Comic book collecting

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Panelology or comic book collecting is a hobby that treats comic books and related items as artwork to be sought after and preserved. Though considerably more recent than the collecting of postage stamps (philately) or books (bibliophilia), it has a major following around the world today and is partially responsible for the increased interest in comics after the temporary slump experienced during the 1980s.

Comic book collecting is the collecting of comic books in the interest of appreciation, nostalgia, financial profit, and completion of the collection. The comic book came to light the pop culture arena in the 1940s due to the popularity of superhero characters Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel. Since the 1960s, two publishers have dominated the comic book industry: Marvel Comics, publisher of such comics as Spider-Man, X-Men, and Fantastic Four, and DC Comics, which publishes titles such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Other large publishers include Image Comics and Dark Horse Comics.

As comic books regained their popularity in the 1960s, fans organized comic book conventions, where fans could meet to discuss their favorite comics with each other and eventually with the comics' creators themselves. As of 2006, numerous conventions and festivals are held around the world, with San Diego Comic Con being the largest and best-known convention in the United States.

While some people collect comic books for personal interest in the medium or characters, others collect prefer to collect for profit. In response to collectors' interest in preserving their collections, products designed for the protection and storage of comic books became available, including special bags; boxes; and acid-free "backing boards", designed to keep the comic book flat.

Price guides catering to comic book collectors interested in monetary gain became available , notably the annual Overstreet Price Guide and the monthly Comics Buyer's Guide. These further highlighted comics' financial worth, assigning value for an issue based on demand, availability, and the copy's condition. The growth of the Internet in the late 1990s, saw development of online databases that tracked character appearances and storylines, as well as creators.

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[edit] The speculator boom

From roughly 1985 through 1993, comic book speculation reached its highest peaks. This boom period began with the publication of titles like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen and "summer crossover epics" like Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars. After Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns made their mark, mainstream attention returned to the comic book industry in 1989 with the success of the movie Batman and again in 1993 with "The Death of Superman" storyline.

Once aware of this niche market, the mainstream press focused on its potential for making money. Features appeared in newspapers, magazines and television shows detailing how rare, high-demand comics such as Action Comics #1 and Incredible Hulk #181 (The first appearances of Superman and Wolverine, respectively) had sold for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

During this time, comic book publishers began to pander specifically to the collectors' market. Techniques used included variant covers, polybags, and gimmick covers. When a comic was polybagged, the collector had to choose between either reading the comic book or keeping it in pristine condition for potential financial gain, or doing both by buying two copies. Gimmicks included glow-in-the-dark, hologram-enhanced, or foil-embossed covers. Gimmicks were almost entirely cosmetic in nature, and almost never extended to improved content of the comics. However, many speculators would buy multiple copies of these issues, anticipating that demand would allow them to sell them for a substantial profit at some nebulous point in the future.

This period also saw a corresponding expansion in price guide publications, most notably Wizard Magazine, which helped fuel the speculator boom with monthly columns such as the "Wizard Top 10" (highlighting the "hottest" back-issues of the month), "Market Watch" (which not only reported back-issue market trends, but also predicted future price trends), and "Comic Watch" (highlighting key "undervalued" back-issues).

Ironically, the speculators who made a profit or at least broke even on their comic book "investments" did so only by selling to other speculators. In truth, very few of the comics produced in the early 90's have retained their value in the current market; with hundreds of thousands (or, in several prominent cases, over ten million) copies produced of certain issues, the value of these comics has all but disappeared. "Hot" comics like X-Men #1 and Youngblood #1 can today be found selling for under a dollar apiece.

Veteran comic book fans pointed out an important fact about the high value of classic comic books that was largely overlooked by the speculators: original comic books of the Golden Age of Comic Books were genuinely rare. Most of the original comic books had not survived to the present era, having been thrown out in the trash or discarded as worthless children's waste by parents (stories of uncaring parents throwing out their kids' comic book collections are well known to the Baby Boom generation), or recycled along with other periodicals in the paper drives of World War II. As a result, a comic book of interest to fans or collectors from the 1940s through the 1960s, such as an original issue of Superman, Captain America, Challengers of the Unknown, or Vault of Horror, was often extremely difficult to find and thus highly prized by collectors, in a manner similar to coin collectors seeking copies of the 1955 doubled die cent. In many ways, with an enormous supply of high-grade copies, the "hot" comics of the speculator boom were the complete opposite.

[edit] Bust

The comic book speculator market reached a saturation point in the early 1990s and finally collapsed between 1993 and 1997. Two-thirds of all comic book specialty stores closed in this time period, and numerous publishers were driven out of business. Even industry giant Marvel Comics was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1997, although they were able to continue publishing. It is surmised that one of the main factors in Marvel's downfall was the decision to switch to self distribution. Up until then, many publishers went through secondary distributors (such as the current and only mass distributor, Diamond Comic Distributors) and Marvel felt it could preserve some of its cash flow if it made the move to becoming one of the few publishers to also distribute directly to the comic market. This backfired terribly when the bottom fell out of the market, as they were stocked with multiple printings of variant and "collectible" issues that were no longer in high demand and they could not cover the costs of their distribution service.

The bust can also be linked back to some of the series that caused the boom, a few years earlier. DC's decision to publish two blockbuster stories depicting the loss of their two major Superheroes (Knightfall - the breaking of the Batman - and The Death of Superman), and their subsequent flooding of the press as to its supposed "Finality", is considered by some collectors to have started a slow decay within the non-regular buyer comic community which then led to drops in sales. Many comic retailers believe that numerous comic speculators took the death and crippling of two major characters to signify the end of the Batman and Superman series. As many comic readers and retailers knew full well, very little in comics actually changes with any finality. Many aspects of the status quo returned after the story arcs were over (i.e. Superman died, but was resurrected. Batman was crippled, but eventually recovered).

Many comic speculators who were only in the market to see important comics mature, then sell them for a tidy profit, didn't quite understand how quick the turn around would be on the story recant, and many rushed out to scoop up as many copies of whatever issues were to be deemed significant. Comic shops received not only staggering sales during the week that Superman died, but also had to try and meet the demand. This led to the saturation of the market and the devaluing of what was thought to be the end of an American icon. Some comic book retailers and theorists deem DC's practices in the press forum and their relationship with the non-specialized consumer to be grossly negligent of the status of the market, and that their marketing campaign, whereas most likely not malicious in intent, spelled doom for the speculator market and comic sales in general. Others place the blame for the comic market crash on Marvel (whose product line had bloated to hundreds of separate titles by late 1993, including the poorly received "Marvel UK" and "2099" lines) or creator-owned upstart Image Comics (who fed the speculator feeding frenzy more than any other comics publisher).

Other publishing houses had different problems. Valiant Comics--at one point the 3rd largest comic book publisher--was sold to the video game giant Acclaim Entertainment for $65 million in June 1994. Acclaim renamed the line Acclaim Comics in 1996. Their primary motivation was to make the properties more suitable for use in video game development. Eventually, Acclaim filed for bankruptcy following the collapse of its video game business. The miniseries Deathmate — a crossover between Image Comics and Valiant Comics — is often considered to have been the final nail in the speculation market's coffin; although heavily hyped and highly anticipated when initially solicited, the books from the Image Comics side shipped so many months late that reader interest disappeared by the time the series finally materialized, leaving some retailers holding literally hundreds of unsellable copies of the various Deathmate crossovers. Other companies, such as Defiant Comics, Triumphant Comics, and Malibu Comics also ceased publication in the period between 1993 and 1997.

[edit] Post-bubble speculation

Since 1997, comic book sales have fallen to a fraction of early-1990s levels, with print runs of many popular titles down as much as 90% from their peaks. Currently, most of the hype generated around the major companies' comics involves changes to the characters, well-known creators writing or illustrating a title, and buzz surrounding an adaptation to another media such as film or television. The one remaining bastion for comic speculation remains in online auction sites such as eBay; but even there, comic books remain a buyer's market.

[edit] List of comics collections

Many private collections of comics exist, and they have also started to find their way onto the shelves of public libraries. Museums and universities with notable collections of comics include:

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