Comic Book Industry Blunders

Written by Dave Gieber


What has gone wrong withinrepparttar industry and can it be fixed? The rape and pillage, inrepparttar 116015 eyes of some, may have leftrepparttar 116016 comic book industry gasping for life support. It seems that for an industry that has seen so much success,repparttar 116017 history of comic books, has apparently been confounded by seemingly dumb mistakes.

The first could have very well beenrepparttar 116018 coining ofrepparttar 116019 name "comic books". The earliest versions ofrepparttar 116020 so-called half-tab (for half tabloid) reprints ofrepparttar 116021 Sunday funnies (the comics) became known as "comic books". This led torepparttar 116022 thinking in general, that comic books contained comic or funny material, which we all know, is a far stretch from reality. Comic books can be very somber, dark or adventurous magazines. It has often been suggested that there should be another term coined to better describe this literary package we all know as comic books. To date, no other user-friend term has been suggested for use inrepparttar 116023 comic book industry.

A second misdirection came when magazine prices started to rise. Instead of increasing comic book prices, like other successful magazines did,repparttar 116024 comic book industry decided to cut pages to keeprepparttar 116025 then current price tag of 10 cents. This brought onrepparttar 116026 impression that comic books were "cheap" by definition, and neglectedrepparttar 116027 fact that a dime was a lot of money at one time (steak & eggs cost 35 cents). This presentedrepparttar 116028 image that comic books were just for kids. It also maderepparttar 116029 product increasingly less viable for retail merchants to stock. Why take uprepparttar 116030 same shelf space, when a higher priced magazine would do more nicely. Againrepparttar 116031 perceived value ofrepparttar 116032 comic book was loosing credibility.

Then asrepparttar 116033 1950s rolled around, an individual byrepparttar 116034 name of Dr. Frederick Wertham, published a book entitled "Seduction ofrepparttar 116035 Innocents". Throughrepparttar 116036 use of unscientific research and assumptions, he stated that allrepparttar 116037 nation's ills were directly related to kids reading comic books (ah hmm, what?). Central to his thesis, wasrepparttar 116038 misassumption that comic books were strictly for kids. The more adult material, it was irrationally assumed, was aimed at our sweet, naïve innocent children. Yes, we do have to protect our children, but it still bothers me to no end, that certain self-righteous individuals believe their lot in life is to makerepparttar 116039 rest ofrepparttar 116040 planet adhere to their own personal beliefs. If this wererepparttar 116041 case, then our great country would have never been founded.

Comic Book Collectors; Nerdy Geeks or Shrewd Investors?

Written by Dave Gieber


When one says, yeah, I collect comic books, what isrepparttar general public response? Oh no, a slightly offrepparttar 116014 wall geek. Here is someone who has lost touch with reality. Or someone that is in his or her own little world. I think not. Yes, comic book collectors may sometimes march torepparttar 116015 beat of a different drummer, but who says we all have to be cut fromrepparttar 116016 same mold. Comic books are big business.

Back inrepparttar 116017 days of my youth (what, several millennia ago?), I loved reading comic books. And so did a lot of my friends. Whenever we had an extra dime or sometimes a quarter, we could run up torepparttar 116018 local small town grocery and spend some very happy times atrepparttar 116019 comic book rack.

We would even go out and find small odds jobs for pocket change, which was enough then to purchase 2 or 3 good flights of adventure and fantasy. I can even remember crawling under our house to retrieve a cat that hadrepparttar 116020 misfortune of dying there. My Dad couldn't stomachrepparttar 116021 smell and enticed my friend and I to accomplishrepparttar 116022 chore for ample pocket change. We bravedrepparttar 116023 spiders and other crawly creatures to retrieve and buryrepparttar 116024 unfortunate cat. Not long after that, we wererepparttar 116025 proud owners of yet, several more intriguing comic books. Evenrepparttar 116026 local bully (who was really a pretty good guy) would purchase our worn out or unwanted magazines for far more than they were worth, so we could purchase new ones.

I didn't know much about collecting then. I just liked saving what I enjoyed. I had a large cardboard box that I kept under my bed, filled with all my little treasures. I didn't realize that I hadrepparttar 116027 beginnings of what could have been something very lucrative. In later years when I headed off to college, I dragged my large cardboard box with me. At one point in time, I left most of my belongings inrepparttar 116028 charge of what I thought were trusted friends. When I returned from my forest firefighting adventures, my box full of magazines were no where to be found. And needless to say, were my trusted friends either. Others had seenrepparttar 116029 value in what I had and wanted it for themselves. Oh well, live and learn. That limited collection of comic books and other magazines would have been worth a small fortune today.

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