Why were the 90's so oversaturated?

[mrknapp33]

I grew up in the 90's, so I naturally experienced my comic collecting apex at the oversaturation mark. But why did the comics market first blow up, then implode at this time?

I would think that now would be the time to worry about the market. First, this web site has a tendancy to overinflate some prices, mainly becuase of the hype that this site can generate. Second, with the proliferation of comic-book-movies that seem to be coming out at a rate of one every two months, it would appear that many collectors are turning into speculators again, hoping to cash in on the surrounding hype. And lastly, Ebay has opened up comic book access to those who previously did not have an LCS in close proximity. I am a comic book reader, first and foremost, so I bemoan the unwarranted rise in prices on "hot" comics, but I also realize that there is money to be made in this hobby. Discuss amongst yourselves...

[justin]

I grew up in the 90's, so I naturally experienced my comic collecting apex at the oversaturation mark. But why did the comics market first blow up, then implode at this time?

I would think that now would be the time to worry about the market. First, this web site has a tendancy to overinflate some prices, mainly becuase of the hype that this site can generate. Second, with the proliferation of comic-book-movies that seem to be coming out at a rate of one every two months, it would appear that many collectors are turning into speculators again, hoping to cash in on the surrounding hype. And lastly, Ebay has opened up comic book access to those who previously did not have an LCS in close proximity. I am a comic book reader, first and foremost, so I bemoan the unwarranted rise in prices on "hot" comics, but I also realize that there is money to be made in this hobby. Discuss amongst yourselves...

It coming again and Wizard and Marvel are to blame!

-A

[dave]

i believe that these things go in cycles. right now, many of us are thinking back to our own glory days when we could stay up all night and mess around, and hang out in comic shops (even if we rarely purchased anything) and our bodies didn't ache quite so much...now we've got a little more money (very little more) and the prices have dropped-so we're getting the things that we've always wanted. I don't think this site "hypes"
anything, really. I think that we are all a little competetive though, and we hype ourselves, so to speak.

if greg wanted to turn this into a hype machine, he could add his valiant poster (er...checklist) from 2 years ago to the checklist as well as all the vcvss' and stuff.

[400yrs]

This site is responsible for generating most of the Valiant interest. Without the site, the books would still sell sometimes but much much lower. Hope Greg plans to keep it running for a while into the future!!

[Daniel Jackson]

This site is responsible for generating most of the Valiant interest. Without the site, the books would still sell sometimes but much much lower. Hope Greg plans to keep it running for a while into the future!!

Me too.

[400yrs]

This site is responsible for generating most of the Valiant interest. Without the site, the books would still sell sometimes but much much lower. Hope Greg plans to keep it running for a while into the future!!

I should've added SonicDans site too!!

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

I grew up in the 90's, so I naturally experienced my comic collecting apex at the oversaturation mark. But why did the comics market first blow up, then implode at this time?

I would think that now would be the time to worry about the market. First, this web site has a tendancy to overinflate some prices, mainly becuase of the hype that this site can generate. Second, with the proliferation of comic-book-movies that seem to be coming out at a rate of one every two months, it would appear that many collectors are turning into speculators again, hoping to cash in on the surrounding hype. And lastly, Ebay has opened up comic book access to those who previously did not have an LCS in close proximity. I am a comic book reader, first and foremost, so I bemoan the unwarranted rise in prices on "hot" comics, but I also realize that there is money to be made in this hobby. Discuss amongst yourselves...

Is a history lesson in order...? Anyone?

[dino]

yes please

[Chuck]

mrknapp33, the short answer is:

Buying into all the hype by WIZARD and MARVEL at the time, many groups of new retailers and speculators entered the market hoping to cash in on the 'hot' books.

A major force of growing retailers were the 'sports cards' retailer/dealers. Many of which new little of the comic business and helped to saturate the market with the 'hot' comics.

Speculators/dealers did the same to saturate the market.

Supply exceeded the demand and the rest is history.


On another note.

Right now the big craze is GCG cert.

Once population levels of 9.8s start to saturate books that were thought to be rare; prices on 9.8 will start to fall.

Of couse books that are truely rare Golden, Silver, and Bronze will always be in high deamnd regardless if CGC'd or not.

[cinlach@aol.com]

the 90's were due in part to the economy riding high. basically people had money to burn and they were looking for ways to make even more money.

this was true of corporations as well as individuals. i'm sure we all have speculator horror stories to share but working in a comic shop in the 90's i saw it up close and personal every monday and wednesday night.

i've seen men walk out of my store with 50 copies of tribe #1. if you're not familiar with tribe, let's just say that it was...not quite grand literature. i begged...spend that money on silver age books instead, invest in the byrne/claremont x-men, invest in the key character appearances...if you're looking for something to put up for your kids, try early amazing spideys, anything other then primal force #1.

no matter how much i literally tried to steer or wrestle people away from speculating they wanted to do it all the more. these people actually thought that the reason i was telling them not to buy multiple copies of x-men #1 or superman #75 or any of those "scorching hot" books was because i wanted them for myself.

i had a guy tell me "i know you guys get huge discounts on books when you buy them so don't tell me you're not buying 10 zero hour #1's"

well, newsflash...i wasn't. we did get good discounts on new books...40% off and yes, i bought a bunch, but if someone came in and started talking about something or looking for a particular appearance i had to know my stuff. the vast majority of what i bought new from that time went into 3 or 5 for a dollar bins...and i STILL lost money on them. but i read them and at least got some value from them.

we had a big sale at our store and were sent one unopened box of wildcats #1 to give out for free as people came in the door. people were like "this is a $7 book!"...really, is that why we had 10 more unopened boxes back in our warehouse? who says this book is worth 7 bucks? you're going to take the straight word of gareb shamus over bob overstreet? my boss actually sold a guy an unopened box of shadowhawk #1 for $175 and the guy thought he was walking out with his kids college tuition in his hands.

the market declined in the 90's because people went temporarily insane and got burned...big time. so instead of blaming themselves, they blamed marvel, dc, valiant, image, malibu...etc, so on and so forth.

the comic companies were just responding to the demand the customers had for the books. anyone who thinks marvel didn't lose it's shirt at the end of the 90's is kidding themselves.

everyone has a different opinion on why the market collapsed in the 90's.
some people want to blame perlman at marvel. i think it all comes down to the customer. the folks who were buying everything they could get their hands on.

[sonicdan]

This site is responsible for generating most of the Valiant interest. Without the site, the books would still sell sometimes but much much lower. Hope Greg plans to keep it running for a while into the future!!

I should've added SonicDans site too!!

Word!
DAN

[speedracex]

I always find it really interesting to read posts about this topic.....i mean to think someone would buy a box of shadowhawk's #1's and be excited about it is crazy...but then again, in the 90's during this craze it wasnt crazy.....does anyone else have any examples of what they saw people buy and were just like "that person is nuts...etc...."....I love it keep it coming

[cinlach@aol.com]

dude...i have so many "what the hell are they thinking" moments i don't know where to start.

how about a guy who bought one of everything. i mean took a previews every month and bought ONE OF EVERY BOOK printed that month.

how about a guy who bought 5 copies each of all the maximum carnage books.

it just goes on and on...people are as stupid as you think they are. they never disappoint. i bet ol' mark (last name withheld by pity) wishes he'd listened to me now.

don't get me wrong, i wanted him to buy from me. but i'd rather see him get his moneys worth. now all he's got are a crapload of worthless books

[MedicAR]

I worked in a shop where a guy bought 200 copies of the first issue of Spawn, and 100 copies of each following issue up to issue 15 I was in the same boat a lot of you were, I was pushing him to buy Silver Age and the like. To make matters worse, the store owner wouldn't buy SA stuff when it came in. I picked up a ton of Amazing Spider-Man #7-30 in F+ condition CHEAP because the owner "had no use for it." Same with a big run of Journey into Mystery, Tales of Susupense and Tales to Astonish. It didn't have Liefeld or Toddy on it, so the owner didn't want it, and the guy selling it was happy to make anything off of then!!

[Todd Luck]

The 90's was brought on by a"perfect storm" of a a lot different things that happened to take place at the same time like sudden massive exposure in the outside news media (on collecting, Supermans's death, ect), market prices, creator desicions (like forming Image), marketing desicions (special covers, ect) that brought in tons of people to the industry.

One of the interesting things I hear repeated on the Net is that there were no readers brought in by all this (only collectors) and that all the comics that were put out were crap (except the ones that particular poster likes). Let me tell you something, I knew A LOT of kids in my high school who became readers, not investors, during the boom and when it crashed they either stopped collecting or chopped down their comic buying a lot.

Why? Because during the boom, a lot of people got beought in by the hype of what was going on with Superman and Batman, but those who didn't like those characters still had a lot to choose from. Maybe instead of old heroes you want newer ones? Well a dozen or so companies and lines offered that. Perhaps instead you like Star Wars? X-Files? Aliens? Mortal Kombat? Beavis and Buthead? Tarzan? dinosaurs? crime noir? drama? comedy? horror? The list goes on and on. If you liked any sort of genre of fiction their was a comic for you being published AND actually getting to the shelf. And a lot of it was very good. Defiant, Milestone, Valiant up to a point, some Vertigo, Legends, and dozens upon dozens of self published and indi comics were some of the finest examples you could find of comic storytelling.

But their were just too many companies putting out too many comics. It made the good comics hard to find, flooded the market which killed the collectability, and there was simply too many comics for the amount of people who were buying them. People stopped collecting because the comics had no value, leaving "ambitious" comic shops with a lot of unsaleable stock (many of whom closed). New publishers, finding little profit in a saturated market place, got out. Every reader saw atleast some if not most (or all) of the comics they liked either destroyed by the published going down, the title getting canceled, a lame attempt to change the book to get sales, or by the publisher's lack of creative resources. The vast variety on the shelves once again collapsed back to superheroes with a few Star Wars and Buffy comics thrown in.

Seeing everything we liked about the industry dissapear made a lot of us contemplate quiting comics altogether (instead I just cut my collection down 4 comics at the time ). Me and the people I know who still bothered going to shops were hesitant to pick up new books out of fear they would be canceled quickly (and a lot were ). Anyway that's the Boom/Bust from my perspective.

[MedicAR]

The 90's was brought on by a"perfect storm" of a a lot different things that happened to take place at the same time like sudden massive exposure in the outside news media (on collecting, Supermans's death, ect), market prices, creator desicions (like forming Image), marketing desicions (special covers, ect) that brought in tons of people to the industry.

One of the interesting things I hear repeated on the Net is that there were no readers brought in by all this (only collectors) and that all the comics that were put out were crap (except the ones that particular poster likes). Let me tell you something, I knew A LOT of kids in my high school who became readers, not investors, during the boom and when it crashed they either stopped collecting or chopped down their comic buying a lot.

Why? Because during the boom, a lot of people got beought in by the hype of what was going on with Superman and Batman, but those who didn't like those characters still had a lot to choose from. Maybe instead of old heroes you want newer ones? Well a dozen or so companies and lines offered that. Perhaps instead you like Star Wars? X-Files? Aliens? Mortal Kombat? Beavis and Buthead? Tarzan? dinosaurs? crime noir? drama? comedy? horror? The list goes on and on. If you liked any sort of genre of fiction their was a comic for you being published AND actually getting to the shelf. And a lot of it was very good. Defiant, Milestone, Valiant up to a point, some Vertigo, Legends, and dozens upon dozens of self published and indi comics were some of the finest examples you could find of comic storytelling.

But their were just too many companies putting out too many comics. It made the good comics hard to find, flooded the market which killed the collectability, and there was simply too many comics for the amount of people who were buying them. People stopped collecting because the comics had no value, leaving "ambitious" comic shops with a lot of unsaleable stock (many of whom closed). New publishers, finding little profit in a saturated market place, got out. Every reader saw atleast some if not most (or all) of the comics they liked either destroyed by the published going down, the title getting canceled, a lame attempt to change the book to get sales, or by the publisher's lack of creative resources. The vast variety on the shelves once again collapsed back to superheroes with a few Star Wars and Buffy comics thrown in.

Seeing everything we liked about the industry dissapear made a lot of us contemplate quiting comics altogether (instead I just cut my collection down 4 comics at the time ). Me and the people I know who still bothered going to shops were hesitant to pick up new books out of fear they would be canceled quickly (and a lot were ). Anyway that's the Boom/Bust from my perspective.

Wow.... that's quite an explanation. For those of you with ADD among us, I'll sum it up for you in two words: Rob Liefeld

J/K Rob, it's all in fun!!!

[jedimarley]

Can't blame Rob Liefeld. Very rare his books made it to the shelves
BLAME THE PUBLISHERS WHO'S BOOKS ACTUALLY CAME OUT :x
(at least on time )

[MedicAR]

Good point..... I hadn't looked at it that way!

Honestly, I'm ready for another bust... get me some cheap books!

[jedimarley]

I hear ya. Not much left in the bargin boxes at the comic book stores around my house.

[Todd Luck]

The 90's was brought on by a"perfect storm" of a a lot different things that happened to take place at the same time like sudden massive exposure in the outside news media (on collecting, Supermans's death, ect), market prices, creator desicions (like forming Image), marketing desicions (special covers, ect) that brought in tons of people to the industry.

One of the interesting things I hear repeated on the Net is that there were no readers brought in by all this (only collectors) and that all the comics that were put out were crap (except the ones that particular poster likes). Let me tell you something, I knew A LOT of kids in my high school who became readers, not investors, during the boom and when it crashed they either stopped collecting or chopped down their comic buying a lot.

Why? Because during the boom, a lot of people got beought in by the hype of what was going on with Superman and Batman, but those who didn't like those characters still had a lot to choose from. Maybe instead of old heroes you want newer ones? Well a dozen or so companies and lines offered that. Perhaps instead you like Star Wars? X-Files? Aliens? Mortal Kombat? Beavis and Buthead? Tarzan? dinosaurs? crime noir? drama? comedy? horror? The list goes on and on. If you liked any sort of genre of fiction their was a comic for you being published AND actually getting to the shelf. And a lot of it was very good. Defiant, Milestone, Valiant up to a point, some Vertigo, Legends, and dozens upon dozens of self published and indi comics were some of the finest examples you could find of comic storytelling.

But their were just too many companies putting out too many comics. It made the good comics hard to find, flooded the market which killed the collectability, and there was simply too many comics for the amount of people who were buying them. People stopped collecting because the comics had no value, leaving "ambitious" comic shops with a lot of unsaleable stock (many of whom closed). New publishers, finding little profit in a saturated market place, got out. Every reader saw atleast some if not most (or all) of the comics they liked either destroyed by the published going down, the title getting canceled, a lame attempt to change the book to get sales, or by the publisher's lack of creative resources. The vast variety on the shelves once again collapsed back to superheroes with a few Star Wars and Buffy comics thrown in.

Seeing everything we liked about the industry dissapear made a lot of us contemplate quiting comics altogether (instead I just cut my collection down 4 comics at the time ). Me and the people I know who still bothered going to shops were hesitant to pick up new books out of fear they would be canceled quickly (and a lot were ). Anyway that's the Boom/Bust from my perspective.

Wow.... that's quite an explanation. For those of you with ADD among us, I'll sum it up for you in two words: Rob Liefeld

J/K Rob, it's all in fun!!!

Huh? I think you better read my post again . No Liefield to be found in there. (it's funny you joke about the length but it's not even the longest post in this thread :littlesmile: ).

For some reason this reminds me of conversations I would strike up with the people working at my LCS in the 90's. We would be in the middle of a fairly intelligent conversation and then one of them brings up Liefield's name. All intelligent conversation stops and is replaced by the workers (and any near by customers) basically saying variations of "Liefield sucks" to each other for about 15 minutes (even though none of them have read Liefield's comics and most have barely seen anything the man's done).

You can replace Liefield's name with any creator it's politically correct to hate at the time and have the exact same incident happen. It used to happen a lot with Jim Shooter in the 90's. After the boom it tends to happen mostly with John Byrne in the shops I frequent.

[SiBill]

For some reason this reminds me of conversations I would strike up with the people working at my LCS in the 90's. We would be in the middle of a fairly intelligent conversation and then one of them brings up Liefield's name. All intelligent conversation stops and is replaced by the workers (and any near by customers) basically saying variations of "Liefield sucks" to each other for about 15 minutes (even though none of them have read Liefield's comics and most have barely seen anything the man's done).

You can replace Liefield's name with any creator it's politically correct to hate at the time and have the exact same incident happen. It used to happen a lot with Jim Shooter in the 90's. After the boom it tends to happen mostly with John Byrne in the shops I frequent.

Liefeld still sucks. Notice that he cannot even draw a simple arm with a hand attached. All his characters wear arm bands to disguise his lack of perspective (check it out if you think I am embellishing ). Anyway - here is my summary take. I used to go to all the big shows. Basically those idiot creators thought they were rock stars. I so wanted to support Millinium Comics (the African American DC line). Then I go to the shows and these idiots are "suffering us gladly". Liefeld was an @$$ of the highest caliber - he never looked up while signing. Although he was a kid, so I suppose all sb forgiven. There were some genuinely nice "superstars". Shooter, scion of the industry, was the nicest guy to fans - why do you think everyone owns a Shooter autograph? Jim Lee was a sweetheart. The whole Valiant crew got it. Dan Jurgens, a megastar because of Supes 75, was a nice guy. Basically, the only arrogant guy who survived was Todd Mc, the Spawn of satan. Although , he was so huge, he had to separate himself from the other image morons. Of course, Karma got him - he paid 3 mill for the McGuire Juice Ball . Notice he did not participate in that awful deathmate garbage. Valiant took all their great stories and momentum , and for a few dollars, gave legitimacy to these horrible and poorly written Image characters. Of course this PO'd the real Valiant fans. Now - tell me - if Valiant had any freaking sense whatsoever, why didn't they hold out for a Spawn, Master Darque, Shadowman crossover?

[MedicAR]

Huh? I think you better read my post again . No Liefield to be found in there. (it's funny you joke about the length but it's not even the longest post in this thread :littlesmile: ).

Nope, no Liefeld mentioned in the original, but I still like to blame him for everything bad in my world.

Crappy tax refund? Blame Liefeld. Flat tire? Blame Liefeld. Beer went flat? Blame Liefeld. I was one of those guys who was always ripping on him and the other Image guys in the LCS. Before they hit the stands, I had high hopes for Image, I was excited to see some creators stand up to the big two. Ultimately, egos seem to have ruined it all (that, and no comprehension of the word "deadline").

[Unblessed]

Liefeld the savage dragon or shadowhawk guy? Cause I thought SD was one of the Better Image rags. Though I only got into the WILD Cats mini.

~The Unblessed Soul

[greg]

Liefeld the savage dragon or shadowhawk guy? Cause I thought SD was one of the Better Image rags. Though I only got into the WILD Cats mini.

~The Unblessed Soul

I think Larson is the Savage Dragon guy.

[Unblessed]

Thanks Greg. I am not a comic expert of the 90's.

~The Unblessed Soul