Need a good reason for buying comics?

Press, 14 March 1987, Page 21

Need a good reason for buying comics?

They could be an investment

By

SARAH SANDS

Comics: are they art, investment, or a throwaway for kids? A clear definition these days is hard to find.

Last year, the “Wall Street Journal and Business Week” reported a big increase in comics among high-earning businessmen in the United States, where they now rank fourth — behind paintings, stamps, and coins — as investment items.

Why the sudden interest? Christchurch is about to find out. Following a trend set by Auckland (Mark 1) and Wellington (Visual Media Services), Christchurch now has a shop selling only comics. Kaleidoscope Comics, at 412 Colombo Street, has been opened by Barry Hewitt, the owner of a Sydenham second-hand bookshop. For the past 18 months he has been selling old and new comics in his bookshop, but business, he says, has just become too frenetic. “So many people crowd in the shop at once that I can’t cope there anymore.” Much interest stems from recent publicity on television about how much comics can be worth, he says. Information programmes — for both adults and children — have featured people who have made fortunes overnight buying comics for 50 cents and selling them for thousands of dollars. (In New York recently, a first issue of “Superman” sold for $15,000.) Barry Hewitt says that investment in comics has been picked up by a cross-section of the community, especially enterprising children who have convinced their parents that a purchase today is a fortune tomorrow. “They don’t mind paying a couple of dollars for a comic — as an investment.” Even so, most of the mainstream comics of today will not be worth a lot of money for many years, if ever, he adds. “So many of them are being printed and so many people are hoarding them away. of the main-

stream comics won’t make money for hundreds of years.” Some of the comics put out by the smaller independent companies might do a bit better because fewer are printed, he adds. For example, issue number one of “Miracleman,” a comic written by Alan Moore and produced by Eclipse, cost SUSI when first printed. Twelve months later, the same issue is wortn SUS3S. Is sounds good, but such expensive comics are generally not available in New Zealand. “In the United States comics often fetch thousands of dollars, but

I’ve never had any really expensive ones. A couple of X-men I’ve sold for between SIOO and $l5O. They were the issues when the new X-men first appeared.” Barry Hewitt says he has about 60 serious comic collectors who buy from him. “Six or seven years ago there didn’t appear to be much interest in comics. People collected them but they were embarrassed about it — they were doing it in the closet. “Now some of those collectors come into the shop and meet other collectors, and for many it’s the first time they’ve known anyone else who collects comics.”

Some people, he believes, go too far in their passion. They handle their comics as little as possible — not even reading them — for fear that the acid

from their skin may react with the chemicals in the paper and start a deterioration process. Some comics are made of very thin, cheap paper which has a high lignin content. Exposed to air, lignin turns brown and releases acid which eats away at the fibres of the paper, making the paper brittle. Any light fades colours and provides energy that accelerates the chemical reactions that destroy paper. "I prefer people who buy because they like comics and like to read them — if you look after them and put them away afterwards, then that’s good.” Customers vary in age from very young to very old but most are in their early twenties, he says. “Youngsters of seven or eight drag mum and dad in to pay for the comics, and then there’s the 60 or 70 year olds who buy the characters they remember from their childhood.”

Comic prices vary from $2 for the popular superheroes from Marvel and DC to about $7 for titles from the smaller independent companies.

The amount people spend varies, says Barry Hewitt. “Heaps come in for one comic so they pay their $2 per month, but other people regularly pay up to SSO a week.” One 25-year-old was buying one of everything that came in — about S4OO every month.

"But in the last year I’ve noticed a change in how much money people have got to spend — and it’s getting less all the time.”

The type of comics bought are as diverse as the people who

them. “Nowadays the young ones get Transformers and G.I. Joes — all the stuff that comes out as. toys. The twenty-year-olds go for the independent stuff and anything by Frank Miller no matter which company puts it out. And the punks and skinheads love Judge Dredd.” (Judge Dredd is a character who first appeared in the English comic, “2000 AD. He works in Mega City One — population 800 million — as a member of a genetically selected police force who serve as judge, jury, and executioner. Judges often kill large numbers of ordinary citizens while catching the villains but it doesn’t matter as long as the law is obeyed.) Barry Hewitt says the most popular comics are still the simple superheroes such as Superman, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and X-men. Disney comics also are still well liked by children and adults.

“One of the biggest parts I sell is the Star Trek and Dr Who stuff — it’s bought by all the Trekkies, most of whom are young and seem to be into computers and Dungeons and Dragons. “I bring in a lot of magazines they can’t get elsewhere in Christchurch. They pay an aver-

age sls for those magazines but they buy everything that comes out with Star Trek on or in it. Many would spend about SSO a week.” A comic called “The Nam” also does very well. “The writers have made it true to life — one issue for every month of the actual war so there’s 96 issues and they’ve planned it that far ahead. The action in the comic’s actually happened in the Vietnam war so, unlike many of the books and movies produced on the war, the Americans still lose.” Some people who buy “The Nam” do so because the weaponry in it is true to life, but most people buy it because of the art work, says Barry Hewitt. This is a trend he has noticed more and more. “The art either appeals to people or it doesn’t. Even if they have been collecting that comic they won’t buy it if the art is no good. Comic art can be so bad that you don’t even look at the story. “Kids don’t care, of course; they just want to keep up with the story. But adults actually know who the artists are. Many of them buy anything by a particular artist or writer.” Two of the most popular writer-artists of today are Frank Miller, a 26-year-old American, and Alan Moore, a 32-year-old Englishman. Titles by either sell out in Britain and the United States within days of being printed. People regard them as the two who have put the life back into comics — what they have done is change the superhero to be a more human character. “They put them in situations that do happen, that are not impossible. The characters are still imposV

Most of the independent comics available are less likely to appeal to children — they have more violence, sex, and nudity than mainstream comics. Most children do not even bother looking at them. “Some of the kids look at the independent stuff but only a few, and when they do they pick the funny ones more than the violent ones.” If the children are with their parents, then Barry Hewitt tells the parents that these comics are generally for adults. “Sometimes they drag their kids away; others just leave them. Some of the comics are marked for adults ony or for mature readers.”

sible but they have human trials and tribulations.” Miller rewrote Batman in “The Dark Knight” as a Left-wing vigilante disillusioned and redundant in a world where no-one believes in superheroes anymore. Superman, in the same comic, became a government mouthpiece and the two fight to the death. Barry Hewitt says everybody liked “The Dark Knight.” “More adults than kids bought it but that was partly because the price put it out of reach of the kids — they would have to be pretty mature to follow the story anyway.” Many of today’s comics are like that, he says. “About half are not for kids anymore — and, of course, some adult comics do not get through. Customs, he adds, still work with the blacklists of the 19605. “They tend to look at the publisher’s name and if that is on the banned list the comic is stopped.”