Totally agree, the market can't take another 90's market. especially with books at $4 and $5 and in some cases $10 a pop
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Completely different scenario comics are holding on to life now, while in the 90's some books had a million copy run. The printed page in general is a gradually shrinking market.
ChrisComment
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Pretty much the entire Marvel line's sales is predicated on shops overordering certain books to qualify to order copies of certain rare variants that appeal only to speculators and you often see all those extra copies dumped into dollar bins at cons and shops within a few months of release because there are not enough customers left in the direct market to create enough demand to meet the supply of books flooding the market so shops can order those variants.
It's not a matter of if there is a new speculator boom and bust, it's already started, the question is what happens when the variant and speculator bubble bursts? Will shops still order enough to keep some publishers going or keep the periodical market viable. The only growth in comics is in the young adult book trade. Some keep pushing the idea that dollars and revenue sales are up so the market is healthy, but those increases have been accomplished through higher price points and the percentage of growth in revenue was less than the percentage of increase in MSRP, so if you look at actual units sold, it has been descreasing for some time even if revenue is up because of higher pried products. The success of some higher price products in recent years (such as Action #1000 and Detective #1000 with a $10 price point) has propped up those revenue numbers and led to an increase in books like that-Wonder Woman and Flash #750, the 80th anniversary issues for Robin, Catwoman, Joker, etc.
If you look at the industry honestly right now, it is completely propped up by speculation, variants, and high priced special issues. And that bubble cannot last. So, again, it's not a question of will there be another bubble and burst, it's a question of when will this current bubble we are in burst. More comic shops closed in 2019 than the previous three years combined. We haven't seen that kind of increase in shop closures since the speculator bubble burst in the 90s, so the bubble may very well have started to burst.
-M"Opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding." -PlatoComment
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^And this is why some many comic shops carry just as much, if not more merchandise than just comics. I know a lot of folks complain here about POP figures, and my LCS has a TON of them, but they sell, and they bring in a lot of customers. If comics do go bust, or at least if things get worse, it's at least something, unless those eventually go the way of all fads, ala Beanie Babies, etc.
ChrisComment
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^And this is why some many comic shops carry just as much, if not more merchandise than just comics. I know a lot of folks complain here about POP figures, and my LCS has a TON of them, but they sell, and they bring in a lot of customers. If comics do go bust, or at least if things get worse, it's at least something, unless those eventually go the way of all fads, ala Beanie Babies, etc.
Chris
-M"Opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding." -PlatoComment
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"Opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding." -PlatoComment
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Not much more to say interest in comic book characters as IP properties is at an all to high but their monthly books couldn't draw flies with a poop smell variant cover.Comment
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