The secret formula to collecting comics

No, there isn't a secret formula to investing in comics.  Just like there isn't one for buying gold, silver, stocks, bonds, etc.  Nevertheless, as in any long-term investment strategy, diversification is one important key to success and having fun in this hobby.  I'll come back to diversification later.  But first, there are legitimate variables to consider when considering what makes a comic valuable.  And when I say valuable, I mean highly sought after. 

Here's my formula:

Value =   ((Condition * Popularity) + First appearance or Death of a character) / Existing copies

It's a pretty rudimentary approach, I admit, and I'm sure a statistician could make it more robust (maybe Popularity should be cubed?).  But more importantly, it helps to guide me before I plunk down money:

1. I cannot anticipate the popularity of any existing comic.
2. I may be able to estimate the existing number of copies.
3. I can select the condition that the comics are in for my collection.
4. I can determine which issues have first appearances or deaths. 

The formula may help to explain how certain comics are highly valued now, but it cannot predict which comics will rise, or continue to rise, in value.  For modern comics, it is even more difficult to predict because there is little historical reference to base their future performance. 

Let us consider the relatively high values for these Modern Comics:  Batman #404, New Mutant's #98 (Deadpools' first appearance), and Batman Adventures #12 (Harley Quinn's first appearance).  When can  we expect these comic values to shoot even higher?  I don't know.  But one, or both, things must happen:  their populairy must rise even higher and/or the number of existing copies must fall.  Now, which factor is more iimportant: popularity or number of existing copies?  I would say that popularity is more volatile while the number of existing copies tends to remain stagnant.  Perhaps the real question is can we predict these comics' future popularity?  No.  We cannot.

And this is what makes comic collecting fun! 

Here's where diversification comes in:  buy what you like, but choose a few comics from the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Ages.  Depending on your budget, and if it's anything like mine, you might end up having a portfolio with a high number of issues from the Bronze Age and Modern Age compared to the Golden and Silver Ages.  And that's okay.  The key is not to lock yourself into one or two key comic (or even one era of comics) that may or may not experience a rise in demand.

And from a pure collecting point of view, it's nice to see how characters, art, and storylines change over the decades.  Who doesn't like to see how Batman's costume changes over time?

It all starts with a comic book

I started collecting when I was in high school.  I didn't have much money but I did like Batman, so I pretty much collected everything related to him for a few years.  My local comic shop of choice was the old Forbidden Planet when it used to be across the street from The Strand and when they had a great back issue collection in the basement.  They've moved since and no longer carry any significant back issues.  I didn't find out about how the Forbiddent Planet changed so much until about a year ago when I started to collect again.

I must have stopped collecting when I started college back in the late 80s. Money and time were scarce.  When I graduated, I went to work and then got my graduate degree in Social Work.  Got married and had a beautiful girl.  When Comic Con arrived in NYC in the mid-2000s, I went to them yearly and even brought my daughter along when she was old enough.  During all this time, I would stop in at the neighborhood comic shop on occasion and find a one-shot or a mini-series that caught my interest.  Nothing serious.  I was so far out of comics that I had no idea about what was going on with the characters.  I saw what happened to comics in the 90s and thought that there was no way I could ever trust comics again.  At least not whole-heartedly.

Then last year, everything changed (well, doesn't everything change eventually?).  On a whim and while trying to escape some of the pressures of life in general, I looked up Craigslist and found out about a flea market where someone was trying to unload, well, comics.  I went and thought about picking up only a couple of comics.  I thought, hey, why not get into the hobby and look for some "old comics."  And then I met the dealer who took out a bag of 70s comics he said he was trying to sell on behalf of a friend's widow.  For an ungodly sum of a few hundred dollars, I took possession of about 50 or comics and magazines, mainly Marvel, the core of which was a pretty decent run of Amazing Spider-Man (issues 85 to 125, but missing 121 and 122, sadly...).  I remember my heart pounding, my hands sweating because I had just blew some crazy cash on old comics.  I'm a pretty good saver so it wasn't like I had just given away my mortgage check.  But would my wife understand (a story that will be told some other day)?  I justified it by convincing myself that I deserved it after receiving a promotion and helping to take care of my sick mother-in-law.  I should have bargained with him.  I made the beginner's mistake of thinking I had scored.  I hadn't, of course, and I overpaid.  But it was an important lesson I had to learn. 

I took the comics back home and during the summer, I read a couple each day, rationing and enjoying each new story.  I read the letters columns.  I read Stan Lee's message to his readers.  I regretted having been born too early in the 1970s to appreciate how important Marvel was to the comic industry and how I missed this era of the Bronze Age.

Since then, I've sold a few comics from this lot (what I now consider my own core collection).  I've sold some other collectibles to be able to afford my new/old hobby.  I've started to do my own picking at stoop sales, local comic book shops, and Joseph Koch's Comic Book Warehouse in Sunset Park.  I've also visited other websites that project which Modern Comics may be worth collecting and which older comics may be undervalued.  All the while, I've kept my expenses in check with the goal of trying to make the cost basis as close to zero as possible.  My goal is not to strike it rich by finding that one comic.  My goal is to have fun.  And if I can make a 10% profit, well, that's just gravy.

So if you're new to this blog, welcome!  I'm going to try and share what I've learned so far from my own amateur collecting.  I'm also going to share some philosophy on how this comic book hobby has improved or affected my own view on life.

As far as philosophy is concerned, what I can say is that comic collecting can be one crazy hobby, an obsession that can spiral out of control, especially if one is afflicted with obsessive-compulsive thoughts, or at least if one is trying to escape from reality.  I've had good moments and bad moments.  But overall, I can say that comics saved my life.  Yeah, that's a hyperbole.  But since I'm talking about comics, I think hyperboles are okay.  I'll share my moments as honestly as I can and hope that maybe you'll find something useful, helpful, or just plain entertaining from this nonsensical hobby.