Do you collect comics? Are you over the age of 35 or even into your 60s? Comics used to be for kids. Nowadays kids shun them. They have computer games, the Internet and Pokemon.
I remember when we went to our local comic shop in anticipation of what would arrive delivery day. Often the comics were stacked on the floor two feet high and we would devour them. We bought multiple copies and put them away just for the heck of it. Heck, comics were cheap.
Then comics appeared with a 12 cent price tag. Next they were 15 cents, 20 cents, 50 cents, 75 cents, a dollar, and now they are anywhere from 2 dollars to almost 6 dollars each, and we are not talking about special editions and trade paperbacks that can eat your wallet.
The independent explosion that spawned Image, Pacific Comics, Kitchen Sink Comix, Eclipse, Gladstone, Blackthorne, Atlas, Valiant, Now and many others created a new breed of comic collectors for the brief time they were up there. Comics now came in variants: special gold, silver, bronze, copper covered editions were printed. Dealers were obliged to buy "X" amount of regular issues to "qualify" to buy the variants. No wonder these books became instant collectors' items. Dealers bagged and boarded them and attached outlandish price stickers to these "hot books." How many of these companies exist today? Very few and they are just holding on by the skin of their teeth.
Just as an example, Marvel changed hands and fell into the banker's greed to boost their stocks for profit. They followed suit, multiple covers and gimmicks arose. Somewhere along the line, they forgot about their audience. The artwork fell into the hands of "fan artists" who had no grasp of anatomy but knew how to draw weapons and enlarged muscles in places where there should be none. The X-Men came out with FIVE different covers for number one ... gotta have 'em. Then the bottom fell out. Marvel, which had risen on the strengths of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee and other talented people began to show signs of fatique. Where its creators once had bragged about their sales over the rival DC, those sales had wilted.
No longer do we see shelves weighed down with multiple copies of the latest copies. A dealer now thinks a prestige book is one that sells more than ten copies ... twenty is a big hit. We old timers preorder our comics a month in advance from a catalog. We comb the pages looking for those classic reprints from DC, AC Comics and sometimes Marvel. The hardbound archive editions with golden age material are our delight. Comic shops are closing down, the owners overextended on credit to the distributors. Those that continue to exist have diversified into other related fields like old toys and models ... some even have gone into (gasp) POKEMON.
Kids no longer haunt comic shops and sit crosslegged on the floor reading the latest Superman adventure.
So, are we a dying breed?

©2000 by Tom Mason