Ugly American Report: Miracle-Whipped!

This week I thought I'd jam my hand into the mailbag to see if it still bites. What I got was this letter from Miracle Keith, who wants me to speculate on the future of Miracleman. Keith writes:

I wonder if Ryan could comment on the Marvel announcement regarding Miracleman? Apparently, the Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman issues will be reprinted in their entirety, with the possibility of Gaiman finally finishing his storyline. The hilarious part of the whole thing is that the solicitations contain the writer credit: “The original author” and Mick Anglo. In other words, Moore is such an unbelievably obstinate grudge-holder that he has requested his name to be struck from the reprints. I understand that he is donating all royalties from any first printings be donated to the Anglo family (which stands to be a pretty huge chunk of change), so his philanthropy should be admired. If Ryan could just quickly comment on 1) what collectors of the old Eclipse issues should do with their back issues (i.e. – sell now before it’s too late or keep on hangin’ on) and 2) what he thinks the future will hold for the character after Gaiman (ostensibly) finishes out his story arc.

Thanks, ya puke

MiracleKeith

Just to get everybody caught up, Miracleman was a much lauded series penned by Alan Moore in the 1980s, revising and maturing Marvelman, one of Britain's most popular superheroes from the 1950s. The series began as a black-and-white strip contained in Dez Skinn's "Warrior" anthology magazine before Eclipse took over and started publishing the series in color. Alan Moore left after 16 issues and then passed the baton to Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. That team went for 8 more issues before Eclipse finally declared bankruptcy, leaving the Gaiman/Buckingham arc incomplete.

At that point chaos ensued as to who actually owned the rights to the character. Dez Skinn was pretty sure he bought the rights from original Marvelman creator Mick Anglo, Eclipse was pretty sure they bought the rights from Skinn, and Todd McFarlane was pretty sure he bought the rights from Eclipse. It's a long convoluted, painful story, but the story ended with the relevant courts deciding that Mick Anglo had always owned the rights to that character. And then at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con, Joe Quesada announced at the "Cup O' Joe" panel that Marvel had, in fact bought the rights from Anglo.

For some, that announcement was a big deal. Miracleman is regarded as a seminal work, on par with Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns in terms of quality and historical importance. If you want to watch comics grow up on the page, Miracleman was a critical part of that process. And it's a damn fine read.

The difference, though, is that Watchmen and the Dark Knight have always been in print. If you want to read that work, you can walk into any comic shop at any time and find it. If for some bizarre reason your LCS doesn't carry those books, Amazon or Barnes & Noble will. The Eclipse bankruptcy made sure that the Miracleman comics were not and could not be in print, leaving only the back issues. The early issues of Miracleman are plentiful and relatively cheap. Many of the later issues, particularly issue # 15 (still one of the most gruesome, raw comics in history) are very expensive.

Alan Moore is a hallowed writer, and Miracleman a canonized classic that almost nobody has had access to. That Miracleman announcement at SDCC 2009 was the equivalent of saying "Hey, we found this lost Beatles album in the archives of unreleased material from the White Album era, and it will be on the shelves soon."

And then we waited.

And waited.

My prediction after a year of waiting was that Miracleman was caught in Legal Hell, and forever. In my opinion, if the Disney lawyers couldn't cut through the red tape, it was tape that couldn't be cut. This month's Previews took a giant poop on my crystal ball, because Marvel begins reprinting the Alan Moore Miracleman comics in January 2014.

Keith is correct, though, they can't say "Alan Moore", because he's like the Candyman at this point. If you print his name, Tony Todd shows up with a swarm of bees, a meat cleaver, and an attorney, and nobody needs that. Bees are irritating.

It is in fact quite hilarious to see his work credited as "the original author", especially when you consider all the delicious little ironies. Like the fact that his Miracleman work is built on Anglo's work, which was a direct British rip-off of Fawcett's Captain Marvel. Alan Moore is a genius-level talent and deserves his elevated status in comics history, but let's face the facts - his greatest achievement (Watchmen) stole its plot from an episode of the Outer Limits, and his longest running empire (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) is built entirely with bricks borrowed from other great writers. So yeah, Alan Moore. Talented? You bet. Original? Ahhhhhhhhh.....no.

So why isn't Alan Moore's name on the Miracleman reprints? Well, the short answer is that he's bat shit crazy. Well, that's not true. Poor people are crazy, Alan Moore is astoundingly eccentric. He just doesn't live in the same world that you and I do. He lives in Alan Moore World, conveniently parked between Earth 2 (helloooooo Power Girl) and the mental space that Prince inhabits.

If you want to know how out of touch he is with reality, I give you this from the Wizard of Northampton:

"It's always seemed to me that the majority of the comics field, if you had to place them politically, you'd have to say centre-right. That would be as far towards the liberal end of the spectrum as they would go."

That is actually the least true statement uttered in human history. The guy simply does not intersect with any known reality. Perhaps this is a strength for a writer of fiction?

Moore seems like the kind of cat who is quite charming if you sit down and spend an hour or two with him. Nobody seems capable of withstanding extended exposure, however. Give him time, and Alan Moore will concoct a reason based upon available evidence to boycott you forever. That evidence can be real or imagined, it all comes out the same in the end. Eventually Alan Moore will cast you out into the lake of fire, and you won't be coming back. Either he's the unluckiest person in the world who just continues to bump into a never-ending series of traitors and back-stabbers, or maybe the problem actually lies with the guy wearing a Glycon ring and an absurdly large beard. I know which direction Occam's Razor is leaning.

So yes, Marvel does have the rights to the Alan Moore material, but he doesn't want his name on anything he doesn't own. He doesn't want any comp copies, he isn't doing any interviews for the product, and he doesn't want any of your damn money, either. He's giving that to other creators.

And you know what? Keith's right, he does deserve credit for that. He might be a crazy asshole, but damned if he's not an entertaining and principled one. More crazy assholes could learn a thing or two from Alan Moore.

Before I get to the horrifyingly bad news about Marvel's handling of the Miracleman property, let me give them credit for a couple of positives. Firstly, I give them credit for pulling an about-face and titling the material "Miracleman". That's what the material is known as, and it's been known that way because Marvel's laywers made it that way. I think it's wise to roll with things rather than try to move the boulder of public consciousness. Brits may still think of that character as Marvelman, because they have a longer history with him. In America, the Alan Moore character is either unknown, or its Miracleman. Kudos for not fighting that.

Kudos also for getting Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham on board. That story deserves to be completed, and by the original creators. It sounds like that's exactly what's going to happen. So good on that.

To me, that's not the real story, unfortunately. The real story is the manner in which Marvel is packaging this material. Issue # 1 ships in January. It includes some material from Miracleman # 1, Warrior # 1, Marvelman Primer, and carries a $5.99 price tag.

Yup, that's right. They want $6 for a sliver of Miracleman # 1 and a metric ton of fluff you've already seen, and didn't want to pay for the first time. That's a crime.

But wait, you say - that's just the first issue, right? It gets reasonable after that, I'm sure. No, no it doesn't. Issue # 2 reprints material from Warrior # 1-5 (Miracleman ran in 8 page installments in the magazine) and carries a $4.99 price tag.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised any more about the Queen Whore of Babylon and her wily ways. I guess if it were me, I would have priced those issues dirt cheap to get as many eyes on it as possible. That's a solid strategy if the material is quality. Get rid of the filler, I want the customer satisfied when they're done. Get as many people in the door as possible, because once they see the product, they fall in love and are in for life. That's the long game, the smart game, the game dedicated to serving your customer.

That's just not the Marvel Way.

The Marvel Way is not about building a satisfied customer base. It's about stuffing as much cash into your pockets as possible for this quarter. Fuck the customer, and fuck tomorrow. What can I get today? That's the Marvel Way.

If you pay attention to this stuff, you know that Marvel Comics have big problems in the book stores, and with their collections. DC cleans up with their evergreen Vertigo material and Watchmen. Image have the powerhouse Walking Dead combined with new sluggers like Chew, and Saga.

Marvel just can't sell any books, and they have (in my opinion) the strongest IP inventory in the business. It's embarrassing, frankly. Miracleman is just BEGGING to be a Watchmen-level evergreen title for them, and I can already see that they're going to pooch it.

If you ever wondered if Marvel had given up on the idea of chasing new readers, wonder no more. They don't know what they have, and they don't know how to sell it. Remember Shadowland? Marvel was so adamant about backing that piece of dog shit they spontaneously sent double the ordered product to retailers. Why wouldn't you price it reasonably, cut the fluff, and do something like that for Miracleman? That's a known commodity, a high quality product, and a guaranteed crowd-pleaser! Why not flood the market with that and then reap the benefits of word-of-mouth on the collections?

Because there is no vision at Marvel, and they don't even pretend to chase new customers. "Share your universe?" Disgusting. How about share quality product at competitive prices?

Marvel's business model at this point is to find whatever core customers are left to them, and to punish them as much as possible for having the audacity to still be interested in the product. "You're excited about Miracleman? Eat that $6 price tag, loser!" It's madness.

It's madness, and it may in fact kill the property. I say this because nobody is more excited about the prospects of Miracleman than me, and I took one look at the price tag and bailed. There may not be enough good will left in the customer base to finish the reprinted material, much less continue with new stories.

Those of you who listened to Chronic Insomnia back in the day will recall that Quincy and I had many debates on the issue of comics piracy. Those listeners will remember that I have never advocated the practice. I still don't endorse piracy, but I will say this - if Marvel is going to charge you $5 an issue to trickle out a few pages of that Miracleman material per, I don't know why you wouldn't get them for free from another source. Piracy is unethical...and so is extortion. When faced with that ethical dilemma, I would not take issue with a consumer that chose to protect themselves from Marvel's abuse. I value integrity, and making sure that creators are justly compensated for their work. What we're talking about with these Miracleman reprints is consumer abuse.

So, when Keith wonders what might happen with Miracleman when the reprints are done, my answer is that I don't know that we'll even get through the reprints. Are there enough masochists out there to sustain this? Marvel is asking you to pay $11 in January for Miracleman comics, and you won't even have issue # 1 by the time you're done!

Gaiman and Buckingham have had Miracleman # 25 in the can for ages, I'd really like to see that in print after all these years. I think that's in jeopardy now. The door is theoretically open to continue past Gaiman/Buckingham, but what would that look like? At these prices, do you see Miracleman being a big seller? And if it isn't a big seller, what kind of creative teams would Marvel assign to the book of extended adventures? If you found Before Watchmen underwhelming....buckle up for All-New Uncanny Miracleman. I'd like to be wrong about that. I won't be.

As for the back issue situation, we at the Ugly American advise you to hold onto your Eclipse Miracleman issues. They are classics, and they will always be classics regardless of how badly Marvel bungles the property.

Eventually, Marvel will create new collected editions of the Miracleman stuff. When that happens, invariably some collectors dump their current format in order to subsidize the new desired format. If that happens - if a bunch of people flood the market with Eclipse books when Marvel produces the new hardcovers and TPBs, you may see prices come down. Do not panic when that happens, but rejoice! And BUY. That is your last opportunity to buy those books at a reasonable rate.

In particular, Miracleman # 15 is a modern classic, and the volume 3 Olympus trade is a holy grail book for TPB collectors. Miracleman # 15 trades often, but is expensive. The Olympus trade is rarely seen, and the HC is hyper scarce. The near future could be your last chance to own these gems without putting the kids' college money at risk. Keep your eyes open on that front!

Ugly American's Bloated Halloween Part 4: Spawn the animated series!

When the Ugly American was just a hideous-looking little stunt tricyclist, he had less than zero time for traditions. Perform a prescribed action you may or may not want to do simply because you did it before??? The height of ignorance. And boredom. The young Ugly American was an innovator, not a conservator.

As my virility migrates south and my odds of developing any number of terminal illnesses starts climbing north, I become more and more interested in traditions. Maybe it's because I like the idea of setting aside time to remember things past, because someday that will be me. Maybe it's because as I get older, I'm building a greater respect for things that last. Maybe I'm just becoming a bigger, softer asshole. I don't know.

What I do know is that I have a couple of movies that I watch every Halloween. It's my version of tradition. It's not a chore, it's....comforting. It helps that both of them are outstanding films with solid replay value. Those two movies are The Crow and Trick R' Treat. I imagine the first is quite familiar to most of my readers, and the second mostly unfamiliar, and that's a shame. We'll get to both of them in the next installment of the Ugly American.

This time, I'm going to tell you about a prospective new addition to the Halloween tradition. It's horror based. It's comic bookey. But would it be good enough to make the Halloween tradition cut? Let's find out.....

Spawn: The Animated Series (1997-1999)

The animated Spawn series ran for three seasons on HBO, if you can believe it. I had vague recollections of it being a little buzzy when it first premiered. It must have garnered some interest, since it was picked up for two more seasons. But as for the episodes themselves? I couldn't remember.....anything, really.

Upon watching them again in 2013, I know why. The scientific explanation for my failure to latch onto any solid memories of this show is because it is "not good". Oh, the production quality is there, even down to the DVD packaging. The case is solid metal, you'll break your foot if you drop that case on it. The animation itself looks fantastic, albeit DARK. This was the late 1990s, when cel animation was still the norm, thankfully. Anything digital causes my brain to simply check out and leave me cold. I think the only digitally animated show I can watch and enjoy is the short-lived MTV Spider-Man series. But I'm getting off track.

So yes, the show looks good, and the show sounds good. They got Keith David to do Spawn, (you may remember him voicing Goliath on Gargoyles) and Michael McShane does a wonderful rendition of Twitch. There's nothing unprofessional about it.

I was surprised at just how spiritually dark the show is, even given the fact that HBO was unlikely to restrict them much. Al Simmons is depressing to look at, and depressing to listen to. He mostly sits by himself and moans things like "Who am I?" for no particular reason.

For sport, he sits idle while maniacs and former acquaintances murder homeless people around him. He can see it happening, and he almost always exacts some kind of vengeance when it happens. But he can never be arsed to prevent any Bum Abuse. Sometimes he abuses them himself, verbally shredding innocent people who are inexplicably interested in being friendly with Simmons.

Spawn exhibits no sympathy or empathy for anybody apart himself, his wife, and his daughter. He exhibits no interest in doing much of anything to improve his plight. Mostly he whines, moans, and kills people if they don't leave him alone. He's not an interesting or likeable character, which is a problem.

Then there's Clown. Hoo boy. At one point he snatches a picture of Wanda away from Spawn, fires his hand down his pants, and then just starts tugging. That's the kind of show we're dealing with here. And that's almost interesting, if relentlessly maudlin.

Todd McFarlane is the blessing and the curse of Spawn. No corporate entity would take the chances that he does with that IP. Masturbatory clowns? Never going to be drawn from a corporate well, but Todd is free to do what he likes, and some of that feels almost novel and fresh.

In fact, if I were to point one shining element of the series, it would be McFarlane's intros. Before each episode, a camera creeps up behind a doodling McFarlane, at which point he turns around and presents some thematic questions before advocating that you turn the lights off. There are usually skulls and potions about. It's all very spooky.

He comes off as a bit douchey and too serious about the whole thing..but you know what? He's also captivating. You learn more pertinent information about the Spawn mythology in those fleeting moments than any ten episodes of story content. He clearly has a clue about what he wants to do and what's driving his story, and he's genuinely passionate about it.

Here's the problem - somewhere along the way, Todd McFarlane got it in his head that reminding an audience they don't know things about the story is a story. And it's not. That's the opposite of a story. He still hasn't figured that out, by the way.

I guess we'll never know for sure, but if I may engage in a little story forensics, I blame the Hobgoblin frenzy of the mid-to-late 1980s. You remember the Hobgoblin craze in Amazing Spider-Man, right? I know Remy does! The Green Goblin was dead and gone, Peter had all the Osborns accounted for, so who in the world was this jacked-up asshole in the goblin glider throwing exploding pumpkins at Spider-Man? Nobody knew. For a LONG time. Spider-editor Jim Owsley (now Christopher Priest) kept the secret so well he wouldn't tell Jim Shooter. Sales rose, people were talking, and it was all over the mystery of the Hobgoblin.

Well, McFarlane comes onto ASM not long after that. He had been doing work for awhile, sure, but it definitely had to be in his brain. If you want to draw an audience, you dangle a mystery in front of them. That's what people want. That's what sells!

Unfortunately, what Todd forgot was that the Hobgoblin mystery was built on a foundation of hundreds of issues of meaty goodness, not obscure ghosts. The mystery worked because the psychological base was so juicy.

Quick impression of Gwen Stacy's spine for you:

"Snap!"

Ta-daaaa!

That's why Peter Parker and his audience cared about the Hobgoblin. There was a tangible, gripping history there. Spawn has none of that. Who is Al Simmons? I don't care. He's a mopey jerk. And a government hit man before that. Yuck.

And if I don't care about the main character, how many tons of apathy do I have toward the diabolical Jason Wynn, his missing gun shipments, and his plans for the White House? Those threads comprise about 40% of the plot, and they generate zero interest particles. I couldn't explain to you why those elements are in there.

I suppose those conspiracies connect to the main story because they put Wanda and her new beau Terry in jeopardy. But we have no idea who these people are, because Al doesn't really remember them, so who cares? Or maybe it's a cautionary lesson about government corruption?

It's hard to know what the lessons of Spawn are. I feel like somewhere deep below its nougat filling, Spawn wants you to know that there is no fate, and that you can always choose a redemptive path for yourself. You can almost sense that somewhere around chapter 2,354 Todd wants Al to find a way to break his pact with Malebolgia, disrupt the plans of hell, and then wait in heaven for Wanda and Cyan to return to him.

If that's the case, Spawn is taking a really bizarre path in getting there. Occasionally this cat named Cogliostro shows up and irritates the shit out of you. By the way, the only way you'd know the guy's name is Cogliostro is by reading the end credits, because he certainly doesn't advertise that fact. It's a mystery, so that it makes it interesting, right? (slaps palm with forehead)

Cogliostro knows everything you as the reader/viewer need to know in order to understand and care about the Spawn story. He reminds Spawn (and you) of this each time he appears, and revels in keeping all of those treasures to himself. Here's an encapsulation of an actual conversation between Spawn and Cogliostro in a dark alley:

SPAWN: Piss off, old man! I'm busy brooding!

COG: You're about to make one of the most important decisions in your life and the future of earth, and you'd better make the right choice!

SPAWN: Uhhhhh! So annoying! What are you even talking about?

COG: If I told you, it wouldn't even matter.

At that point you just kind of throw your hands up and concede defeat. That's not a narrative, it's a skeleton of a narrative so lacking in manners that it outright tells you that it will never have any meat on its bones.

Precious little of the skeleton makes sense, by the way. As the Spawn story is constructed, the Hellspawns sign a pact with Malebolgia. Apparently something about this process invariably produces amnesia, at which point Malebolgia sends them to earth so they can bitch about how non-compliant the Spawns are. What??? He doesn't remember making "the deal", why would you be surprised that he's not living up to it? And the only information you as the audience would know about "the deal" is from Todd's intro, not the story itself. All the "story" does is remind you that you don't know what happened, and neither does he. It's madness.

If you show Simmons make the deal to be the Devil's muscle in exchange for being re-united with his wife, and then watch him pop up five years later when she's already moved on, NOW you might give a crap about things. Particularly if you establish a real loving couple first. And it would help the audience invest in the character if they know more than Spawn, but are unable to help as they watch him get pummeled by forces out of his control. They might even identify with such a character.

But not this character and not this series, unfortunately. It's a lot of darkness, and child molestation, and shooting, and altogether too much interest in government insiders and conspiracies you couldn't possibly care about. But it's definitely Spawn. Is it worth watching? Ehhhh....no? I recommend viewing the Todd intros and skipping the rest.

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!