The Four Color Media Monitor

WGN9 from Chicago is adding to the tiresome, unobjective discussion of the collector's mentality, following the not-really-newsworthy story of a Superman comic selling $9 million-plus on the speculator market. What's told here, though, is eyebrow raising if it's correct:

You may still remember your first comic book. Do you remember the last time you saw that comic, though?

Depending on what it is and the condition it’s in, it could be worth something – in fact, maybe a few somethings.

Last month, an issue of “Superman” sold for a record-setting $9.12 million at auction. [...]

Superman was the first superhero to appear in pop culture, and his first-ever comic was a limited print. Of the 500,000 copies ever printed of the first edition, it’s estimated that fewer than 500 remain in existence today, Lon Allen, vice president of comics at Heritage Auctions, told the Associated Press.

Seriously, when the first issue of the Man of Steel's first spinoff series from Action Comics premiered, it only saw less than a million copies printed, no matter how many sold at store level? I'm as big a fan of Supes as the next person, but this, if anything, suggests a lot of Golden Age comics weren't the massive success earlier reports would have us think. So why keep taking such an unobjective position and making it sound like this was all something to celebrate? And then, we're told:

Who is willing to shell out more than what some actors were paid to portray Superman for a comic book?

“People with deep pockets,” according to Griffin.

Among the books sought by those “deep pocket” collectors are the “firsts,” Griffin explained, like Batman’s first appearance in Detective Comics (No. 27, published in 1939) and “Marvel Comics No.1.” A version of the former sold for $1.82 million in 2024, while a copy of the latter garnered more than $2.4 million in 2022. A single page from a 1984 comic, “Secret Wars No. 8,” sold for $3.36 million, all thanks to the first-ever appearance of Spider-Man’s black suit. A debut issue of “Captain America Comics” sold for $3.1 million in 2022.

“They’re always going to be expensive and will probably just continue to be as time progresses because there’s going to be less and less of books like this coming out of the woodwork,” Griffin added. It’s scarcity and desirability that can influence the value of the comic, according to Griffin, though they’re not always a guarantee. If “there’s just nothing going on in it,” for example, or it’s a book “from the ‘50s that nobody remembers,” there may not be much desirability for it. Some titles or issues can fluctuate in value, with interest peaking when there are rumors of a movie adaptation or a TV show appearance for a certain character. But, once the appearance happens, Griffin says the “book will get soft again.”

Well see, that's a problem. If they're going to base it all upon recognizability and what movies are in production, then it's not a long-ranging success at all, and if the movie adaptations eventually do wear off, then for all we know, even the Golden/Silver Age back issues may lose some value. Which is certainly what happened when production of issues more for the sake of the collector's mentality came about:

Also like baseball cards, comic books experienced an era of mass production, in the 1980s and ’90s, leading to a collapse in the collector market.

“They just put out so many of them, and there were so many people buying two copies and keeping one pristine,” Griffin explained. “There’s just a lot of nice books out there from the time period and not many of them are worth that much.”

If by that he means monetary - not artistic - value, then again, this whole report is a farce. Of course, it's disturbing to think of how even some Rob Liefeld monstrosities of the times could sell big among certain speculators, because they actually think the terrible examples he drew up in the Heroes Reborn series of Capt. America, for example, are actually worth something based on how poor they are? Sorry, but that only further compounds why the collect-for-profit mentality's ruined pop culture.

The market has rebounded, with newer material like manga comics and Pokémon becoming more popular among collectors. That, Griffin said, is fueled by those who enjoyed them in their youth now having the buying power to collect.

I have a bad feeling even the manga in mention is only being collected for profit, which should serve as a warning there's a whole segment of "fandom" out there that doesn't care about manga as an artistic medium either, just as a source of financial greed. That's bad news too, for anyone who believes Japan can have potential if the cards are played right. Then, towards the end:

If you’re hoping to get into comic book collecting, you may not have the financial wiggle room to vie for a $9.12 million “Superman” comic. Instead, Griffin recommends finding “something that you like and collect that.”

“That way, even if it goes down, you’re still going to be happy that you bought it.”

Note how, oddly enough, the interviewee doesn't say you should actually make an effort to read it. And if not, then what good is it to collect? Why not recommend buying comics in paperback/hardcover format for reading and entertainment value? So again, we have another article where nobody comments on the comics from a merit-based perspective, and they're really insulting the medium's potential with the way they approach the whole topic. And those "deep pockets" should be ashamed of themselves for what they're doing to the products, hoarding them away instead of donating them to a museum.

Labels: dc comics, history, manga and anime, marvel comics, msm propaganda, sales, Spider-Man, Superman