| Collecting
Comic Books
Classically,
comic books tend to be like serialized television
dramas or soap operas, in that they have a flowing
and continual plotline with numerous dynamic characters.
They sell mostly to a younger audience, from grade
school students through adults; although the medium
at one point catered primarily to children, in
the last several decades the market has contracted
to the point that the majority of readers are
adults in their twenties. These readers follow
the periodic exploits of numerous characters as
depicted by numerous creators.
A new issue of
any given series is typically produced on a monthly
basis, though popularity dictates that the most
popular characters appear more frequently. Those
who read comic in their youth but who stopped
at some point and did not keep these books often
want them back in their adulthood, largely for
nostalgia's sake, and are willing to pay a comic
book specialty dealer.
The period of
time from roughly 1985 through 1993 is seen as
the point where comic book speculation reached
its peak. This boom period is variously attributed
to the publication of revolutionary titles like
The Dark Knight Returns and The Man of Steel and
the beginning of the "summer crossover epics"
like Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars.
Mainstream attention came to the industry in 1989-1991
with the success of the first two Batman movies
and the much-hyped "Death of Superman".
Most of the original
comic books had not survived to the present era,
having been thrown out in the trash or discarded
as worthless children's waste by parents. As a
result, a comic book of interest to fans or collectors
from the 1940s through the 1960s, such as an original
issue of Superman, Captain America, Challengers
of the Unknown, or Vault of Horror, was often
extremely difficult to find and thus highly prized
by collectors, in a manner similar to coin collectors
seeking copies of the 1955 double die penny. |
