PLEASE Consider Supporting CBO

Please consider supporting Comic Bits Online because it is a very rare thing in these days of company mouthpiece blogs that are only interested in selling publicity to you. With support CBO can continue its work to bring you real comics news and expand to produce the video content for this site. Money from sales of Black Tower Comics & Books helps so please consider checking out the online store.
Thank You

Terry Hooper-Scharf

Wednesday 26 April 2017

I Don't Get Much To Make Me Laugh But....


Not much to do these days and last night I thought I would catch up with vloggers on You Tube and various comic blogs.  I am so glad I did.

I posted the piece on the Frank Cho Wasp cover.  That is a non-story. Hey, in the animated (the BEST animated Avengers series) series Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes there is a scene before the team go into a gamma radiation filled area and have to don radiation suits. The Wasp does exactly what is show in this illo.  For SJWs and fake feminists do not seem to have had any interaction with real women.

"Does my bum look big in this?"

That is a phrase used in a comedy TV show in the UK by a female. If I had just £1 for every time I had heard women (I know/don't know) asking that question I'd be well off.  It is not rare in comics either.  In fact, it is almost as common as a man noticing an attractive woman and pulling his gut in and sticking his chest out.

Why did Bleeding Cool even kick up such a fuss? There are, obviously, two real reasons.

(1)  they have been swept up by the now ever diminishing SJW wave (that has mostly had its collective asses kicked by comic fans).

(2)  the site needed to attract attention to itself.  Trying to garnish some more views and credibility.

Is Bleeding Cool so dumb as to get caught up ion the comics SJW cause? If they are then it does not say a great deal about its credibility as a comics insider news site (and I would look daft because Tuesday I was actually saying nice things about them to someone!).

Many describe news from Bleeding Cool as "needing to be taken with a pinch or at best bag of salt". Also "It is the tabloid news site where you trust what they say at your own risk".  So maybe headline grabbing was what it was hoping for?  It seems the only logical explanation because you can understand a website that may be concerned with the number of hits it gets for prestige (never visited the site so no idea if they get advertising).  But jumping this late onto the SJW bandwagon....that would shoot its credibility.

Worst thing is that it would show whoever was involved had a very -VERY- limited knowledge of comic book art.

As for the writer insulting Frank Cho.  Well, like most writers their work depends on how well the artist tells their stories (some pretty lame ones) and they will take credit for the artwork, too  -I have five instances where well known US/UK writers have said to me that they are responsible for how good the art is because they tell the artist what to draw! Twice I was even reprimanded by one writer because I did not praise his story highly enough and praised the artists involved and he even demanded that I alter the reviews to reflect that he had to take credit for even the art because "the artists could not have drawn the story without my telling them what to do!"  Guess what?  I told him his stories were not that great but I did credit him as much as the artists and that he was now on a life long blacklist. Not one book he has written would ever appear in anything I am involved in. Publishers tried to "awww, Terry but---" and my response was the same.  You treat the artists with respect.  You treat reviewers with respect.  You get a massive ego that you are the greatest writer (of comics) alive...there are consequences.

Artists are in a good position to screw things up for writers but most tend not to have backbones and just do the job, take the abuse, take the money and go.

I compare most (not all) modern comic writers to being less than those logs I flush down the toilet.

Respect.

And, please, wake up, because this whole movie company versus Marvel over characters is just bullshit to keep fans interested.  At the start of the X-Men movies, the Fantastic Four movies, the Spider-Man movies...whose company comic flick-card appears at the beginning? Which company gets credit?  Disney/Marvel.  If  Disney/Marvel were so morally outraged that their characters are not returned to them for movie use then they could demand that opening ID be removed. It is there as the official property stamp. The credits, the creators named.

Come on.

Which company benefits from any push in comic sales or merchandise sales from a movie?  Oh...Disney/Marvel (and yet they don't have to spend anything in making those movies but get the rewards.

Must be aweful for them.

Note how at events editors (I will call them that out of politeness) who insult artists are shown smiling with them.  Joking with them. I saw this several times -including with Rob Liefeld- and realised that it is all either a big con or the creators really are spineless.  "You hack no talent!" is an insult, right? So you are going to man-hug or shake hands and joke and smile with the person who sent that open insult across the internet?

Think about it: Spineless or part of the American comics industry con?  Maybe 50-50 but it still shows that fans are getting angry and called to arms to whip up publicity and stand up for either the company (ie: editor) or creator.  It is a con.

Ignore the comics news hacks and internet puss, quite a few comic sites are crammed with people employed by companies to stir up the controversy and get you to think the way they want you to. Guardians of the Galaxy was a mediocre film and people were calling it that yet, within hours of its release, anonymous tweets and more were hailing it as one "of the greatest Marvel action movies ever!"  No. No, it was not. Fans see all the positive reviews and around 75% of them will jump on the band wagon to be part of the "hip crowd".  It is all tried and tested stuff used in politics and worse for centuries (and the internet almost guarantees anonymity to company men).

Practical example of how it works with comics.  We know DC ain't doing good but Marvel is doing even worse. But the comic 'fans' still fall for it year in and year out -some times twice a year- a new #1!!  Yes, #1s sell "because as first issues they will be more collectible and worth more money!"

 Really? Hundreds of thousands of copies of the new first issue....so, in, say, 60 years, if there are only 10-30 copies of that issue left you may get a little profit.  Golden Age US comics sell because many were pulped in the war effort, or burnt in their thousands thanks to Wertham and mob mentality. So there are far, far fewer out there.

Last night I saw three video bloggers (in their 20s) complain about how expensive comics were. However, their biggest -their major- complaint was that the comics they bought 2-4 years ago were not yet "worth anything". They were angry.  One had tried to sell his Guardians of the Galaxy #1 (2015) but no takers.  Another told the same story but he had gone back to his local store and said he wanted to sell his copy and the store owner showed him a box which still had copies in and told him "Try Ebay, kid -somehow you might get your money back!" He had tried Ebay with "a modest starting price of $50". No takers. It seems these three had bought like crazy. Anything they read was hot or their comic store recommended they bought.

"I spent upward of $2,000 plus...no...I forgot the extra copies so around $3,000 on these books and dealers tell me they ain't worth ***** shit!"

I should not laugh.

Then I found bloggers with the same stories. I think one had kept a full inventory and estimated between 2014-2016 he had spent $15,000 (including double copies of hot books) and was crying that his collection was not worth (his own words) "six times that!" A commenter had pointed out that it could take a few decades for books to  achieve any value but only rarely. Fair enough I thought.

For me, though, the funniest was a fella in California who took some of his purchases into the local comic store.  These were all the "hot" books touted by the comics media and stores between 2012-2016.

The store owner looked at him and said ("very rudely") "Kid, what the **** do you ***** think I want to buy this shit for? They ain't worth what you paid for them in the day!"

Ah-ha! Now this youth had the filthy comic dealer by the balls. He took out each pristine copy in its mylar bag and acid free board (?) and pulled out a wad of printouts about the comics which told how these books were THE items to invest in.  What could the comic store owner do now?

Apparently, he sighed and told the youth to follow him into the store room out back.  He did so.  The store owner pulled down three boxes and opened them up.  Each box had multiple copies of all those comics he was being offered the opportunity to buy.  He looked at the "kid" and said "You give me half of what you paid for that issue off the shelves and I'll give you another six --**** it- another 10 copies!"

I thought that was funny but there is a better punchline -and it was repeated several times by bloggers- and that was "Never sold anything but I picked up the latest hot titles plus some bags and boards"

Wait...you find that you have been conned.  Not once but multiple times. Those recommended "hot" titles were worthless.  In one case there was the chance to pick up ten extra copies. You have realised the few thousand dollars you invested are never coming back to you.  The comic company and the dealer made the money.  So what do you do?  You buy more recommended hot books as well as more mylar bags and boards.




Before you say "Ah, but according to---" re. comics investing look at the site owners. Those telling you how the movies make these comics "hot" or that "it's time to start investing in comics" are all profiting from that falsehood.  "Come see the comic guy about investing in comics at this year's con!" well, the only truthful word there is the abbreviation -"con". Comic guides, comic traders and dealers, Mile High Comics -for feck's sake do not be morons: these are people making money out of stupidity.

Because people fall for this crap you will not find any search result telling you anything but positives because the ones telling you the truth are not popular. Remember how I warned several times and even checked myself when dealers were saying out of nowhere "Sub-Mariner comics are going to be majorly hot with the 2017 movie!"  There was no movie.  Never was an intended Sub-mariner movie. I know two American comic dealers who laughed and joked how much money they had made selling Sub-Mariner comics to "the morons".  At least three Ebay dealers I was watching sold not very good quality Sub-Mariner (Silver Age) #1s for between (UK) £150 and US $500-900.

Please learn.

No comments:

Post a Comment