Hollywood's Fascination with the Comic Book SuperheroWritten by Dave Gieber
Movie production companies and TV have been creating feature length movies, movie serials and TV shows for years exploiting public fascination with Superheroes. But as special effect technology and costume designs became better and better, Hollywood kicked it up a notch with feature-length high budget productions. Superman, Movie and 3 sequels started in 1970s and '90s and beyond brought us Batman, The Hulk, X-Men and now infamous Spider-Man, to name a few. Why all this interest in producing Superhero movies? Big bucks!! The two Spider-Man movies alone have netted about 800 million dollars apiece in worldwide ticket sales. That's not chicken feed. This kind of income could not be generated without an avid public interest in Superheroes. So if you feel you are alone in your voracious passion for your own comic book collection, think again. And now a new twist has been added. Directors, screenplay writers, and even actors are writing for, of all things, comic books now. Big name Hollywood writers are helping to sell more comics. For example, Joss Whedon, perhaps best known for creating Buffy Vampire Slayer, has written stories for Marvel in series Astonishing X-Men. Back in 90s, who would have known that all these fan boys had been hiding in Hollywood woodworks waiting for comics to gain some cultural credibility? If you haven't followed some of comic news of last several months, Stan "the
| | A Word on Comic Book PricingWritten by Dave Gieber
The going worth of individual comic books can range all over board. Some issues have been know to bring in monetary value of six figures, while other issues aren't even worth price you paid for them. Action Comics #1 (the introduction of Superman) in mint condition has been quoted at being worth $650,000. A pretty tidy piece of change. Then Weird Science, issue #13, in near mint condition can command a respectable price tag of $5,750. There are also multitudes of back issues purchased at a newsstand price of around 5 bucks, that are now worth even less than that. So how does one go about determining actual value of their individual collections? This is not an easy task or one to be taken lightly. Comic book worth is a highly perceived value and will vary quite greatly, depending on which opinion you choose to follow. By all means, if there is a reputable comic book dealer in your local area that you are comfortable dealing with, get his or her opinion. But in all my research so far, it seems that "The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide" is bible of most active comic book collectors. I have my copy in electronic format, reachable from my desktop. It is very handy. If you truly want to understand what your magazines are worth, first thing you need to do is to determine physical condition of each comic book. Is it raggady ass poor with pages missing and in need of a paper clip to hold it together or has it never been opened since purchased and appears to be in mint condition? Even brand new comic books may not make grade of mint or perfect condition. Overstreet gives a very detailed description of all grades and sub-grades used in 0.5 to 10.0 scale, generally acceptable by all comic book aficionados. If you follow his physical condition explanations and grading scale, you will get a pretty good feel for conditions of your own collection.
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