on sales.  The reason a book becomes 'hot'
is more people become interested in a book at a later date.  A great example
is Omega Men:
    At first it increased in value steadily as more people became interested in
the story.  By issue 9 or 10 it reached it's maximum audiance and started
to drop off. by issue 20 the value of the early books were starting to fall.
When Giffen left altogether and finally the series cancelled, the books were
all worth nothing.  And then came Lobo, and now look at certain issues of
Omega Men and other titles as well.  Hell I couldn't give my early Lobo
Omega-Men away for 25cents and I had hundreds of copies.

So, in case you are interested I also speculate.


>>READ the story, forget about trying to make a fast buck.  
>
>Has it occurred to you that there is a strong correllation between the creative
>quality of a comic and it's price and demand as a back issue?  It is possible
>to both speculate and enjoy reading comics at the same time.  I read everything
>I buy multiple times.  I have just never liked having to buy something first
>before I know it's good.  I find that the market has very good judgement, and
>when the market decides something is good, I hardly ever disagree.

You have to buy something to know that it is good.  Just knowing Byrne, Miller
or any other good artist/writer or special apperance will not guarantee
that the book will be good.  Some unknown artists/writers/characters are
great and can only be discovered by reading the book.  That includes dealers
who are sometimes to busy running their store and miss a few good books.

>
>Has it also occurred to you that when speculators get hurt by these gimmicks,
>dealers are also getting hurt?  Speculators are really just entry-level dealers.
>I do shows, etc.  And when dealers are getting hurt by being stuck with stuff
>for which there will never be a demand, the industry is being hurt, too.
>This is because the money wasted on such gimmicks disappears from circulation,
>but investments that pay off multiply the cash of a speculator/dealer, which
>they use to buy more comics. So the gimmicks hurt everybody in the industry and
>the industry itself. 

Good dealers don't speculate(at least not in extremes) they buy a book and
plan to have at leats a 75-80% sell out.  If they can't average this across 
their comics they get stuck with a lot of crap that doesn't move.  This dead
stock is the same as overspeculating.  Yes as you said this does hurt the
industry that is why dealers go out of business, miss management of stock
is always #1 reason.

As for Team Titans I like the way the introduced the series.  For people who
want only one book, they buy one.  People who want all the character into's
they buy all #1s.  For speculators you have multiple choices: play it safe
and buy an even number of each #1, or extra of a character they think will
take off in the future.

Speculating is gambling, and you can lose.

As for Marvel and the X-Men multiple covers, X-Force Cards etc..
There will always be collecto's who seek everything.  Take all the Sport 
card collector's going after the chase cards.  All the Holograms in the
Marvel series cards, the Prisms in Spider-Man.  You have to buy multiple
packs in the HOPES of getting what you want. 
I'm not wild about what Marvel did, but I bought one of each of the X-Men
anyway, same as the X-Force.  I am also collecting the stupid hockey
cards you get in Kellogg's cerial.  As you probably guessed... I eat a lot
of cereal.

It's the nature of the beast...  You as the reader/collector/speculator
have to decide where to spend your hard earned dollar.  If you don't everyone
will have 100's of copies of Ren & Stimpy number one stored in air tight vaults
so the 'wet chihuahua air de-freshener' packed with every comic will stay
fresh??