Why were the 90's so oversaturated?

[400yrs]

There are. I think there might be enough of a fanbase. I do admit that I actually liked TROUBLEMAKERS.

And people have been recommending me Nicieza's run on PSI FORCE, but I haven't had the chance to pick it up yet.

There must be because he always got work.
Funny you mention PSI Force. I didn't know he wrote it, but I've got the full run (I think) that I'll probably get rid of soon. Right now it's sitting in a box that I was going to give away to charity.

[Shag]

I liked Image. It's what made me start to buy comics again. I quit spending all of my money on baseball cards and I'd save a few bucks to pick up the new Image title, when it came out. That was the most frustrating part.
I remember Youngblood 4 was supposed to have a Glow-In-The-Dark cover and when it didn't I was floored. It took like 10 freaking years to get this comic out and it didn't even have a GITD cover, WTF.
I was 13 soon to be 14 when Image started and I liked the art and the stories for a while. I quit reading Spawn after 12. I quit Wild CATs after 4. I quit Savage Dragon after the 3rd regular issue. I only bought the first 4 Cyberforce and Brigade issues. I read the first 2 ShadowHawk series. I did buy 10 or 11 Youngblood issues but the Yearbook was my favorite by Chap Yeap if I remember correctly. Wetworks... I bought one issue just to have it because he (Whilce) was supposed to be one of the original founders and it didn't make sense to me.
I really loved Rob Liefeld's work when I was a kid. I finally met him at Wizard World Chicago last year and he was in a hurry to get rid of "his fans." I have an Image 0 I'm trying to get signed by the Image founders which is one of my prize comics. Marc Silvestri was the nicest person there!!! I bought the first 15 issues of Darkness but was saddened when he quit drawing it and when Garth Ennis quit writing so I eventually fell off.
I don't like to watch many movies more than once and the same goes for comics. I haven't read many of them since 1992 or whenever they came out. I don't know if I'd like many of them today. Probabaly not. I've watched some of the 80's cartoons recently and they suck. Don't get me wrong, they bring back good childhood memories but the shows just plain stink most of the time and I'm sure I'd say the same about the comics. At least I can say at one point in time I did enjoy these issues.
Image was the introduction of my collecting craze and they also taught me a lesson in LET DOWN. Nothing is guarenteed, even if it's supposed to come from one of the greatest, which is what Image was made of at its time. Seven of the greatest/most popular comic artists of our time.

[Unblessed]

I liked Image.

Joe, get your bat.

~The Unblessed Soul

[Shag]

I liked Image.

Joe, get your bat.

~The Unblessed Soul

They better be metal because all of mine are!

[The Spider]

I liked Image. It's what made me start to buy comics again. I quit spending all of my money on baseball cards and I'd save a few bucks to pick up the new Image title, when it came out. That was the most frustrating part.
I remember Youngblood 4 was supposed to have a Glow-In-The-Dark cover and when it didn't I was floored. It took like 10 freaking years to get this comic out and it didn't even have a GITD cover, WTF.
I was 13 soon to be 14 when Image started and I liked the art and the stories for a while. I quit reading Spawn after 12. I quit Wild CATs after 4. I quit Savage Dragon after the 3rd regular issue. I only bought the first 4 Cyberforce and Brigade issues. I read the first 2 ShadowHawk series. I did buy 10 or 11 Youngblood issues but the Yearbook was my favorite by Chap Yeap if I remember correctly. Wetworks... I bought one issue just to have it because he (Whilce) was supposed to be one of the original founders and it didn't make sense to me.
I really loved Rob Liefeld's work when I was a kid. I finally met him at Wizard World Chicago last year and he was in a hurry to get rid of "his fans." I have an Image 0 I'm trying to get signed by the Image founders which is one of my prize comics. Marc Silvestri was the nicest person there!!! I bought the first 15 issues of Darkness but was saddened when he quit drawing it and when Garth Ennis quit writing so I eventually fell off.
I don't like to watch many movies more than once and the same goes for comics. I haven't read many of them since 1992 or whenever they came out. I don't know if I'd like many of them today. Probabaly not. I've watched some of the 80's cartoons recently and they suck. Don't get me wrong, they bring back good childhood memories but the shows just plain stink most of the time and I'm sure I'd say the same about the comics. At least I can say at one point in time I did enjoy these issues.
Image was the introduction of my collecting craze and they also taught me a lesson in LET DOWN. Nothing is guarenteed, even if it's supposed to come from one of the greatest, which is what Image was made of at its time. Seven of the greatest/most popular comic artists of our time.

I went and bought a lot of Image comics in the past three years (it's pretty easy if you go through bargain bins).

SPAWN: Pre-#8 issues... I think people may've had a point about McFarlane just drawing what he feels like and then coming up with the story. After #11, McFarlane's writing gets better than his SPIDER-MAN days, especially with the new concepts that Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Grant Morrison put in. But then it gets repetitive at times.

SAVAGE DRAGON: got BETTER as the regular series moved along. If you really want to go back to reading an Image book, I'd recommend this. Stick with this all the way up to... ah... #35 at the very least. There were people who jumped off #76 because they felt it went in too different a direction, but I really liked the post-#76 issues. Also might want to read the first FREAK FORCE and VANGUARD series since they tie-in to stuff in SAVAGE DRAGON. And maybe DEADLY DUO.

SHADOWHAWK... uh... I'd rather recommend Valentino's A TOUCH OF SILVER or NORMALMAN. He does have a new Shadowhawk series out just recently, but I haven't gotten around to looking at it yet.

CYBERFORCE: urm... I did sorta like the Walt Simonson #0 issue. And Silvestri's art is pretty good.

YOUNGBLOOD: Well, it's Liefeld and co. Just probably depends on how much you like his work. The first mini I like mostly because of the unintentional hilarity that comes up sometimes. There were two issues by Alan Moore and Steve Skroce in which Moore revamps the Youngblood team as a New Teen Titans type team. Those issues get recommended often.

WILDC.A.T.S.: Worth looking to see Travis Charest's style evolve from Jim Lee clone to a more European influenced style. Also Alan Moore did a run of issues that was pretty interesting too.

And yeah, Chap Yaep did the art for YOUNGBLOOD YEARBOOK.

[The Spider]

Anyway, on various message boards and some magazines I've seen people just pining the blame for the 90's problems on just one group or some particular people.

I remember a few years ago there was an auction for HARBINGER #1 where the seller complained that Valiant was the worst thing that happened in the 90's. Anybody remember that?

I've seen people blaming the Image founders for causing the downfall of comics (John Byrne does this).

I've seen people claiming Marvel is the most evil thing ever because of what it did in during 1990-1996.

I've seen WIZARD being named as the sole cause for the 90's problems.

But the truth is that it really doesn't work that way. It's most likely that each of those things TOGETHER caused what happened.

[Shag]

The 90's boom wasn't in just comics but sports cards also. Maybe other collectibles, too. It was a booming era and was full of speculation due to the older comics and cards selling at outrageous prices. I think collectors thought they could turn the 1991 X-Men 1 into the 1963 X-Men 1 and sell it for hundreds of dollars down the road so they kept buying multiple copies of each issue. The consumer kept buying and buying which inflated the print runs up, up and away. I think the only people to blame for the boom is the consumer and comic shop speculators. What makes something collectible is the supply and demand. If everybody that wants an issue of something already owns 5 copies of it you won't make any profit. When the world figured out that every possible purchaser already had what they were trying to unload they were stuck with a huge loss. I don't know about you but when I lose at something real bad like they did I'd stay away from comics if all I was in it for was the buck. It was a hard lesson learned by a lot of people.
Where is the comic market going now??? Any thoughts?

[depluto]

It's my fault. I worked in a comic shop and I was supposed to order 170 Turok 1s. It was a typo on the order form, and we got 1.7 million. And then I did the same thing month after month until we were broke.

Sorry about that.

[dino]

It's my fault. I worked in a comic shop and I was supposed to order 170 Turok 1s. It was a typo on the order form, and we got 1.7 million. And then I did the same thing month after month until we were broke.

Sorry about that.

[Shag]

170 Turok 1's. The shops around the country were the same, ordering hundreds of copies of a single issue. I've talked to an owner here in town about this. There isn't a title that he orders 100 issues of today. In the early 90's there were multiple issues that he was ordering 100 or more of. I just bought 9 Unity 1 gold issues from him a couple of months ago. How many copies did you have to order to get a single gold issue? Also, he may have sold an issue or two before I picked them up. I just wish a shop in town would have a good bargain bin so I could pick stuff up for under cover price.

[mrknapp33]

Are we in line for another "perfect storm", namely in the CGC market? I just picked up the Feb issue of Wizard- please don't blast me for reading it ocassionally- and I couldn't believe the amount of D Sucking that Wizard does to CGC.

I know that many of you have clearly delineated your positions on CGC and other grading services, but I have a hard time understanding how a NM copy of Harbinger 1 can lose value to $30 while a CGC 9.8 goes for over $900! I realize that CGC is a great way to insure the grade of a book bought over Ebay, but how does this work if you can go to an LCS and cherrypick the best copy? I see this as the bubble that will burst soon. I just hope that it does not shut down the market.

Please don't misconstrue this as a post merely bashing CGC. I recoginze it as a now-established force (5 years) in the collecting world. I am praying that IF it does burst that it does not put another huge hurting on the industry.

[gowaltrip]

Ive been reading a lot about a 2nd boom to bust getting ready to happen again, but I just dont see it yet. I guess it could be starting to happen. It seems buying and selling has become profitable again (I know I waited for selling days to be here again, and it seems like it is). But I just dont see the same fever pitch and outright lunacy I seen back in the 90's. I mean you could buy some books at cover on Wednesday and sometimes triple your money by Sunday in some instances back in the hayday. And it was happening a lot! Maybe not that drastic, but it was real, real good for like 18 months there. Maybe longer.

But man, I still remember the point of realization that I had. I seen people that looked like the Beverly Hillbillies Selling Comics at the local convention. 1 box of brand new Valiants, and brand new Images. Trying to cash in. Same books everyone else had. I just knew it was soon to be over.

Things seem better to me this time around. A *bit* crazy in some instances, but not nearly as crazy as before. People are making money again, but its seems healthier to me (for now). Im a little scared it could happen again, and I believe it could. But it seems like the speculators are more collectors first and have a better understanding about things. There doesnt seem to be 1/10th the number of downright newby, green, speculators as there was during the last boom.

If it does bust again, well, Im still young enough to view it as the next buying season. To me, Im mad I missed out on the last buying season (because I was out of it after the bust like most everyone else and god it seems like it should be remembered as a great buying time boom). If it happens again, let the buying begin this time, because give comics another 10 years, and Id feel confident it would be back healthy again.

However I agree CGC is something to watch.

[The Spider]

The 90's boom wasn't in just comics but sports cards also. Maybe other collectibles, too. It was a booming era and was full of speculation due to the older comics and cards selling at outrageous prices. I think collectors thought they could turn the 1991 X-Men 1 into the 1963 X-Men 1 and sell it for hundreds of dollars down the road so they kept buying multiple copies of each issue. The consumer kept buying and buying which inflated the print runs up, up and away. I think the only people to blame for the boom is the consumer and comic shop speculators. What makes something collectible is the supply and demand. If everybody that wants an issue of something already owns 5 copies of it you won't make any profit. When the world figured out that every possible purchaser already had what they were trying to unload they were stuck with a huge loss. I don't know about you but when I lose at something real bad like they did I'd stay away from comics if all I was in it for was the buck. It was a hard lesson learned by a lot of people.
Where is the comic market going now??? Any thoughts?

I do remember reading that the card market did go bust in the early 90's? Apparently people who felt burned from sports cards investing moved on to comics.

[cinlach@aol.com]

i had guys come into my store who were refugees from sports cards.

they came in with no idea about anything other then "what can i make money on?" my reply? "the stock market."

if you buy a book for $2.95 and you enjoy it then you got your money out of it. if you buy a book for $2.95 and enjoy it and then sell it 5 years later for $15.00, you really got your money's worth.

if you buy a book for $2.95 and put it in a box unread and open that box up 5 years later and the book is worth 33 cents, you screwed yourself.

eventually, if you buy enough, you will buy a $2.95 book that will make money if you're simply buying it to make money on it later. but we ALL know that most books simply won't have any value in 5 years.

i tried to tell a guy that the secondary market is not crawling with action comics #1's, dectective comics #27's and amazing fantasy #15's. my point was, those books are the EXCEPTIONS, not the rule.

yes, there is money to be made in comics but it's thru back issues. finding good books in good shape for excellent prices. new books are simply not the way to make money in comics.

[whetteon]

i had guys come into my store who were refugees from sports cards.

they came in with no idea about anything other then "what can i make money on?" my reply? "the stock market."

if you buy a book for $2.95 and you enjoy it then you got your money out of it. if you buy a book for $2.95 and enjoy it and then sell it 5 years later for $15.00, you really got your money's worth.

if you buy a book for $2.95 and put it in a box unread and open that box up 5 years later and the book is worth 33 cents, you screwed yourself.

eventually, if you buy enough, you will buy a $2.95 book that will make money if you're simply buying it to make money on it later. but we ALL know that most books simply won't have any value in 5 years.

i tried to tell a guy that the secondary market is not crawling with action comics #1's, dectective comics #27's and amazing fantasy #15's. my point was, those books are the EXCEPTIONS, not the rule.

yes, there is money to be made in comics but it's thru back issues. finding good books in good shape for excellent prices. new books are simply not the way to make money in comics.

Interesting insight and perhaps the reason the new comic market is flat-lined while the back-issue market has exploded.

[cinlach@aol.com]

Interesting insight and perhaps the reason the new comic market is flat-lined while the back-issue market has exploded.

kneel before zod!!

haha, just kidding.

i rarely have a potentially interesting insight, so i had to gloat a bit.

[whetteon]

Interesting insight and perhaps the reason the new comic market is flat-lined while the back-issue market has exploded.

kneel before zod!!

haha, just kidding.

i rarely have a potentially interesting insight, so i had to gloat a bit.

Would I be considered a comic geek or movie geek if I knew from where the Zod refrence came from?

[lobo]

Zod...
Funny that name comes up now, I don't want to be a spoiler but go read the new Jim Lee Superman 213...

[cinlach@aol.com]

thanks to kevin smith i'll never get the "kneel before zod! snoochie boochies!!" out of my head.

and i can't speak for anyone else, but if you know where that quote comes from i wouldn't consider you a movie geek...but, i'm a movie geek.

[RyanMcLelland]

What does saturate mean?

[Todd Luck]

What does saturate mean?

Two things that I can think of

1. The massive amount of different comics put out at the time. Go look up some of the backlogged Diamond shipping lists to see what I mean.

2. The massive print runs. Go look at the print run numbers on this site (listed with each individual issue in the comic gallery). They'll make your head spin (and Valiant wasn't even the top selling company at the time!).

[jedimarley]

If I'm not mistaken, any given Marvel title at the time was close to, if not over 250,000 print run. Thats alot of *SQUEE* Spiderman in one month!

[Rai-fan]

Yeah...and remember--the top-selling book of all of 2003 was Wolverine # 1 with 160,000 copies.

Puts things in perspective, don't it.

[jcdenton]

Great thread. Just thought I'd post this old paper I found that I wrote my sophomore year in high school in 1993. Most of what's in it has already been mentioned, but thought some of you may find it interesting:

In the past few years the comic book industry has expanded from a relatively small, somewhat esoteric industry whose consumers were mostly children and teenagers with a limited amount of money to spend, to a multimillion dollar industry with a multimillion dollar aftermarket. There are now consumers from all age groups, many of whom are adults who spend anywhere from $100-$2000 per month on collecting comic books.

Just five years ago, in 1988, the total number of different titles availiable was usually somewhere around 75. As of December 1993, the run on a comic book usually ranged from 100,000 to 150,000, and to have 200,000 sold was considered a huge success. Now, it is commonplace each month for two or three titles to break one-million.

To the layman's eye, it would appear that the comic book market is flourishing with no signs of decline. With such a huge consumer base, and such a huge amount of product to adequately fill the needs of the consumers, one might think the industry is stronger than it has ever been. However; such is not the case. The comic book industry is balanced precariously on the verge of collapse. For anyone dependent on comic books as a significant source of income, (i.e. store owners, dealers, investors, etc.) or even anyone who seriously collects comics, the future may not be as bright as many of them think.

It all started very innocently with the formation of a new company called "Valiant". They were a very small company at first, just struggling to stay in business with a few titles that would not be considered successful by today's standards. However; they were a critical success. They revolutionized what is defined by a "comic book", by providing the most well written stories ever seen in the industry. They also revolutionized marketing techniques, by devising such innovations as a Gold Logo program, coupons in the books which could be redeemed for limited books, a serial number contest similar to a lottery, and many other such innovations. Finally, people began to take notice of this company.

Virtually overnight, Valiant went from being an unknown to being the hottest name in comics. Collectors scrambled for copies of Valiant books, any books, and almost everyone wanted to be in on the newest craze. Due to the incredible escalation in popularity, this small company entered the mainstream and became the fourth largest of all the comic book companies. Suddenly the ultra-rare earlier issues became ultra-valuable as well, some of them literally being worth their weight in gold. Harbinger #1, sold in stores just over a year ago for $1.95, now has a market value of $135.

One would still think, with a company revolutionizing the industry apparently for the better in all respects, a collector should almost be in a state of euphoria. But it is the indirect repurcussions which have taken their toll, as well as greed--of the compainies, eager to make as much money as possible on as many titles as possible, and of the consumers and investors, eager to make as much money as possible by hoarding multiple copies of "hot" books and hoping to resell them later at a profit.

This problem is mostly, if not entirely, due to the "success" that Valiant had in making its comic values skyrocket. With such a glaring example of how much money can be made in investing, many people have taken the mentality that "if I had bought myself 500 copies of XO Manowar #1 two years ago, I'd be rich today!". However; so many of them are taking this mentality that probably none of them will ever be rich in this way. Once again, one may think that, with the hoarding of books by investors, the initial supply will be scarce, due to few copies generally availiable in the market, with a steady supply leaking out to quell demand.

But this is not how the industry is structured. The comic book market does not work as many other supply/demand markets work. It is unlike stamps, coins, or many other collectibles, in that the supplyhas the potential to be unlimited. Anybody who wishes to order moderately large numbers of an idividual comic book, say either for sale in his or her store, or just for investment purposes, places an order with one of the many comic book distributors three months in advance when the book is solicited. Then, after the distributor gets in all the orders, they place their orders to the actual comic book company, who then promptly prints them out and mails them to the distributor. Therefore; the print run is directly dependent on whatever the orders are, which has no limit whatsoever. In other words, if a speculator wishes to invest $50,000 in Dr. Mirage #1, he can easily order 40,000 copies at the wholesale price of $1.25 each.

Now, if the total print run is 440,000 copies, this one man has singlehandedly increased the number of Dr. Mirage #1 in existence by 10%, a staggering figure for any market economy. Now, imagine what would happen if a few other individuals took this route? Or, what about if hundreds of people did, but each to a lesser extent? This is not all a hypothetical situation though, as it has been happening for about six months now. Most of these people doing this are private dealers excercising free enterprise, usually selling their books off at conventions.

The result? Besides a flooded market, many of these dealers, after selling off some of their supply for short-term gain, will then sell off everything they have left, due to a waning demand or to lack of people to sell them to, and they will often sell the excess at outrageous prices, meaning 50 cents to a dollar each for books with a $2-$4 retail price each, in order to round off the profit margin (although I suspect that much of the time it is in order to break even, or to minimize losses). Now, these speculators/hoarders are only hurting themselves by taking the risk of making lucrative investments, and only slightly hurting the average collector by limiting the value of his or her collection, right? Well, this is not taking into consideration that while private dealers are selling off Turok Dinosaur Hunter #1's for a dollar each, many comic book stores, the life blood of the industry, are at the same time struggling to sell them for the retail price of $3.50. What results is many stores losing b usiness to these privateers, and many going out of business. And as more stores go out of business, more people will turn to these privateers, thus further perpetuating the problem.

Now this is not a situation of stores vs. private dealers, as the stores are causing many problems on their own; some of them unavoidable. Stores, as well, are either placing astronomical orders on some books, or overordering and storing away the excess. Either scenario creates problems, as storing the books away creates artificial scarcity that is soon realized when the hoards are unleashed into the industry, instantly destroying the value they once had.

The greed of consumers/retailers, a large enough problem in itself, is made worse by the greed of the actual companies producing the books. Of course, the companies are merely allowing all this to happen, as they are just sitting by doing nothing, as they laugh all the way to the bank. But, even worse than doing nothing, many of them seem to be doing their best to perpetuate it, apparently not even aware of the ghosts that will come back to haunt them.

They are doing this in several ways. Besides printing massive quantities of individual titles, they are also flooding the market with the number of different titles. An example is Marvel Comics Group. As their sales continue to decline, they ignorantly try to remedy the situation by releasing new titles, thinking that they will make up for the slack caused by their declining older titles. Of course, they don't realize that the consumer dollar is limited, as is the money retailers have to invest in comics. This results in just decline all across the board on all their titles, as the overall sales stay constant.

Also there has been a new trend recently, which is relatively controversial. Very often, a company will release a book with an "enhancement", or gimmick to make it sell. This results in a price increase of 50 cents to $1.50 each, which many people are opposed to. However, so many people buy and invest in these gimmicks that they continue to rank among the best selling titles each month, and this makes the companies produce more and more each month of these gimmicks. Once again, the system perpetuates itself as prices
continue to increase month after month. Already people are getting fed up, but apparently not enough.

Another issue related to gimmicks is the outright attempt to capitalize on the ignorance of many comic book collectors by the comic companies. They do this by printing up to five "variations" on the same book, often by making five different covers, knowing very well that many consumers will buy all five in order to have a complete set; or by putting comics in sealed polybags, forcing collectors to buy at least two copies in order to be able to read the book, and to have a non-worthless copy (an unpolybagged comic is generally accepted as ruined).

It would seem that dark times are looming ahead for the comic book industry. Already an exodus of collectors is occuring. It would seem that the future of the industry will be like that of the stock market during the depression, with few other possible routes. However, there is hope. With all these stores going out of business, companies going out of business, and speculators losing their savings, natural selection will take its course, and those wwho remain may one day realize what has been happening, and not put up with it anymore. And maybe the companies will someday learn what they are doing, to themselves and their consumers, and will correct their mistakes. If not, then it is almost inevitable that very dark times for the comic book industry lie ahead.

[greg]

I was a junior in high school in 1993, and I can safely say
that you had much clearer vision than I did... grasshopper.