Who's to blame for the 90's speculation boom?? Was it the start of Image comic? the birth of Wizard Magazine? Valiant comics coming out with #0s and other premium books??

Don't be so quick to leave out the speculators. Although all the companies were partially to blame, speculators who bought multiple books thinking that they'd increase in price are every bit to blame for the boom/bust of the 90's.



Cliff

I can think of two events that seemed to really kick off the boom in my mind, but then I may have just been hitting the age to notice at this time.

The first that comes to my mind was Marvel going public. Their stock price soared for a couple of years, which did give comics a lot of attention as an investment. I know my initial 100 shared that I bought at $17 per split and grew to 800 shares at around $36 before floundering.

The second event where I really noticed people buying multiple copies was Superman 75 with the Death of Superman. It is the first bagged issue I can think of where multiple copies were encouraged to be purchased to keep one and to read one. I know I bought 2 and still have one copy in the bag someplace in a box.

I am curious what others think of as the kick off.

One of three events, in my mind: Jim Lee X-MEN #1 with multiple covers, X-FORCE #1 bagged with different cards, or SPIDER-MAN #1 with multiple covers. All of these, I believe, were before the death of Superman issue you mention. DC lagged behind the other publishers (and weren't as blatant) when trying to cater to speculators. This is different from YOUNGBLOOD #1 or SPAWN #1 as they didn't have multiple covers, just creators who speculators over-inflated their market value past the year or two they were "hot."



Cliff

It was a multiplicity of events. Some point to the success of the first Batman film as re-igniting the general public's interest in comic books and superheroes. Many "civilians" didn't know that their favorite characters from childhood were still being published, and the film, mentioned in the same sentence as Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, brought several new buyers into comic shops.

Retailers, sensing new blood, did what any smart businesspeople would do. They began to jack up the prices on recent back issues that were essentially worthless and sensationalize events that happened in the comics. They would dupe customers by saying "See? This book just came out last month, and already it's worth ten bucks!!! This is the one where Batman breaks a hangnail and the Joker comes out of the closet..."

So new customers were encouraged to buy multiples, in the hopes that they would someday be able to cash in on their loot and buy new houses and send their kids off to college.

When all of those copies of Superman, Batman, et al didn't materialize into millions or even tens, I think a lot of people felt deceived and decided to pursue the next hot collectible. Beanie Babies, anyone? How about Tickle Me Elmo? They weren't fans or readers to begin with. It also doesn't help that whenever the media covers comics, its either as a human geekfest-type of story or covered as an investment opportunity.

And then there was that pesky lil' start-up from Southern CA called Image Comics...

Ahhhh, those were the days.

'90-'91 was a good time for the speculators (and a bad time for the Industry in the long run). It was during that time we had McFarlane's Spider-Man selling like hotcakes with multiple covers, the advent of Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld's debut on the X-Books, leading up to the bagged X-Force#1 and 5(!!)- covered X-Men #1. The first gimmic cover was Silver Surfer#50 I believe, which debuted a few months before X-Men#1.

Image didn't surface until a year later, so they did not cause the speculator boom, but they sure milked it for all it was worth.

Marvel going public is an interesting theory - when did that happen? Everythng I mentioned above happened at Marvel, and I don't recall any serious moves by DC during the beginning of the boom (except for possibly that Invasion crossover).

EDIT: Duh! See above. I totally forgot about the first Batman movie. I'd say that was DC's contribution to the Boom.

vv

I wonder, in years to come, how many people are going to open their bagged issues to find a packet of dry flakes instead of a comicbook. A sealed comic you can't read is as useful as a solar powered torch.

The speculator targeted stunt that annoyed me the most was the launch of a Titans spin off called Team Titans. The first issue had five variants - each variant had a backup story that spotlighted a different team member's origin. Different covers I can live without, but different content (almost 50% of each issue in this case) is just enough to make me pony up the cash.

The first time I ever saw people buying more than one issue of a comic was on JB's Uncanny X-Men run. I have strong memories of one particular comic convention around 1981 where one guy had stacks of every Uncanny X-Men issue going back to around 120 (whatever the first Alpha Flight issue was) thru 136. He was selling all of these copies for quadruple or quintuple cover price (which meant like $1.60 or $2.00 per issue...remember, comics were only $0.35 to $0.40 back then.) I recall thinking how this guy was just shooting fish in a barrel...he'd bought most of his giant stack new less than a year before and people just lined up to buy them at what seemed like incredibly inflated prices.

I bought some issues from him and asked if he was a dealer. He said no, he was just a collector but loved the issues (particularly the art) soooo much that he basically spent all of his money each month investing in them, confident they would be valuable "some day." He said "some day" came a lot sooner than he'd expected and he was going to buy a car with the profits! Obviously he was something of a visionary, though if he'd just sealed 'em in plastic and waited to sell them in 2004, he'd probably have been able to buy a house by now.


Rick Senger

SPIDER-MAN #1 with multiple covers.

*************

That may not have been the beginning of the Speculator Boom, but it was certainly the moment I noticed the true Madness had set in. I remember reading in places like CBG (in those pre-internet) days, people writing in to describe what could only be called "imaginary collectibles". I recall someone saying that the bagged newsstand edition was going to be the "most valuable" because it was so "rare". The next day I walked into my local drugstore and found six. I realized for many people "rare" meant "I couldn't get it at my comic shop."

The mid-90s', is when I started becoming cynical about the comics industry. Silver Surfer was one of the titles that I followed and I couldn't find a copy of issue 50, which had the embossed shining cover. I just wanted to read it because it was part of Mr. Starlin's run. I was able to find it at (Now out of business) Midtown Comics shop, but I bought it for $9.50. Only to find out the 2nd and 3rd printings of the issue would be released later on. A friend of mine was going to buy a copy of SS #50 from the cousin of his then-girlfriend. He mentioned to me that this guy had about several copies and he was selling them for $10 each. My friend was going to buy it, but then changed his mind. He was not going to pay that much for a fairly new book. He turned out to be the smarter of both of us. I also, remember reading Keith Giffen warning the industry about the pre-bagged comics and that the bags could eventually damage the books, they came in. He warned the fans would turn on the industry.

On the AOL Byrne Ward this discussion came up. Some of the titles thrown out were:




To which, inker John Beatty responded... I worked as inker on "Secret Wars". I worked as inker on the first 5 issues of "LOTDK" My god!!!! I'm the one to blame!!!! Sorry everyone!

So now we know where it began and who inked it. Big Beatty can be reached at:
http://www.bigbeatty.com/

Despite being the root of all evil in the comic book world, he is a pretty swell guy.

I like all of those covers. LOTDK looks good to my graphic designer's eyes. I have always liked the Secret Wars #1 cover. Very cool Mike Zeck renderings of Marvel heroes (especially Captain Americs, Iron Man and Spider-Man). And the other two for obvious reasons.

One of the things I always felt contributed to the collapse of the marketplace was the feeling amongst fans and readers of being manipulated by the companies. The emphasis was on creating instant "collector's items," not on creating quality product and nurturing new fans. People felt pimped out of their dollars due to the foil-embossed covers and hoarded copies of new releases that were doled out for sale at premium prices. Whether it was Spider-Man #1, X-Men #1, Superman #75 or whatever, people got caught up in the "event" mentality and when they discovered that a) the books were essentially worthless and would never legitimately appreciate in value, and b) the comics were insipid crap in terms of quality, they felt used.

Of course, people have the responsibility for their own actions and purchases, but the companies sure did leap on the bandwagon and fanned those flames in order to turn a (relatively) few quick bucks. And they, and we, have all been paying for that greed ever since.

I was working for Comic Quest (Evansville, IN). It ended when Adventures of Superman #500 (Superman's resurrec- er, return) was a big ho-hum. When jaded readers realized it wasn't worth a gold-foil copy of 'Shadowman' to get a Valiant logo tattooed on your forehead. When the superhero universes of Dark Horse and Malibu disappeared and there was no message board fan base to cry about it. When the store owner bought a case apiece of the 4 new Kirbyverse titles from Topps (that's 200 in a case, kids) and sold roughly 10 copies each in the first week. When Deathmate, the much-touted Image/Valiant crossover, came out and nobody cared. Nobody bought it. The 4th issue was so late that when it arrived, people thought it was a new book. Retailers are still stuck with cases of this crap.

Remember the Gen 13 with 13 different covers? Remember when Trencher encouraged us to 'frag the bag' and readers woke up and said, "Why am I reading Trencher?"

Don't give the boom too much of a bad rap. Without it we might not ever have seen 'Next Men' and probably 'Hellboy'.