Comic Book Industry BlundersWritten by Dave Gieber
What has gone wrong within industry and can it be fixed? The rape and pillage, in eyes of some, may have left comic book industry gasping for life support. It seems that for an industry that has seen so much success, history of comic books, has apparently been confounded by seemingly dumb mistakes. The first could have very well been coining of name "comic books". The earliest versions of so-called half-tab (for half tabloid) reprints of Sunday funnies (the comics) became known as "comic books". This led to 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 in comic book industry. A second misdirection came when magazine prices started to rise. Instead of increasing comic book prices, like other successful magazines did, comic book industry decided to cut pages to keep then current price tag of 10 cents. This brought on impression that comic books were "cheap" by definition, and neglected fact that a dime was a lot of money at one time (steak & eggs cost 35 cents). This presented image that comic books were just for kids. It also made product increasingly less viable for retail merchants to stock. Why take up same shelf space, when a higher priced magazine would do more nicely. Again perceived value of comic book was loosing credibility. Then as 1950s rolled around, an individual by name of Dr. Frederick Wertham, published a book entitled "Seduction of Innocents". Through use of unscientific research and assumptions, he stated that all nation's ills were directly related to kids reading comic books (ah hmm, what?). Central to his thesis, was 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 make rest of planet adhere to their own personal beliefs. If this were 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 is general public response? Oh no, a slightly off 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 to beat of a different drummer, but who says we all have to be cut from same mold. Comic books are big business.Back in 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 to local small town grocery and spend some very happy times at 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 had misfortune of dying there. My Dad couldn't stomach smell and enticed my friend and I to accomplish chore for ample pocket change. We braved spiders and other crawly creatures to retrieve and bury unfortunate cat. Not long after that, we were proud owners of yet, several more intriguing comic books. Even 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 had 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 in 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 seen 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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