Organization: Penn State Anarchists
X-Subliminal-Message: You will never graduate.
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 03:33:46 EDT
From: Steve Murray <SXM101@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Re: $$ Comic Book Creators $$
 <1992Sep28.232858.26838@cs.unca.edu>

In article <1992Sep28.232858.26838@cs.unca.edu>, mcmahan@cs.unca.edu (Scott
McMahan -- Genesis mailing list owner) says:
>
>They probably loose more than they take in on these #1s.
>
>#1s are becoming pretty commonplace now... as millions upon millions
>of copies are sold and bought by short-term speculators, the market
>gets flooded and the price goes down.

Umm, what?  The *creator* of the book doesn't make any money off back-
issue sales.  He only cares how many copies are bought by the stores
to put on their shelves.

>I saw X-Force #1 going at cover price not too long after it came out.
>I see the full X-Men set at like $10, new, not much of a sum, frm
>dealers desperate to unload them.

Again - it doesn't make a difference.  The original question was about
how much was made the people who *made* the comic - pencillers, writers,
colorists, etc.  These people only make money on an issue one time -
when the copies leave the manufacturing center for all of the various
stores.  Jim Lee probably couldn't care less *how* much X-Men #1 is
selling for NOW.  The fact that they sold 8 million copies of it made
him a (fairly? very?) wealthy man.

For a solid example - Marvel sells X-Men #1 to The Big Comic Book Store
for $0.75 each.  TBCBS then sells it for $1.25 each.  Now, TBCBS makes
$0.50 on each copy.  Marvel makes $0.75 on each copy.  Marvel ships 8
million copies making $6,000,000, and TBCBS sells, oh, 500 copies, making
$250.  The $6M gets split up between all the corporate types, the printers,
the distributor, etc... and also the creators.  You figure if the
penciller gets 1% of the sales, he just made $600,000.  Not too bad.
Now, if TBCBS doesn't sell a few copies right away, and later sells
a copy to some new collector for $5, then the TBCBS keeps all $5, and
Jim Lee doesn't see any of it (and the new collector shoots himself in
the head later when he finds out how badly he was ripped off :-).

(Oh yeah, I made all of these figures up - I don't pretend to know
anything about how the money is divided in Marvel, or how much the
dealers pay or charge for each comic, so don't think any of these
numbers are written in stone - ask Jim Cowling or somebody else who
manages a comic store).

>I sense an implosion once "investors" figure out they're stuck
>trying to unload 10 copies of X-Force #1 to dealers and other collectors
>who are already well stocked with them.

I completely agree with you on this point.  After the fiasco of the
X-Books this summer, dealers are going to be a lot more conservative
on their order sizes, and a lot less of the "10 copies of #1" investors.
I've seen enough X-Men #1 and X-Force value packs around to know that
there are some *very* pissed comic book store owners in my area.

However, there *are* going to be *some* people who want to buy these
things.  Namely, the new collectors.  (Dozens/hundreds/thousands) of
new people get interested in comics every month, and these people have
to find copies of X-Men #1 *somewhere*.  The object is to find them
before anybody else does.  :-)
--
Steve Murray  |  SXM101@psuvm.psu.edu  |  murr@fubar.bk.psu.edu
Delegation - the generous act of allowing others to do the things
you're not good at, giving you more time to take the credit.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc