It is unbelievable when one says, yeah, I collect comic
books, what the general public response might be? Oh no, a
slightly off the 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 the beat of a different drummer, but who
says we all have to be cut from the same mold. Comic books
are big business.
Back in the 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 the local small town grocery
and spend some very happy times at the 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 the
misfortune of dying there. My Dad couldnt stomach the
smell and enticed my friend and I to accomplish the chore
for ample pocket change. We braved the spiders and other
crawly creatures to retrieve and bury the unfortunate cat.
Not long after that, we were the proud owners of yet,
several more intriguing comic books. Even the 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 didnt 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
didnt realize that I had the 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 the
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 the
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.
Are there big bucks in the comic book genre? Just look at
what Hollywood has been up to for the last few decades. As
far as I can tell, the really big blockbusters started back
in 1978 with the release of Superman, The Movie. And since
then there has been comic book hero after comic book hero
to hit the silver screen. And they all make tons of money.
The Hollywood moguls may or may not be into the genre,
but they can smell large profits. And these kinds of
profits arent harvested from a small out of touch with
reality niche. It take large numbers of individuals forking
out 5 to 10 dollars a pop, to accumulate the astronomical
profits that Hollywood is seeing these days. Made up bu
individuals who may or may not want to admit their avid
interest in comic book characters. I will stand up and say,
I enjoy watching these movies and have even started my own
collection of comic book character DVDs. Who knows, maybe
some day my DVDs will become as valuable as comic books.
Probably not.
Although, not every individuals collection has magazines
worth thousands of dollars, there are a sizable amount of
collections that can be worth hundreds of thousands or even
millions of dollars. These are not people that have lost
touch with reality. A while back, the actor, Nicholas Cage,
put his comic book collection of about 400 magazines up for
auction. Word was that he might have realized a value into
seven figures. That aint chicken feed.
It is not uncommon for single additions to be worth several
hundred to several thousand dollars. Some comic books can
enter the realm of several hundred thousand dollars for one
magazine. Now the owners have to be some pretty rich
economically savvy geeks. Are these the types of small
niche individuals who have lost touch with reality or dont
want to confess they like comic books? So the next time
you hear someone profess, yeah I collect comic books, you
may want to look inside yourself and say, how do I release
my hidden passion and start collecting myself?
Now that you know this, isnt it about time you start a
comic book collection for yourself? It is fairly simple,
but there are several things to take into consideration. To
get started on the right step, I am accumulating some of
the best information on the Net about comic book
collecting. Come on over and satisfy your curiosity.
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