The cancellation line in the late 60s was drawn at 100k. That would leave almost no mainstream comic book series alive today. Standards need to be enforced.
And investors are fools if they think that a modern comic slabbed from a run of 300k is going to make back the grading costs. You can find copies of McFarlane's Spectacular Spider-Man #1 in $1 bins across the US.
I spoke to a prominent Irish LCS owner today and he said that the number of comic shops in major cities across the British Isles have dwindled in recent years. London, in particular, has seen around a dozen closures recently with only two remaining - Forbidden Planet and one independent store.
Sometimes I wonder however. It looks like what people remember most fondly about Marvel were the 60s and 70s. Did you get the huge Marvel book published by Taschen back in 2015? Chapter I, covering the Golden Age, went from page 8 to page 215. Over 200 pages. Chapter II went from 216 to 479, over 250 pages. Chapter III on the Bronze Age went from page 480 to 649, over 160 pages. And Chapter IV, which goes from 1985 to 2015, is a mere 51 pages. Not passing any judgement here, but it does seem odd. It seems that the late 80s and 90s brought us Carnage, Venom, Deadpool, and many other iconic characters. Perhaps I’m just getting older, but does it seem like comics are often living off of the intellectual capital built up from the 60s to the 90s and not really innovating anymore?
This is so weird to me, because my Goodreads feed is almost entirely people shrieking about new manga books and how much they loved them. There's definitely a market, it's just that the comics publishers hate it.
I think manga is more popular than American comics among the younger generations, maybe 30s and younger. At least, I’ve met a lot more manga fans than comics ones in that demographic.
Curious to know what the demographics are in these comics sales? If their crummy stories, slipshod creative direction, and lack of consistency are making too big a barrier to entry for younger people who weren’t fans beforehand (before, say, the 90s), it could be another explanation of why the industry is tanking.
No idea. I got into comics as an adult, through my interest in illustration, but I had no idea where to start reading them until Rippaverse started. So just curious if maybe there are more like me out there—who would be into comics if there was anything good and if it was easier to enter into the comics “club.”
The cancellation line in the late 60s was drawn at 100k. That would leave almost no mainstream comic book series alive today. Standards need to be enforced.
And investors are fools if they think that a modern comic slabbed from a run of 300k is going to make back the grading costs. You can find copies of McFarlane's Spectacular Spider-Man #1 in $1 bins across the US.
I spoke to a prominent Irish LCS owner today and he said that the number of comic shops in major cities across the British Isles have dwindled in recent years. London, in particular, has seen around a dozen closures recently with only two remaining - Forbidden Planet and one independent store.
Wow. Just did a search on best-selling comics of all time. The 1990s were the golden years for sure.
https://www.cbr.com/best-selling-marvel-comics-of-all-time-ranked/
Sometimes I wonder however. It looks like what people remember most fondly about Marvel were the 60s and 70s. Did you get the huge Marvel book published by Taschen back in 2015? Chapter I, covering the Golden Age, went from page 8 to page 215. Over 200 pages. Chapter II went from 216 to 479, over 250 pages. Chapter III on the Bronze Age went from page 480 to 649, over 160 pages. And Chapter IV, which goes from 1985 to 2015, is a mere 51 pages. Not passing any judgement here, but it does seem odd. It seems that the late 80s and 90s brought us Carnage, Venom, Deadpool, and many other iconic characters. Perhaps I’m just getting older, but does it seem like comics are often living off of the intellectual capital built up from the 60s to the 90s and not really innovating anymore?
This is so weird to me, because my Goodreads feed is almost entirely people shrieking about new manga books and how much they loved them. There's definitely a market, it's just that the comics publishers hate it.
I think manga is more popular than American comics among the younger generations, maybe 30s and younger. At least, I’ve met a lot more manga fans than comics ones in that demographic.
Curious to know what the demographics are in these comics sales? If their crummy stories, slipshod creative direction, and lack of consistency are making too big a barrier to entry for younger people who weren’t fans beforehand (before, say, the 90s), it could be another explanation of why the industry is tanking.
No idea. I got into comics as an adult, through my interest in illustration, but I had no idea where to start reading them until Rippaverse started. So just curious if maybe there are more like me out there—who would be into comics if there was anything good and if it was easier to enter into the comics “club.”
Get on Comichron and compare Issue 1 vs Issue 2 behavior for most any post-2010 comic. The Poisson Curve shows who is in what camp.