The World Has Gone Cullen Bunn Crazy!Last time we checked in with the secondary market, it had a lot to do with Sixth Gun and the impending NBC pilot. Prices were skyrocketing quickly then, and are now approaching super-absurd Peter Panzerfaust levels. If you have a really nice raw copy of Sixth Gun # 1, it’s not impossible to get $400 for that. Kinda crazy, huh? You know, the first appearance is that FCBD edition. Probably not as scarce, but I’m guessing more difficult to find in really nice condition. I’m watching that trade from $80-$150 as well. The mania is beginning to leak into the trades now as well. Sixth Gun Volume 2: Crossroads is fetching completely ridiculous prices on Amazon right now. I really doubt that your local comic shop has a copy of issue 1 at this point, but if they order indie books, it’s not unthinkable that a copy of the second trade is available for cover price.
You’re welcome.
You’ll notice that the headline here was “Cullen Bunn Crazy”, not “Sixth Gun” crazy. In 2006 Bunn published a different book (also penciled by Brian Hurt) called Damned. There’s this guy named Eddie, and he’s cursed. He can die, but he comes back to life as soon as somebody touches him. When that happens, all of Eddie’s wounds transfer to the poor sap that dared to lay a finger on his corpse, and Eddie lives while Mr. Touchy dies. You do NOT want to be this guy’s coroner, is the point.
Dreamworks bought the film option in 2008, and Showtime bought the television rights in 2011. So nothing hot off the press there, but like I said – planet earth is way into Cullen Bunn right now. Damned # 1 is trading for around $50 a pop, and that isn’t bad. It’s an Oni book and it’s old, so the odds of your local shop having this in stock are not particularly good. If it is there, though, it’s likely sitting at cover price. It’s worth peeking, for sure.Meanwhile, Cullen Bunn’s new Oni book Helheim hasn’t even had time to lose its umbilical cord, and prices are already spiking. This looks like another hit waiting to happen – cool Norse warrior, sexy witches, revenge, one can definitely see the appeal, yes? The regular version of issue #1 is trading around $10 per, and the phantom variant slightly more, we’ll call it $12-$15. I would say that Cullen has a lot of buns in the Market Spotlight oven if that wasn’t a horrifyingly bad pun. Good thing I avoided doing that.
Injustice: Gods Among Us
This one is just beyond peculiar, and frankly, wonderful - a real gem spawned from some ordinarily dubious sources. Injustice is a web comic turned print collection. There’s nothing to say a web comic couldn’t be good…but we don’t exactly have a lot of success stories to point to on that front. Now let’s up the ante and reveal that this web comic is based on an upcoming video game. Nobody gives a shit about video game comics, and this is because they are generally quite awful. So you’ll excuse me if I got caught flat-footed by how awesome Injustice is. My problem now is how to properly convey said awesomeness without spoiling it for you. OK…you know how you’re sick to death of “event” books because they promise you that interesting and impactful things will happen, but they never do, because they need the book to continue and they need to protect the “brand”? Well, for some reason DC has decided that inside this video game universe, nothing is out of bounds. NOTHING.
So, some fabulously dark and horrible things happen to some of the most important characters in the DC universe inside of the Injustice bubble. And that would be enough to sell me right there, but the extra bonus is how funny Tom Thayer makes these characters. So you’ve got a really powerful blend of “I can’t #$%#& believe that just happened” with efficient, brisk pacing, and all that laced with character moments that will have you annoying your cube mates with unscheduled spontaneous guffawing.
Word seems to be getting around about how cool Injustice is, because the first print issue is spiking pretty hard to find. Results are a little unpredictable, but if I had to pick a current value I’d say $25 is the going rate.
Issue # 2 came out about 12 seconds ago, and that routinely trades for $10 a pop right now.
If you want to get current, the web comics are obviously a little ahead of the print version. It seems like DC is releasing them in weekly chunks for $.99, three chunks to a print issue. Why would anybody pay $25 for a copy of Injustice # 1 when they can easily buy the digital book for a total of $2.97? Because people like print comics, that’s why.
More importantly, this marks a significant change in how DC handles its intellectual property. Back when that Alan Moore kid was doing Watchmen, they caught wind of the adult themes and wouldn’t even let him touch their low-rent Charlton characters. There’s no way I could imagine DC signing off on what they’re currently doing to their icons in this comic, it’s entirely too interesting. I would be very interested to talk to the parties that green-lit the project, or be a mouse in the corner for the development meetings. This is different, and I’d like to know what prompted the change. Chuck, get me Dan Didio on the phone!
As always, your comments are welcome, please leave them in the field below!
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