The Comic Book Speculation Boom: The dark age of comic collecting

A couple of weeks ago I was talking with a friend about helping out with a project related to this blog. During the conversation he asked me if I knew much about the worth of older comics. Specifically he has some Roy Thomas Conan comics from the 70s and he was wondering what they are worth. I told him I had no idea as I am not interested in the aftermarket, but that there are several price guide sites he could check out.

On top of that I got an email from a friend pointing me to an online auction for Action comics #1 (the original not the one from three months ago). The buzz is that this is the copy owned by Nic Cage. As of my writing this the bid is up to $1,306,000.00.

All this brings up memories of the speculator boom of the late 80s/early 90s. It’s the ghost of this boom that makes those unfamiliar think that any older comic book is worth something.

The consensus is that the boom started in 1985 with the release of four titles. Batman: the Dark Knight, Watchmen, Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars. All four titles were huge hits and together redefined comic books. They also gained a lot of mainstream attention. A lot of news stories at the time would always mention the worth of older comics like Action #1 or Detective comics #27. This prompted people to start collecting the successful books in hopes that they would gain worth over time. This led to other books at the time being collected in hopes that they too would gain worth.

This was an interesting theory but had a huge flaw. The books from the 30s and 40s were valuable due to their rarity. A lot of comics were donated to paper drives during World War II. And let’s face it everyone has heard stories of parents tossing out the comics as trash.

So a speculator market form books in the 80s was interesting but little should have come of it, except that the publishers started pandering to it.

If you were into comics between 1985 and 1993 it was inescapable. Books were released with variant covers.  There were covers with gimmicks like holograms, die-cut, embossing, and foil-stamps. Publishers would look for any excuse to launch a first issue. Back issues were selling like crazy. People were being multiple copies of the same issue.

Back then people in the comic book shop looked at me like I was crazy. I would buy one copy of an issue and then read it. Seriously I swear one guy nearly had a stroke once because I was ruining the resale value of the book by not immediately sealing it in a polybag.

And yes there were speculators who were making money. And how were they doing that? They were selling to other speculator. Here you should see the first flaw in the paradigm.

Who were those speculators going to sell to?

And the other flaw?

Oversaturation.

Publishers were printing titles that were selling over a million copies an issue.  Remember what I said about the rarity of the golden age books. That was not happening here.

And if four titles launched the boom, it was two storylines that took it down.

The Death of Superman and Knightfall.

These stories saw the Superman die and Batman crippled. Both were replaced by edgier successors. I and my fellow longtime comic fans were starting betting pools about how long it would take Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne to be restored and reclaim their mantles. However a lot of speculators were not longtime fans.

They saw these books as real changing of the guards and bought them in unprecedented numbers. And this was the killing blow, not the inevitable return of the heroes, but the oversaturation from people ordering so much and the publisher meeting demand. Speculators would try to sell them off and couldn’t because their target audience already had plenty of copies of their own. And with that the speculator bubble went pop.

It’s interesting to note that even though it was two DC stories that started the end of the boom DC does not get much of the blame. Most people heap much more blame on Marvel and Image as they were seen as the publishers that pandered the most to the speculators.

As the comic speculation market was collapsing a new speculation market was being created. It was the trading card game market. Magic: The Gathering was designed to be collectible. But there was a major difference. Not once did Wizards of the Coast pander to the speculator market. When I was working at WotC customer service and a customer called in asking about card value we had a standard response. “Wizards of the Coast does not concern itself with the aftermarket and makes no decisions based on it”.

And almost twenty years later there is still a healthy after market for Magic cards, with prices based on a cards value in tournament play more than anything.

What about the comic book aftermarket today? It is still there, driven primarily by sites like EBay and Craigslist.

Sadly you see some companies still trying to pander to it too. Go back and read my blog about the Flashpoint/Fear Itself controversy. What was Marvel offering for the destruction of DC books that were actually selling? A variant cover of Fear Itself.

Wondering about Wonder Woman

It's month three of the DC relaunch and sadly one of the books I have been getting is on the chopping block. That book is Wonder Woman.

The buzz right now is about the fact that in the new timeline it has been revealed that Zeus is her father. That has nothing to do with my problem with the title.

My issue is that they have made her uncaring.

Her attitude to the woman she is trying to save in the storyline is borderline abusive. She seems to be more bloodthirsty and does not appear to get along with the other Amazons. It’s like they gave her the personality of the Huntress

Batman is being portrayed as being more compassionate right now.

I think this is the latest expression of a problem Wonder Woman has had since the Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot in the mid-eighties. Every writer who comes on to the character sits down to figure out who she is and what her place in the DCU is. That would be fine, except they then make that exploration the whole point of the series.

And is that really necessary?

In 1941 William Moulton Marston created Wonder Woman. He saw a comic book market saturated with male characters and wanted to create the ideal female hero, one that would overcome her foes not only with her fighting prowess and powers, but also her heart. She was a heroine who could be a role model for young women.

Yes he did include Greek mythology in the origin, and yes do to his unconventional life style there was some unique philosophy and a lot of bondage. But in the end it was about a strong, caring female hero.

Is that so hard now?

Let’s stop trying to figure out her symbolic place in the DCU. Let’s stop exploring her mythological roots. Let’s tone down the examination of the Amazon culture.

Just get back to the strong, caring heroine who goes out and fights the bad guys. Get back to the role model.

I’ll give the book another issue or two, but I’m not hopeful. But maybe someday a writer will be inspired to go back to Wonder Woman’s true roots.

Dispelling the myths of geek culture.

When I tell people I write a blog the first question is always “What’s it about?”

Of course I answer “Geek culture.”

And I occasionally will get the follow up “Why are you writing about geek culture?”

“I’m writing what I know.”

And here is the kicker “But you don’t seem like a geek.”

Now in my mind of course I am a geek. Not just a geek, but a geek living in the geek capital of the world. How can that not be obvious?

 I collect comics and have since I was able to read. All I read are Science Fiction and Fantasy novels.  I am a role-player with a regular group. I use to work for a game company and I help found a major fan organization that still exists. When my best friend and I get together neither of wives can understand what we are saying to each other because we start talking about the above and use a lot of slang based on geek culture.

But none of that is something you can tell from just looking at me, or hearing me talk in casual conversation. I work a regular 40 hour a week job in the tech industry. My normal mood or dress is business causal favoring button down shirts and blue jeans. I keep my hair and beard well-trimmed and I keep good hygiene. I can handle myself well in a business meeting at work and meeting people in most social situations. Oh yeah, and I am happily married.

In other words I am not the stereotype of a geek.

And the truth is neither are most of my friends that are geeks either.

The stereotype of a geek is someone who is socially awkward, given to poor hygiene, can’t speak on any subject outside of geek culture and won’t shut up about things that are. At best they are uncomfortable around women and at worst they are outright misogynistic.

I’m not going to say that these types don’t exist, because they do. Stereotypes come from somewhere. But they are not the norm. Put bluntly even other geeks find them annoying.

Honestly being a geek is a lot like being a sports fan. You have the guys that paint themselves blue and go shirtless, or riot when their team loses, but most just watch the games a root for the team. The rest of the week those fans have other concerns and interests.

It is the same with geeks. I may love the culture and consume it. I go to conventions, I hang out at the comic shop and I go to the movies. I also like to go to museums, pay attention to politics and world events and volunteer with my church.

But why worry about it, after all if I am comfortable with myself why should I care what the world at large thinks.

Well growth for one thing. There are a lot of businesses that cater to geeks. Comic book shops, game companies, Publishers, and conventions. With the economy the way it is a lot of them are looking to expand their audiences. That expansion is hampered by the myth that the audience already there are a group of stinky hostile misogynists.

So as long as I am trying to promote the culture I love I will do the best I can to dispel those myths.

And the worst part is that most of these myths are perpetuated by geeks themselves. I think it’s the idea of embracing the stereotype helps rob it of its power.  The problem is that is a crap solution. All embracing the stereotype does is keeps it alive.

So next time you are in a fan convention talking about how all you need to do to clear the room is throw in a bar of soap, ask yourself “Is this how I really want to present myself?”

Review: In Time

I imagine that when the Occupy Wall Street movement started gaining steam the producers of In Time must have high fived each other, and did so again when the 7^th Billion human on the planet was born.  

In Time continues the time honored tradition of science fiction using an alternative setting to examine the world we live in. It’s also a fairly standard action movie.

The central premise is quickly established. At some point in the future genetic engineering reaches a point where it is possible to stop the again process. Once a person reaches 25 (the point where people reach physical peek maturity) the aging process stops. To combat overcrowding each person is equipped with a timer that starts counting down one year. When it reaches zero they die.  They can get more time added to keep going. Somehow time has replaced money as standard currency. So when you work you are paid in time, so yes time is in fact money.

Our hero Will, Played by Justin Timberlake, is a poor man who rarely has more than a day’s worth of time at any point in his life, comes into possession of over a hundred years thanks to a suicidal rich man. When his mother dies he tries to infiltrate high society to take them for all they are worth. He meets an heiress Sylvia, Played by Amanda Seyfried, who is intrigued by him as he is not as lifeless as most people she meets. When the Timekeepers (think police), lead by Keeper Raymond Leon, played by Cillian Murphy try to arrest Will on suspicion of murder and time theft, Sylvia is at first his  hostage to escape and later his partner in crime when her father refuses to pay a ransom.

Much of the movie is taken up with Will and Sylvia as they rob her father’s time banks and distribute them amongst the time poor while Raymond hunts them down.

As an action movie In Time is fairly standard. The concept of the life timers helps add tension to as the characters have to find ways of getting more time to just stay alive.

Justin Timberlake does a fair job as an action lead, giving off the feel much like Matt Damon when he first did action. Cillian Murphy is always reliable in these kinds of movies and his presence as a somewhat noble adversary really brightens up the film. Amanda Seyfried seems a bit out of her depth, but this does work for her character that is also a fish out of water. One note is that no matter what happens in the movie her makeup is always perfect.  There are also good supporting performances from Olivia Wilde, Matt Boemer, Johnny Galecki, Vincent Kartheiser and Alex Pettyfer.

Speaking of makeup, one thing I noted was that all the rich people in this movie have an appearance of being somewhat artificial. This helps add to the feel of the class separation in the movie. The rich, who are affectively immortal, are truly ideal since they fear having an accident as that is the only way they can die. The poor are generally active as they have to be on the go at all times to make more time to stay alive.

A phrase used throughout the movie is “for few to be immortal, many must die.” This is meant to convey that it is in the interest of the rich to keep poor people on short time and dyeing regularly in order to support their own extended lives.  Working as an allegory of current economic times is where the movie plays the strongest. It is also something of a weakness as the need to keep the action going once it starts means we do not get to explore as much of the world as we would like.

Use of language in this movie is a lot of fun. Phrases like “got a minute” “I’ll clean your clock” “I haven’t got the time to play poker” and “Don’t waste my time” take on a whole new meaning.

There is a subplot involving a criminal gang of regularly steal people’s time. They want to find Will and Sylvia because they want the time they have taken for themselves.  There is also a point about prices being artificially inflated to counteract the extra time Will and Sylvia are giving the poor.

And here is where I have questions. The central premise works great in the confines of the movie when you can willingly suspend disbelief, but it does not hold up under any kind of scrutiny.

Is the entire world using the time based economy? What is backing this economy? How did we go from our current currency standard to using time?  How did they get people to agree to limit their life spans?

And how long has this been going on? You have one character state that he is over one hundred years old. Technology is not that much more advanced then now, except for the time transfer tech and that fact that all cars are electric. It is never stated how far in the future we are.

So in summery I would say that In Time is an ok action movie with an intriguing and timely premise.

Beware the Slender Man

One of the features of urban legends is that they are basically modern folklore. It is an oral tradition that spreads as a story to from the point of view of a friend of a friend. They are often cautionary tales and will have a hint of the supernatural. Some are even outright ghost stories such as the vanishing hitchhiker.

And now we have the internet.

And our folklore is now known as memes.

One of the best came about on June 10th, 2009. This is the date of the first sighting of the Slender Man.

Who is the Slender Man? That is a good question, not a smart one to ask, but a good one none the less.

Take a look.

Did you see the odd figure in the back ground? This is the first known picture of the Slender Man.

Many followed.

They say that the more you think about him, the more likely you are to encounter him. Those that do start to obsess, often getting ill. Several people who have gotten pictures of him have disappeared.

Spooked yet?

Well that’s the point. The truth is that the Slender Man is a case of an intentionally created urban legend.

In the forums of the web site Something Awful a thread was created dedicated to taking normal photos and altering them to make them appear paranormal. On June 10th, 2009 Victor Surge posted the first couple of what would become many pictures featuring his creation, the Slender Man, a creature composed of aspects that he found creepy.

Unnaturally tall? Check.

Featureless face? Check.

Elongated limbs? Check.

Men in Black Suit? Check.

Never in focus? Check.

 Not content to just make creepy pictures Surge included “facts” surrounding each picture to enhance the story.

 Eventually the thread became dominated by the Slender Man as other people jumped on the band wagon. Those that could not create pictures started creating the mythos that surrounded the Slender Man. Yet he was always left vague enough for people to add their own interpretations. Conflicting accounts were made. In other words the perfect Urban Legend. It has grown to the point where some people have heard of the story in urban legend fashion and have no idea that it was made up on a forum.

The image and myth are so intriguing that several people have written stories are made online videos based on it. Examples include Marble Hornets and Everyman HYBRID. Do you self a favor and do not check these out after dark, unless of course you like to be creeped out when you go to bed.

One of the best parts of the Slender Man myth is how it takes advantage of both the internet and basic human behavior. The myth states that thinking too much about the Slender Man attracts his attention and at some point he will visit you in your dreams. Guess what has a good chance of happening if you start looking up information on something with as iconic a look as the Slender Man?

At some point I’m convinced a feature movie will be made. I hope it is an indie film, but not found footage as that has been done to death. When it does get made I hope Victor Surge gets some kind credit.

Until then there are great sites you can check out for more.

I think that is a good place to end.

Everything is fine.

That noise you heard, ignore it.

Just don’t look out the window for a while.  

His gentle caress.

Role-Playing and Urban Legends Part 2

In the last post, I said that urban legends have been a hobby of mine since I was 12. This has had its ups and downs.

When I was in my early twenties I worked as a clerk at a 7-11. A woman came in wanting to put up a flier warning about lick-on tattoos laced with LSD. It was a classic example of the Blue Star Tattoo legend. I took a flier and explained the legend. 

Let’s just say that both she and my manager were less then pleased.

But the real fun with urban legends started when I was working as a customer service representative at Wizards of the Coast.

I was hired by WotC in July of 1993, the same month they released Magic: the Gathering. So I was there for its early rush of success.

My day-to-day job was answering questions about our games. The majority of these questions were based on the rules to Magic: the Gathering; and later, after we bought TSR, Dungeons and Dragons. However, this was a job based on taking incoming phone calls, so anything could happen.

At some point my manager decided that one of us should be focused on any calls based on rumors about our games, like the ones based on the sources I cited in the last post.  Specifically he wanted a point person to deal with any question about our games being evil, satanic, or harmful. Basically, to deal with people who believed the urban legends.

In his wisdom, he decided I should be that person.  I guess my love of urban legends made me the ideal candidate.

Part of the fun of this new responsibility was that I got to have special training.

WotC flew out a Michael Stackpole to give me this training. You may remember Michael; as I mentioned him in the last post. If the industry had an expert in this field it was Michael.

I would like to believe that by the time I left WotC, thanks to Michael’s training and my own experiences, I was the industry’s second leading expert.

The method used to direct calls to me was pretty simple. The person who got the call would put the customer on hold and then yell out loud, “Jeff! Satan call!”

I ended up developing a lot of responses to that.

“Tell him I’m not here”

“Tell him it can never work out between us.”

 “Tell them we’re not in league with Satan. We’re in a bowling league with Satan. And do you know how hard it is for him to rent shoes?”

“Why don’t I ever get Shiva calls?”

You get the idea.

After that I would take the call and get to work.

Most of the calls and letters fit into two basic categories.

The first would go like this:

"What is this game based on?" I would be asked.

"Math, basic arithmetic and a little algebra." I would answer.

“What?” as I had clearly not given the expected answer.

“Well the game was developed by a math professor. If you take out all the art and flavor text what you are left with is a game mechanic that is based on mathematic principles.”

The other type would go like this

“Is this game based on the occult?”

“I’ll be honest with you; I doubt any of the game designers know anything about it. All the setting and art are based on western fantasy literature and most of that was derived from the work of a pair of English theologians who were writing Christian allegory,” I would answer. Of course, I was referring to J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

Between these two sets of stock answers, I was able to field a good majority of those calls.

Of course, there were some real winners.

My personal favorite was a woman who called and as soon as I answered she went off:

"I am going to burn these cards my son bought."

"No ma’am, you don't want to burn them."

"No, I am going to burn them."

"No, please, shred them instead."

"What?"

"The cards are coated in plastic like poker card; if you burn them the smoke will be toxic. Shredding them will be much safer."

"Aren't you upset that I am going to destroy them?"

"Why would that upset me? We already have your money. The rest is an issue between you and your son."

My manager wanted to give me a stern talking to for that one, but he was laughing too hard.

Another one that always puzzled me was a bit of mail we received. It wasn’t a letter; it was a copy of the rule book found in Magic decks. Someone had written in Bible quotes on random pages. Well, not the quote - it would be Book, Chapter and Verse; it was up to me to look up the quotes. They were mostly from the Old Testament.  I could never really figure out what theme they were going for, since no two passages covered the same subject.

They did write one original thing on the back of the rulebook.

“I Pled the Blood of Christ on your company”

I still look at that and think that the word just seems off.

Then again it’s not like they took the time to write an actually letter.

The last one was a doozy that was still going on when I left WotC in 1997.

I got a call from the superintendent of a school district in upstate New York.

His story went like this. One of the schools in his district had allowed students to start up a Magic: The Gathering club. Everything was going fine until some parents had seen the cards and complained to the district. It was a fairly standard “These cards are Satanic” complaint. What was different was that one of the parents was a lawyer and she was preparing a ^t First Amendment law suit against the school.

I’m pretty sure you looked at that previous sentence and thought, “A First Amendment law suit? Why?”

This was her logic (so to speak): Since the game was so clearly Satanic in nature, allowing it to be played at school was promoting a religion, and thus violated the separation of church and state.

Honestly, if this was a work of fiction, I would have violated suspension of disbelief.

I spent time helping the superintendent understand the game, and even gave him examples of cards so that he could have the game looked at by a child psychologist. They found nothing wrong with the game, but the lawsuit went on. And from what I heard, it was going on as late as 2004.

Role-Playing and Urban Legends Part 1

With Halloween around the corner, it is time for ghost stories to make the rounds again. And in my opinion the best ghost stories are the ones that grow into urban legends. I love urban legends.

When I was about 12 years old, my mother heard that a woman at our local Kmart had been killed by a snake that had gotten into a shipment of clothes from overseas.  She became very concerned that this could happen at other stores, and wanted me to be careful when we were out shopping.

Two days later, our local newspaper ran a story on about this incident. More to the point: they ran a piece debunking it as an urban legend. It was a well-written piece that covered what an urban legend was, how they spread, and some of the most common ones.  It also cited a book by Jan Harold Brunvand called The Vanishing Hitchhiker: Urban Legends & their Meanings.

The next day I checked out this book from the school library.

I was hooked. I found other books, and from there, following urban legends became a small hobby of mine.

I suppose I should make sure you know what I am talking about before I go on. Of course the best way to educate yourself on this would be to check out Professor Brunvand’s books on the subject.

Basically, an urban legend is modern folklore. It takes the form of a story relayed as being true, usually happening to “a friend of a friend,” and that usually holds some kind of cautionary tale or supernatural element.

But why I am I bringing this up in a blog devoted to geek culture?

It’s due to some doozy urban legends that have grown around role-playing games.

Since almost the time of their inception, fantasy role-playing games have attracted their own set of urban legends.

These grew out of three sources.

The first was simply that fact that some people would look at the fantasy elements in Dungeons and Dragons and assume it meant the game was Satanic. The idea that any role playing game will lead to devil worship come from this basic misunderstanding. I’ve always found this one funny since many of those fantasy elements were lifted from the writings J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, both of whom had Christian allegory in their stories.

The second source was an attempted suicide in the utility tunnels of Michigan State University that was erroneously linked to Dungeons and Dragons. A student at MSU went to the steam tunnels to commit suicide by overdose. He left a map on graph paper (left over from a D&D game) of his location so his body could be found. Instead of dying he wandered off. A detective hired by his family to find him idly speculated that he had gone to the tunnel to play a live action version of the game, and the press latched onto that as fact. This lead to the myth of someone getting killed playing a live action Role playing game. This myth got leverage in an incredibly bad book called Mazes and Monsters, which in turn got turned into a lousy TV movie starring Tom Hanks.

The third source was the suicide of a high school student in Richmond Virginia that is mother attributed to his involvement with a Dungeons and Dragons game he played at school. She tried to sue TSR, the publisher of Dungeons and Dragons at that time. All her lawsuits were dismissed. In response, she formed Bothered about Dungeons and Dragons (BADD) to combat the “evils” of roleplaying. It got to the point that game designer and future Star Wars author Michael A Stackpole wrote the article “Game Hysteria and the Truth” to debunk BADD’s claims. 

These stories have a life of their own now. Even though role-playing gamers now have an image of the loner geek in his mom’s basement, many of these stories still persist. Even now, there is probably a preacher somewhere firm in the belief that role-playing leads directly to Satan.

And in the next post I will discuss how all of this intersected directly with my life.

Here is a hint: I used to work for Wizards of the Coast