And they wonder why manga is absolutely destroying the American comics industry in terms of sales.

To be brutally honest, I find most manga just as unreadable as American capeshit.

After Comixology was ruined, most of my comics purchases have been from supporting kickstarters. That shit is REALLY expensive.

We've talked about it elsewhere on this forum before but manga has somewhat of an unfair advantage in terms of pricing: we are basically only getting reprints after the core audience has already paid for their copies, it's expected to be in black and white, and probably most importantly most manga artists/creators are paid like crap/have terrible working conditions. That being said, because it is culturally more normalized and broad than just cape comics, it does have a reach exceeding what is traditionally thought of as the American comics market, and it is much easier to jump into than whatever the tangled continuity mess that superhero comics are. It is still amazing to me that Viz's releases of Deadpool Samurai outsell every single Marvel tpb, and handily.

But if you really want to see a dominant market domestically, check the pseudo comics/books like Captain Underpants and Dog Man and the stuff of Raina Telgemeier, that's what kids read.

Unlike single-issues, at least collections can be bought at a discount.

Like, I recently got the Immoral Hulk Omnibus (fantastic book, BTW) for $75, which is 50 issues, so it comes to $1.50 per issue.
Not to mention it's an over-sized hard-cover with good paper and no ads.

Comic books are still huge sellers in Japan, they are sold everywhere, e.g. convenience stores, subway kiosks, etc. and are really cheap compared to here (or at least were the last time I went there), and have titles that appeal to almost anyone, so there is still a big market for them, unlike with our comics here.

I saw something like 20-30 million people in Japan consume manga on some level. Now that's spread over many niches and genres, whereas here in the States superhero comics basically only cater to one market.

When US comics lost the newsstand, they lost access to more casual readers who would pick up stuff like romance comics and Westerns. They also never really got over the stigma comics were made for kids.

US comics lost the newsstand because the newsstand no longer wanted them/the comic companies no longer wanted to take losses in terms of pulped product. Even the foray that they made a decade or so ago into trying to get TRU and bookstores to carry comics failed because... it's just not worth it compared to the alternatives. For decades Archie had that sweetheart deal to stay in that very prominent grocery checkout lane but I think even that's gone away.

The thing is, and I know we all know it, the US comic market is very diverse, just dominated by superhero comics in terms of comic book store sales. But outside of the "monthly pamphlet" market (and I don't mean that in a derogatory way) there are tons of "comic books" read by kids of all ages like Captain Underpants and such, they just don't "count" as comic books to most of us.

As far as the stigma that comics are for kids yeah that unfortunately hasn't gone away, which is weird because we now have multimillion dollar franchises that everyone watches based on comic books, and there's no stigma to that.

I really hoped DC's young adult OGNs would've made a dent but I don't think they have. As I said earlier, it's just ridiculous to me that the best selling collection based on Marvel properties is a Deadpool manga not even published by Marvel.

My son and I wandered into a really cool comic book store in Huntsville, AL yesterday (we were there to see the Bebop Bounty Big Band...highly recommended if you enjoy Cowboy Bebop's music) and they had a ton of floppies on the racks. I was stunned to see several reprints of old 80's DC and Marvel comics. Like, exact reprints with the old ads and everything...for $4.99 each. Only difference was glossy paper.

What the fuck?

Facsimile editions have become very popular over the last decade.

I buy most of them. Better to read the facsimiles and get the full nostalgia-effect with the ads and all, than having to dig out and handle my originals.

Reprints of older classic comics have become extremely popular. I pick them up once in a while but it's basically Marvel/DC living off nostalgia purchases.

Marvel was doing facsimile editions back in the early 90s under the Marvel Milestone Imprint. I have these two:





Back then, this was the only easy, affordable way to own these classic first appearances.

Some time in the late 1980s I bought a copy of the Giant-Size X-Men for my best buddy's birthday. I think I paid $20-ish for it.

Sounds like a bargain.

Did some looking and a NM Giant-Sized X-Men #1 was listed as $130 in a 1990 copy of Mile High Futures and $180 in a 1994 copy of Wizard.

That same Wizard lists Incredible Hulk #181 at $300 and Iron Fist #14 at $150. That same Mile High Futures has Incredible Hulk #181 for $200 and Iron Fist #14 at $25.

(Though I'd say those Mile High Futures prices are probably higher than Overstreet, since Mile High Comics tends to upcharge for most comics, especially notable issues.)

Found a 1989-1990 Overstreet Guide in pdf online and found these prices:

Iron Fist 14 -- $10 NM, $5 FN, $1.7 GD
Incredible Hulk 181 -- $75 NM, $32 FI, $11 GD
Giant Sized X-Men 1 -- $95 NM, $34 FI, $13.5 GD

Mile High was very expensive back in the day. Overstreet usually seemed to reflect book pricing often found at conventions, while Wizard would be pretty fair except on "hot" issues they loved promoting.

I don't ever remember seeing a mint Incredible Hulk 181 in 1989 for under $100. Maybe 1985 or 1986. Wolverine was insanely popular as the '80s wore on, maybe the "hottest" character from any Big 2 comic since the Bronze Age.

Oh man, I used to love flipping through Mile High Futures. These covers bring back a lot of memories:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro..._sacat=0&rt=nc

I took the Mile High Comics Complete Comics Catalog & Price Guide (the final name for Mile High Futures) Fall/Winter 1997 (#93) off my shelf and flipped through it. I think this might be the last issue (and the only one I kept). I tried to find some info on the Internet, but no one even has this issue listed, let alone a later one.

Overstreet was the gold standard back in the 1970s and 1980s, though they generally focused on Golden and Silver Age books, and were often slow to reflect price increases in more modern books. I remember one retailer telling me that Overstreet tried to push against the idea that new, or even recent, comic books should be able to jump in value and that the back issue market needed to be stable.

By the time the 90s came around and prices became volatile (such as key Valiant titles exploding in value overnight) they became less and less relevant. Prior the early 90s, titles on comics, even key comics, didn't fluctuate as much and Overstreet got caught off-guard and left in the dust.

The early 90s were a really chaotic time in comic collecting. Books would get hot overnight, back issues would fly out of the bins before the stores could reflect increase prices to reflect sudden demand -- this was pre-internet and pre-eBay so you couldn't really see this stuff happen in real time and often didn't know a book was "hot" until the new issue of Wizard came out.

Annual guides just didn't cut it when a book like Harbinger #1 would come out of nowhere and sell in the $25-$40 range.

Yeah I was going to say Wizard being not only a price guide but an entertainment magazine with lots of pictures kind of made Overstreet seem too old school (even if there were shenanigans with Wizard's pricing/publication)

I only vaguely remember Wizard pricing shenanigans.

The only one I really recall was that they were pushing CGC-graded books really hard, and listing things like slabbed copies of Spawn #1 at high prices.

I also vaguely recall accusations that they were pushing certain "hot" books that people involved in Wizard's publication chain had large quantities of.

Manga getting too expensive here in the US is a huge topic in the manga fandom also. Almost all of the major publishers have raised their prices recently and most releases are up to $12-15 a volume. Obviously like with American comics there are places to get them for 25-40% off but that still adds up. I read 40-50 volumes a month of manga and it usually only takes me 20-30 minutes to finish a volume. I can't imagine being a collector as a teen and being able to afford more than a couple series. Also probably why manga has the infinitely bigger piracy problem then American comics has.

I think part of the manga piracy problem is that you can get the scans before they even hit the newsstands in Japan, which is a huge deal (there have been a few arrests on that front in Japan). I mean this is like everyone waiting for the trade but you can read the monthly superhero comics online before they even get to the comic book stores, much less get collected.

I used to buy the annual Overstreet edition usually for the cover but never even thought about using it as a price guide. Yeah, it had become completely irrelevant by the 90s.

Since I started selling comics on Ebay I've been picking up Overstreet's again. Not for pricing, but it's a great reference for figuring out how long a series ran, which volume of Spider-Man that #6 issue is from (vol 12??), and just looking up the odd title I see in my journeys.