New 52? Indeed I do!

Well, I didn't expect to be off the air for so long, but her I am again, filled with a new enthusiasm for dear old New DC Comics.
When the big reboot was announced the reservations were profound and having read my way through the vast majority of Action and Detective comics over the years, I was particularly outraged at the renumbering of these two venerable titles. Frankly I was beginning to look forward to living long enough to read the respective thousandth issues - which ain't going to happen this time round.
Nevertheless, numerous of the freshly turned out titles went on the shopping list and on the whole the new beginnings are impressive. Sure there are a couple of donkeys on there and a few that I wouldn't dream of picking up, but my weekly buy is more extensive than it has been in years.
Not being overly keen on horror or war titles it was easy to leave these out and I didn't want too many team books either but that left a host of available reading material. Another doubt was about the $3.99 titles but I have fallen into Action comics despite finding the artwork rather inconsistent and All Star Western as there is so much potential mileage for Jonah Hex. Let's hope he departs Gotham before too long though, he needs to be out in the wild wild west suffering through searing deserts and pitilessly facing down small town desperadoes. Having said that the opening story line is exciting and enjoyable and as in so many of the other books in New 52 the creative team is tremendously strong.
Since I'm aiming to ease my way more seriously into boring the ether with my blogs I'll give this opening volley a rest here but if you can stomach it, please be braced for imminent follow ups.

In the beginning there was reading

Yup, most people get into comics collecting from when they pick up that first comic book somewhere and get hooked. They liked it enough to look for the next issue and then the next and before they knew it there was a stack in their bedroom cupboard and the list of titles that they read was expanding. Next up they started to get interested in the creators as well as the characters, to appreciate the writing and the quality of the art and before their mother could say "clean up that room", they were finding ways of keeping their collection in the best possible condition.
After a while the reading list might become more selective and if there is a favourite title or character, then the fan will start looking around for copies of issues that they missed or for books from the same publisher where their favoured character made guest appearances. And finally they start trying to build back fro where they started to find as many of a title's run as they can so as to find out what went before.
Now that's collecting. But not everybody is a completist with title runs, some may follow an artist or creative team from book to book, the possibilities are pretty much endless. One thing is sure, there are collectors out there with impressive and much loved accumulations of whatever takes their interest.
It is hard to imagine that a collector would try to build a complete library of the entire output of Marvel or DC or Charlton, but it would be quite easy to build up the sum total of what was produced by First Comics or Aardvark Vanaheim - how much money have you got?
The most important thing about collecting should be the level of enjoyment, the thrill of tracking down a long sought after issue or completing a difficult run. It isn't for dealers or pundits to tell you what to collect, but they can help and encourage people along the way. Chances are most of them are collectors too, or began that way. Whatever you are collecting, escapecomics hopes that you are having plenty of fun doing it and if we get the chance to help you along the way, we'll be delighted. Happy hunting!

GET RID of STICKY TAPE!

For years collectors have carefully bagged and boarded their precious comic books to keep them safe and then they have sealed the bags with sticky tape. How unwise is that? For a start, people don't know how well the sticky side will perform over time - it could deteriorate fast and leave no grip, or it could end up so super-sticky that you can't reopen the bags without tearing them. Even in the best case where the tape keeps in decent condition and peels easily, there is always the massive RISK that it might catch onto a part of the comic and cause irreparable damage.

Oh yeah, and when you handle tape it can put gum on your fingers that'll end up putting heavy fingerprints on the comic. Why chance it? Get rid of that tape and simply fold the top flap of the bag in behind the board or comic and file it away without the worry of what booby-trap may lie in wait in the future when you go back to look at that favourite comic again! After all, you might want to sell your collection one day and the better it looks and the easier to handle, the more attractive it will be to the most likely buyers - comic dealers.

Dear Dan Didio

This could be aimed at any publisher of comic books, but since I have grown up with and always had a soft spot for DC Comics, it is being directed at you.
I hope that your sales figures are holding up well through this crushing period of recession? After all, today's new comics are tomorrow's back issues - which is where escapecomics steps in. Truth to tell, this dealer does not buy too many newly published comic books any more and here's why:
Back in the day - well, about 1960 - when American comics began to be widely available in Scotland, I quickly became hooked on them. The US cover price was 10 cents and that worked our at sixpence in British money. In other words, for £1 i could buy 40 comics - that would have cost $4 in the USA. Even though one pound sterling was a lot of money in 1960, the pricing meant that I could build up a nice and fairly complete collection of every title that I liked and even when the price drifted up to 12 then 15 cents it was okay with a keen collector.
Leap forward to the present day and the basic cover price for a comic book is $2.99 which translates at one British chain of comic shops as £2.45 - in other words, even although US inflation since 1960 means that a dollar the is now worth about $7.5 the cover price of comics in the USA has risen 30 times and in the UK 98 times.
Granted the quality of production has greatly improved over the years, and perhaps you print on a better quality of paper, but a thirty fold increase in cover price in 50 years when "real" inflation has only bee 7.5 times?
I don't hold you responsible for the dramatic shift in the exchange rate between the UK and the US (the shift being compounded because air freight is used now instead of sea freight in the sixties) but there is a case for you to answer on your domestic price rocket.
Maybe the ownership of comics publishers being in the hands of gigantic corporations now has some bearing - that would also explain the proliferation of $3.99 comics - after all they will be demanding meaningful profits. But when a product increases in price by four time the national rate of inflation there is something far wrong.
From what I understand, it is not as if the creators have benefitted greatly from the higher cost of comics, although they will benefit when the latest six issues of Character X are turned into a grossly overpriced graphic novel, so we can't point the finger at them.
Time for a rethink dear Dan, why not get back to building your markets on volume - how many young kids are reading comics these days compared to five decades back and how many are being read by adults who were hooked many years ago? Think of the future and get after today's kids and in the process perhaps you will win over some cynical older fans who have pretty well dropped out of your market.

New Blog on the Block

Whoa! How easy was that! A few keystrokes and Escape Comics is up and blogging. We really wanted to do this on our own website but the software package that we use for listing and selling our comics just can't do it - talk about inflexible. One of these days we will rebuild that site ( www.escapecomics.com ) and have everything nicely tied in to our needs.

Anyhow, here we are - we are all about comics and in particular all about back issue comics. Many dealers seem to have decided that the way of the world is to move entirely to graphic novels, but we can't see the sense in this. To be honest, whilst graphics are nice to have, they are very expensive for what they are - reprints compiled from (usually) recently published comic books.

The quality of art, story telling and production in most present day comics is pretty impressive and there is something very enjoyable about the monthly ritual of reading the latest step in the adventures of your latest heroes. But it is frustrating when you miss an issue or two or decide to backtrack and find out more of what happened with a character in the past. That particular desire leads you into the world of back issues and escapecomics is a rapidly growing source that can help you.

We try to price realistically and fairly and if you go for a decent size of purchase, the discounts available really build up. Why not give us a try?

Watch out for our future blog entries, there are plenty of opinions on the industry, and its creators and publishers. Sharing them with you will be fun!