I've been having, in the last few weeks, what might be termed a crisis in confidence.

I've watched this industry spin out of control, every revolution cranking the speed up a notch, threatening to throw the whole show of its axis.

Some symptoms?

* The observation that virtually every dealer at the recent WonderCon in Oakland (one of the biggest cons in the nation) had identical stock! Every one of them top-heavy with recent "hot" comics, in deep quantities, at exorbitant prices. Here's a great example: On almost every dealers wall sat a "gold" WildC.A.T.S. #1, for $100, or more! And they were there on the opening day of the Con, and for the most part, were still there on closing day. If 90% of the however-many-hundred retailers there have the same comics, none of those comics could possibly considered "hot"! It's blatantly obvious!

* While channel-surfing the other night, I happened past QVC's comic book segment.

A more nasty & evil thing I can not imagine.

Let's look at some of the prices they were hawking

items at:

- $145 for a signed set of Adventures of Superman #500, and the 4 "return" issues. $15.75 retail for $145. $29 an issue. And this is less than a month after the book was on sale.

- $45 for "Ten first issues, including WILDC.A.T.S. #1, and Spawn #1" (of course they don't mention that 5 of these first issues are lame garbage like Armageddon: Alien Agenda #1. In fact, several of them were cancelled titles. Not much investment potential there.)

- $25 for a Nomad #1 (regular series) signed by the artists. If your store is anything like mine, you're only selling 3 or 4 copies of Nomad a month (and considering it's sitting at #179 on Diamonds June sales chart, I don't think I'm far off...), and the demand for a Nomad #1 is nil or next to it. With a $2 cover, let's be generous and say it's "worth" $3, so it's $22 for the signatures, or $11 per! For two effectively unknown artists.

- $29 for a Moon Knight #1 (first series) signed by Jim Shooter (!) Here's a character who has been cancelled twice (and soon to be thrice, if placing #203 in the charts, and dropping, is any indication), whom almost nobody cares about, and a book that I regularly put in my quarter boxes! It's not even signed by any member of the creative team, but merely by the Editor-In-Chief! Hey, I know! I'll go sign old copies of Marvel Two-in-one, and price them at $50 each!

Pshaw.

Not only are these bastards taking advantage of an ignorant buying public (who know nothing besides the newspaper reports that "the comics your mom threw away are now worth BIG BUCKS!"), they are, in the long run, screwing us. Because, sooner or later, the people who buy into this ridiculous hype are gonna come to us to turn in their "valuable collectible", and they're going to walk away feeling like idiots, when we won't ever give them more than half of what they paid (if that).

But, are they going to blame QVC?

Nope. They'll blame us.

And then they'll go off and tell all of their friends and acquaintances what a rip-off comic books are.

Everyone these days is trying to tap into the "suckers" market, by hawking "signed collectibles" for exorbitant prices, or by only carrying "hot" books, or by starting up a new superhero universe in the wake of Valiant and Image, everybody is trying to cut their little slice of the money pie, but almost no one is trying to build and protect the market.

It's so easy, and very tempting, to give up the morals for the money. I could quadruple the amount of money I take in if I decided to play the game like everyone else.

But then I couldn't sleep at night.

I couldn't stand valuing commerce over creation, of avarice over art, or losing the feeling of a home, or a family, that both myself and many of my customers hold close to our hearts.

So I hold on to my values, for another day, for another week, and I run the kind of store where price is based on value rather than hype, and where value is always stressed.

Y'know why?

Because of the comics, themselves.

Comic books taught me that "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility", that the value of living is in doing the right thing, of making it better, in the end, for everyone. That being a hero, doing right was the greatest thing you could every aspire to.

Today's market is very much like today's comics: KILL! KILL! KILL!!! And whatever is left standing at the end is right. Even if it doesn't have a foundation of substance left to stand on.

Every day, I see another potential hero become an anti-hero, and it makes me want to cry. We need more people willing to fight, willing to kick and scream, willing to drag this industry back from the precipice it's brought itself to.

We need more heroes.

The time has passed for waffling: are you going to wear a Black hat, or a White one? And today, right now, Gray may as well be Black.

Be a hero. Decide that you want to grow the market rather than fragment it. Don't price books by the flavor-of-the-week – use the supply and demand of your own store; reduce your dependence on multiple copy sales; encourage your customers to read rather than investment; promote the titles you are the most excited about, not the "sure-fire investments" (if they're so "surefire", howcum people need to be told about them?); concentrate on the fun of comics, the joy of reading, and all the excitement that caused you to fall in love with them in the first place. Make your store a real comics store, not a commodity market.

It's the least anyone can do.