Ugly American # 37 – It’s Overstreet Time!

Ugly American 37

Ugly American # 37 – It’s Overstreet Time!

The new Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide came out on Wednesday, so I have been doing little outside of devouring it. This is pretty much tradition now. I remember the unbearable anticipation of Christmas as a child….wondering – what was under that damn tree? What was in that present? It’s too big to be a Shockwave figure; too small to be an AT-AT Walker…what the hell is it, MAN??? I gotta know!

I don’t give a crap about Christmas any more, but that’s pretty much how I feel about the impending Overstreet Guide each year. Intense, agonizing, sleep-depriving anticipation.

Yes, I realize that’s a problem. But it’s my problem, and I manage it with aplomb, if I do say so myself. And I just did. I always get the hardcover. I get the hardcover because it’s cooler, and because my lifestyle requires my Overstreet to have optimal structural integrity. I reference it. A lot. Like…A LOT. It’s usually in bed with me in case I have a pre-REM bout of speculative inspiration. Yes, that does actually happen to me. My Overstreet generally sleeps at my left side, where most healthy humans would store another human for entirely different sorts of inspiration. I did admit that I have a problem.

Because it’s 2013, inter-galactic law requires a variant cover so I had a choice between the Deodato X-Men and the Andy Kubert Superman. I’m not really a Superman guy, but I thought it looked better than the X-Men, and that’s important when you know you’re going to be staring at that cover about 73 billion times in the next 12 months. Sorry, Mike Deodato. Nothing personal.

The Overstreet Guide doesn’t have quite the nasty notoriety that say…Wizard had. Lots of people in the collective do not like the idea of comics as commodities at all, though. These are odd people with undeveloped, intractable minds. These people live in a fictional duality in which one can either appreciate the content of a book or analyze the monetary value of it. To do both is simply impossible. One or the other! Nobody could do BOTH, are you crazy? And since price guide people are “the other”…grrrrr! It’s all very strange.

What’s extra ironic about the Overstreet Guide is that it’s created by people who read more comics, know more about comics, and love comics more than any of the “purists” bitching about it. That’s a fact. You don’t get into the Overstreet Guide unless comics are your life. In order to do what I do on the market side, I require intimate knowledge of the beast. I have to synch up to her all the way to the elbow, just like John Prophet would. It’s true. That may be uncomfortable for some. Hell, sometimes it’s uncomfortable for me! But it’s true. Not only is it possible to love comics and understand their value, it’s essential. You can’t accurately gauge the one without cultivating the other. If you try and run my business off a formula, you will lose big. Trust me.

I don’t love the Overstreet Guide for the numbers, although they are very sexy. I love the Overstreet Guide because the first 175 pages or so are filled with nothing but anecdotal analysis of the current comics market, as told by top industry professionals. Well, there are lots of ads, too. But it’s mostly stories about great finds, rising trends, dogs that don’t hunt no more, and musings about what it all means for the future. For 99.937% of the population, that section is a cure for Insomnia. I call it….heaven. It’s invaluable data, but much more than that.

Those early sections always introduce me to comics that I never knew I had to have. This year, my revelation is Fight Comics.

These were published by Fiction House from 1940-1954, and they are gloriously in your face with Tiger Girls, bondage, Nazis, and unapologetic violence. They are beautiful, and not a trace of bullshit anywhere. How did I not know these existed? And no, they probably aren’t good road maps for sophisticated thought on race and gender. What Fight Comics have is authenticity. They’re real, and that to me is infinitely more valuable than the aspartame-fake progressive purity that today’s comics strain through their lying little teeth. I will have me some Fight Comics. Oh yes, I will!

The other thing is, I don’t get to spend time with many market-minded folks about my passion. I do have a Web Wreckage Stephen, which is a pretty good thing to have, but he’s in another country. I don’t get to hang out with people that appreciate The Game.

Some people respect the dollars produced by my little ooptrades side-hustle, ( I took in about 20K selling comics on the side last year) but they don’t really understand it. Most think I’m a little too committed, too obsessed, maybe a little crazy. Once a year, that Overstreet Guide comes out and I get to read 175 pages of people who “get it”. In the immortal words of Billy Joel, “you may be right – I may be crazy.” But when that Overstreet Guide hits the stands, I’m reminded that I’m not the only one, and that’s important. Therapeutic, really.

I love the guide, but it does have some weaknesses. It’s very weak on evaluating modern books. Some of that we can chalk up to good intentions. The Overstreet Guide comes out once per year, so it really wants to stay conservative and avoid reporting on wispy little fads. For modern material, particularly anything published after about 1980, the Overstreet mantra is “prove it, buddy!” It’s getting better, though. The Overstreet Guide now believes a little in the modern age, thanks largely in part to the Walking Dead phenomenon, I think. I was very surprised to see a value of $80 on Peter Panzerfaust #1 in this year’s edition. I would say $200 is more accurate, but that’s a recent explosion. About the time that contributors were reporting and the guide portion was probably created, $80 was the going rate. That’s what I sold mine for. (insert sad face here) The point being, even two years ago I think the Overstreet would have valued that Panzerfaust book at something absurd like $10. There’s some awareness now that the modern market is legit – these books are trading to real people for real cash.

Overstreet doesn’t have it quite down cold, yet. I found the New 52 Batman listing a bit curious. They’ve got # 1 at $5, and # 13 (first “Death of the Family” issue) at $6. Wrong on both counts, and it has things bass ackwards. That first issue in NM trades for $40, easy. Overstreet doesn’t like reporting big numbers on new books like that, which is fine. But Batman # 13 trades at $10-15….even if we’re being extra-conservative, # 1 should still outpace # 13. Nobody on this planet would trade their (equivalently graded) Batman # 1 for a # 13. If I’m wrong about that, please do contact me. I’ll trade you all day long. And then giggle.

The guide misses lots of little pockets, and of course no guide can perfectly encapsulate everything. That’s why it’s called a “guide” and not the Overstreet Incontrovertible Truth. I get that. But I feel that Overstreet is missing some really low-hanging fruit with stuff like Amazing Spider-Man # 601, and 606-607.

If you’re not familiar, these are some really fantastic cheesecakey covers by J. Scott Campbell featuring Mary Jane and Black Cat. ASM # 607 in particular is super fun and tawdry. Naturally these covers have made the comics very popular, and have been for some time. In NM condition, each of those issues is easy to sell at $20-$30. None of those issues even get their own line listing in the guide. I get missing some stuff, but Amazing Spider-Man is a fairly popular title with a reasonably solid historical track record. Those prices should be reflected in the guide.

I found no listing at all for Orc Stain or The Nightly News, and that’s disconcerting. Maybe I just missed them? I don’t think so - I’ve got the alphabet pretty well solved. Issues of Orc Stain regularly trade for $10-$20, and sold as a set, the first seven issues often command $100+. More importantly, James Stokoe is a hyper-talented creator. When the dust settles, I think he ends up being one of the more important artists of this generation. I’m talking about a Paul Pope, Moebius level of importance. His work needs to be represented in that guide, or the guide suffers for legitimacy.

The Nightly News is even more inexplicable to me. Jonathan Hickman is a burgeoning comics legend, and currently helming The Avengers franchise. How in the world does his critically lauded Image debut not merit a listing? Baffling.

None of these things are deal-breakers, mind you. Overstreet is still indispensable for Bronze Age material and older. That’s what most of the contributors and readers are most interested in, so it does what it intends to do at a very high level. As for the modern stuff, I guess the moral of the story is that we’re feeling the absence of Wizard and the Comics Buyer’s Guide. Rich is dipping his toe in the waters with Bleeding Cool magazine, but nothing is fully in the pool yet. I think there’s a need for something like that.

You know two years ago when the Overstreet guide was released I wrote a column on the old Chronic Insomnia blog making a case for investing in four modern comics. Just for fun, I looked up how they’ve done since. I’d like to point out that I stand by all four recommendations. Some of them have panned out better than others, but two years is a pretty short window, and these were long-term investments, not “flips”. Just to clarify, I’m using the 2011 Overstreet NM values for comparison with the 2013 edition.

Thor # 337 $15/$20 (+33%)
Batman Adventures # 12 $3.50/$75 (+2,043%)
Megaton # 3 $22/$25 (+14%)
Hellblazer # 41 $5/$5 (+ 0%)

Boy, that Harley Quinn is something, isn’t she? So, imagine if you’d purchased one each of those recommendations at guide in 2011, and then sold them at guide in 2013. Life doesn’t really work like that, of course, but it’s in the ballpark and we need some basis of comparison. Had you done that, you would have spent $45.50 and turned that into $125 for a 175% return on your investment. How did your ETF do for you over the last two years? This just in: I’m pretty good at this shit.

As long as we’re talking market stuff, why not go into overtime on this Overstreet edition and look at some interesting stuff popping at the moment!

Spawn “Homage” Covers
You may have noticed that Spawn has recently been featuring “homage” covers. (Spawn # 221-231)
Sometimes Todd takes a whack at iconic covers he had nothing to do with like Dark Knight Returns or Walking Dead. Sometimes he takes a classic McFarlane cover from a different title and then Spawnifies it. They all look great, and carry a whiff of desperation about them.

Spawn is no longer a million-selling title. There is a hard-core, steadfast audience to be sure. But that book languishes on the wrong end of the Diamond Top 300 now, and continues to decline no matter what outlandish tactic McFarlane does to try to prop things up. My all-time favorite has to be installing himself as writer under the nom de plume Will Carlton.

Issue # 232 featured the tagline “32 straight issues with the SAME creative team!” I’m not sure what the comic’s sexual orientation has to do with anything, but I am pretty confident that this selling point will not be enough to drag Spawn back to the top. Maybe it should…but it won’t. The latest issue grabbed a megaphone and shouted “Spawn costume origin story begins here!” If that excites you, by all means hop back on board. I would like to live in a world in which Spawn exists; I’m just not enthused about actually reading it.

At any rate, I think those homage covers were partly to grab attention on the racks and try to drive sales a little, but I think a different market was predominantly responsible – namely the original art market. Love him or hate him, I think Todd has established himself as the marquee name for that 90s era of art. Personally, I adore that stuff.

Heritage Auctions recently sold the original cover to Amazing Spider-Man # 328 and got a paltry $657,250 for it. I think that got Todd’s attention. I think Todd said to himself – “Self, if that pretty darned good but not legendary ASM cover of mine can net $650K, I bet I could make a million dollars a week churning out cover art with timeless mass appeal.” And so he set about doing that. Incidentally, that makes him a brilliant business person, not a hack. In case you were wondering. Todd McFarlane is going to make a metric shit ton of money selling that art, if and when he chooses to do so.

Long story longer, the secondary market has been responding very favorably to all of those homage covers, but most specifically Spawn # 221, honoring the cover to Amazing Fantasy # 15. It currently trades for about $20 in nice condition. Many of those covers are difficult to find on shelves, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see more Spawn homages follow suit. I really like Spawn # 229, reminiscent of that classic McFarlane cover to Hulk # 340. These are fun! You should probably indulge just on that basis.

Last of Us: American Dreams
The Last of Us: American Dreams is a 4 issue mini-series prequel story for the Naughty Dog video game release. I know and care nothing about video games, but I was following this title because of Faith Erin Hicks. While I was at the last Hal-Con, I really fell in love with her art. So I knew I would like the look of it, and was curious to see how she would do as co-scripter of this game prequel. It’s there to introduce you to the post-apocalyptic world, and flesh out one of the game’s characters, Ellie.

The first issue of the comic shipped in April, two months ahead of the video game release. In fact, Naughty Dog liked some of Hicks’ contributions so much, they changed elements of the game to reflect them. The point is, I smelled money on this comic because if the game became popular, initial orders on the comic would not represent real demand.

Well, the game is pretty popular. Game Informer calls it a “grim masterpiece”, and sales are brisk. Naturally, that interest has carried over to the Dark Horse comic, and prices have risen dramatically on all three issues that are currently available. Issue # 1 regularly trades for $30+, with issues # 2 and # 3 trading for around $10-$15 per.

When things go crazy, prices are not stable, but those are good current ballpark figures.

I’ve got a good history with video game books. I’ve made very nice profits selling Dead Space, Assassin’s Creed, and Resident Evil comics. It’s not a situation where I’d recommend backing up the truck on anything just because there’s a game attached, but if you can feel out a scenario where print runs just aren’t keeping up with the zeitgeist, there is money to be made.

Todd: The Ugliest Kid in on Earth
Readers of this column are no strangers to Todd, so you all went out and grabbed yourself five copies of each issue, right? Right???
Well if you did, there’s a little windfall in it for you, because Ken Kristensen and MK Perker have optioned Todd to Tit-Mouse for an animated series! This is good news on a couple of levels.

It’s good because movie news means instant skyrocketing back issue prices. There is a small, slightly insane group of speculators that like to jump on every piece of movie/TV news and try to catch the next Walking Dead on the way up. That’s just not the way to play The Game. There is no next Walking Dead. (except maybe Saga, but Vaughan says he’s never optioning that property) You will never see the Ugly American paying nosebleed prices on books less than a year old. That’s when you’ll find the Ugly American selling.

Again, when the market explodes, prices get difficult to pin down. Issue # 1 of Todd is currently going for $40-$60 in nice shape. Runs of the first 4 issues are reaching into the $100 range. It really seems to me that issue # 2 is the most difficult to actually locate, so be aware of that.

Most importantly, however, Tit-Mouse are the fine folks responsible for shows like Venture Brothers and Metalocalypse. These are wonderfully dark and clever degenerates who will know how to handle Todd properly. I’m very pleased to see the property land there, because what separated Todd: the Ugliest Kid in on Earth from its peers was a giant set of balls. Tit-mouse will not neuter Todd. Hurray for depravity!