This was my first "real" TaW (written expressly to be a regular column), and, looking back at it (ugh, did I ever write that woodenly?), you can see all of the themes that would become my watchword over the next hundred columns: diversification of your key product line, walking away from speculation-driven marketing, encouraging readership over "collecting for its own sake".

I almost certainly didn’t hit the "blame it on Overstreet" premise enough -- today, that alone would have filled my 2000 words. But, fuck off, I was still learning how to write these things.

I also note this column ran in May of 1992. "Within three years, the gravy train will be at an end". In your face.

Now, why the fuck didn’t anyone listen?

The proliferation of the back-issue market (hell, even the existence of an organized back-issue market in the first place), the rise of the comics specialty shop, the collector’s mentality, and, probably, the ability for alternative publishers to open shop. All this can be pinned on the Overstreet Price Guide.

Don’t believe me? The first Overstreet was published in 1971. The concept that comics can be worth money starts filtering around (Remember that prior to price guides, comics were usually [and routinely] thrown out, destroyed, or otherwise disposed of. Why keep them? They were just taking up space.)

Comic shops started spring up all over the place (prior to ‘71 there were only a handful, scattered all over the country), as people saw how easy it was to open a store (all you needed was a big enough collection, and a couple thousand dollars), until there were enough stores to support direct distributors. Once we had distributors for just comic shops, alternative publishers started up (as opposed to undergrounds, which, historically, were primarily sold to a "non-traditional" market -- headshops and the like). 1977 saw the birth of Cerebus, and 1978 gave us Elfquest, neither of which could have made it without organized fandom, and the backbone of the comics shops. These two comics, more than any others, spurred multitudes of creators to create and publish their own material, based on their own desires and visions, rather than the dictates of a company. It is this freedom and variety that will be the impetus for any kind of wide-ranging acceptance of the medium.

And its all Overstreet’s fault, however indirectly.

Overstreet did us all a great favor, by creating an implied value of old comic books. But this opportunity for organization and success carried the seed for it’s own downfall with it: the collector’s mentality.

How are back issue prices determined? Well, in theory, by supply and demand. Golden and Silver-age comic books command high prices simply because parents threw out or destroyed 90% of the copies. And 90% of the surviving copies were read, over and over again, until the comic was trashed. They weren’t stored flat in plastic bags. They were rolled up in back pockets, or haphazardly tossed in piles, pages getting bent, torn and yellow. I mean, who’d thought that old Superman comics could be worth money? And that’s exactly the reason there are only 100 or so copies of Superman #1 in any kind of reasonable condition. No one knew!

But, with the advent of price guides, and comic book stores, people started to realize that comics could be worth money (implied value), and so, started taking pains to preserve their comics. What this means is that there is no real scarcity of comics from the last 10-15 years (outside of the few "cult" comic books, which the readers would not part with for love or money anyway. Titles like Cerebus, Sandman, Taboo, Beanworld, etc. Just try to find copies of the early issues of these comics at any price) There are tens of thousands of copies of Batman, X-Men, and Aliens out there, for the asking, all in mint condition, stored in plastic with a board. I go to comics conventions all the time, and every dealer has the same 50 titles, ten deep, at inflated prices. Can’t they see there is no scarcity of these comic books? I’ve heard from too many customers that they’ve gone to other comics shops, trying to sell collections of X-Men, Alpha Flight, New Mutants, and the like, and having the stores pick out half-a-dozen books out of a 200_ collection. If you’re not buying every comic in reasonable condition that comes into your shop, there is an excess of supply., and your selling price is too high, regardless of what any guide says. At this point, I’m throwing X-Men, Alpha Flight, New Mutants, and the like in the quarter boxes these days, because that is all I ever see. In just a few months, we’ll be doing the same with Spider-Man #1, then X-Force #1, then X-Men #1. There are far more copies of these comics than the market can reasonably support, and all it will take is time before they filter back down into the stores, and the speculators realize they’re going to take a bath.

To my eyes, most retail organizations are happy to raise prices, and loath to lower them, despite the dozens of copies they may have in the back.

As the speculator’s disenchantment and suspiciousness inevitably occurs, we’re going to see a major crash in prices. It is our duty as retailers, for the continued health of the market, to diversify the types of comics we offer, and to suggest that people do not speculate. There is, I believe, still a chance to lessen the effects of the crash. But the steps must be taken immediately to disassociate your store with the collector’s mentality, and to not depend on any one type or brand of comics.

Encourage your customers to only buy what they enjoy, not to "wait until it gets better." Tell them not to buy multiple copies of X-Men, rather, to buy several different comics which they can read and feel happy about the money they have spent. You’ll probably even be able to get them to increase their monthly expenditures, as they become happier customers.

I don't expect to make many converts here -- if your store is 80% Marvel, you probably think I’m full of shit. Your sales are up, and you’re selling more comics than ever before. But I guarantee that within three years, the gravy train will be at an end. in the last two weeks, I’ve bought five collections. and all of them have had multiple copies of Spider-Man #1.

The writing is on the wall. I hope you can see it. For all of our sakes.