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Soft Launches, Collector Mania, and #1s
Bobby Derie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, the comic book industry has changed. Back in the Iron Age of comics (1990s), there was a spate of new #1 titles, often advertising themselves as eminently collectable, promoting new or minor characters, of dubious quality and quickly sinking into oblivion. Old titles with numbers into the three-digits were sometimes relaunched to cash in on the consumer craze for #1s.
Today in the Aluminum Age of comics (I like aluminum), things are a bit different. I don't think we actually have less #1s, but the majority of companies have learned some hard lessons. Outside of major universe relaunches (New 52), you've seen some really interesting strategies. Marvel has been pursuing soft-launches, where an established title transfers to a new character and the old character reboots on a new title, sometimes with considerable success - I think "The Incredible Hercules" did really well in this regard. There's still a lot of spin-off bloat from events, but by their very definition those titles and one-shots are of limited scope and duration, not intended to be ongoing titles.
Dark Horse I think has been most innovative, using their Dark Horse Presents anthology as a kick-off point for new series - and the series themselves have started following the Hellboy/BPRD model where for the most part the numbering is reset with each story arc, making for easily self-contained chain-of-miniseries comics that I think make some of these series easier to jump into. More #1s, but for reader appeal, not collector appeal.
One thing DC and Image have been doing that I rather like is the 99 cent loss-leader (actually, are they making a loss? Dunno.) #1 issues when launching low series, hoping that the higher number of people that start reading will lead to higher readership later on. Similarly, the re-issuing of cheap #1s to try and get readers interested in a series, as part of a "If you liked X, then check out Y" initiative. Dark Horse and Comixology have also been pursuing this strategy online, which I think is interesting and maybe more sustainable to catch people's interest; remember when Marvel released all those first issues for free and crashed Comixology's servers? While a bit of a black mark for Comixology (who couldn't handle the load), I think it was a terrific promotion by companies that sit on large amounts of intellectual property and sometimes seem to struggle with how to monetize them.
Now, there are the universe relaunches, and DC especially has had a lot of trouble maintaining interest in the lesser titles...and I think that as much as anything is a bald marketing ploy to collectors as much as anything. It would have been interesting if DC had maintained the 52 concept, but did softlaunches from their successful titles - Green Lantern Corps becomes Yellow Lantern Corps, for example, and then GLC relaunches as The Corps or something to replace a failing title. But that would require a fair bit of advance planning.
Today in the Aluminum Age of comics (I like aluminum), things are a bit different. I don't think we actually have less #1s, but the majority of companies have learned some hard lessons. Outside of major universe relaunches (New 52), you've seen some really interesting strategies. Marvel has been pursuing soft-launches, where an established title transfers to a new character and the old character reboots on a new title, sometimes with considerable success - I think "The Incredible Hercules" did really well in this regard. There's still a lot of spin-off bloat from events, but by their very definition those titles and one-shots are of limited scope and duration, not intended to be ongoing titles.
Dark Horse I think has been most innovative, using their Dark Horse Presents anthology as a kick-off point for new series - and the series themselves have started following the Hellboy/BPRD model where for the most part the numbering is reset with each story arc, making for easily self-contained chain-of-miniseries comics that I think make some of these series easier to jump into. More #1s, but for reader appeal, not collector appeal.
One thing DC and Image have been doing that I rather like is the 99 cent loss-leader (actually, are they making a loss? Dunno.) #1 issues when launching low series, hoping that the higher number of people that start reading will lead to higher readership later on. Similarly, the re-issuing of cheap #1s to try and get readers interested in a series, as part of a "If you liked X, then check out Y" initiative. Dark Horse and Comixology have also been pursuing this strategy online, which I think is interesting and maybe more sustainable to catch people's interest; remember when Marvel released all those first issues for free and crashed Comixology's servers? While a bit of a black mark for Comixology (who couldn't handle the load), I think it was a terrific promotion by companies that sit on large amounts of intellectual property and sometimes seem to struggle with how to monetize them.
Now, there are the universe relaunches, and DC especially has had a lot of trouble maintaining interest in the lesser titles...and I think that as much as anything is a bald marketing ploy to collectors as much as anything. It would have been interesting if DC had maintained the 52 concept, but did softlaunches from their successful titles - Green Lantern Corps becomes Yellow Lantern Corps, for example, and then GLC relaunches as The Corps or something to replace a failing title. But that would require a fair bit of advance planning.
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I somewhat expect in thirty years' time the most valuable comic for collectors to have be something like Spawn #37. The comic collectors are chasing an old game that just doesn't exist anymore.
I like picking up issues that mean a lot to me though. For example, the first issue of X-Men from the 90's had four covers that made a scene when together. I didn't get them back when they were released because I was only 4 or so, but I want to pick all of them up and display because X-Men got me into comics. Ideally I'd get Claremont and Lee to sign them all across the covers in big letters haha. I also found the first issue of Morrison's run on New X-Men because his run got me BACK into comics. Other than that I've got a handful of #1s from certain runs with Clayton Crain as the artists because I really love his work (like Ghost Rider 1, X-Force 1, a variant on Necrosha 1).
I think there will be a market for collecting comics for a while yet though. If nothing else for the Gold/Silver Age stuff that's already worth $texas. My friend and his dad have a bunch of old stuff like the early Lee/Kriby X-Men books and even Marvel #1 locked away somewhere. There are a lot of old issues I'd love to have just to put on display even, but the investment needed for stuff that old nowadays is beyond me.
Basically; As long as civilization doesn't crumble, I'd hang on to those old paper funny books as long as you can.
Anything advertised as for collectors never is.
Big value collectors items happen by accident, not design.
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