Investment Returns that will Rock Your World

Today I gave a speech at Toastmasters about investing in comic books. It went over really well! People loved the part about being able to make a billion per cent return on investment.

My good friend was kind enough to video the speech, so here it is in all of its raw glory:

Digital Comics Revolution?

I wrote this as a long-winded response to a post made on Comic Zone’s Facebook profile, yesterday. I figured posting it as a blog wouldn’t be a bad idea.

FACT: Both Marvel and DC’s editors-in-chief (Joe Quesada and Dan DiDio, before both of their recent promotions) have stated for a fact that they do NOT want to stop printing comics. However, after watching what happened to the music industry, they recognize that by NOT embracing digital publishing, they’re missing out on an entire stream of revenue that will lead to future problems.

FACT: So far, Marvel is doing a good job of keeping 99% of things fair for the brick-and-mortar comic stores, as 99% of what hits their digital store comes out SIX MONTHS AFTER the print version. Yes, there are exceptions – the recent SPIDER-WOMAN series was a motion comic before the seven individual issues were printed, and the upcoming INVINCIBLE IRON MAN ANNUAL will see physical and digital stores at the same time. But eight items over the course of 9 months is nothing, when you consider that Marvel have had over 1,000 issues published physically six months before digitally in that time frame.

FACT: DC, meanwhile, have announced exactly ZERO plans for digital distribution. They seem to be content with things as they are – Which is an opinion that is hard to argue with; They’re constantly in 2nd place in sales numbers and sales dollars, but they also print about 75% the material that Marvel does (if not even less!), on a per-month basis, and are generally not very far behind Marvel in terms of direct market sales. It’s hard to make a argument claiming that DC doesn’t want to print comics anymore when they have zero online distribution methods in place, currently.

FACT: Smaller publishers (Dark Horse and IDW, specifically) Are the ones who are jumping to the same-day distribution models a lot faster, particularly with their licensed material. However, maintaining those licenses is an added expense that Marvel and DC don’t have, so it makes sense that Dark Horse and IDW would want to get an extra stream of revenue going as quickly as possible. Also, both Dark Horse and IDW make up less than 10% of the comics market share (even combined they make up less than 10%), so they’re taking far less of a risk of alienating current fans and finding new ones.

FACT: Paul O’Brien of HouseToAstonish.com (formerly of TheXAxis.com) is an X-Men completist, and has reviewed almost every single issue of X-Men, ever. Do you really think he’s going to STOP buying every X-family comic in print format just because online distribution is now available to him? I can tell you for a fact that he isn’t, DESPITE the constant problems that the UK’s postal service has, causing him to consistently have books shipped late.

It will take several years before online distribution becomes the norm for the comics industry. There are far too many people who have all 700+ issues of the various Avengers titles (Avengers, West Coast, Solo/Spotlight, New, Mighty, Initiative, Dark, Secret, new New, etc.) to just STOP the monthly habit of buying physical copies.

Will there be a shift in current readers who want to jump on the digital bandwagon? Absolutely. But it’s far too early to tell what that percentage of current readership that will be, especially if Marvel continue their six-months-later policy.

But what we DO know is that their online sales have created new readers. And as long as people are reading comics in one form or another, the industry survives. And that’s why the online distribution model began in the first place.

Dawning of the Heroic Age

A couple months ago, in an earlier blog, I speculated that The Sentry may have been too powerful a character to keep around the Marvel Universe. With his seemingly-unlimited powers, and his suffering from multiple personality disorder, it seemed like he was destined to be destroyed, because he was too great a threat to the safety of everybody in the Marvel Universe – Be it an innocent bystander on Earth, an unfortunate member of the bird-like Shi’Ar race, or even the bizarre Popuppians. And The Sentry was intelligent enough, himself, to recognize this fact, and had Thor throw him into the sun.

So, now, Norman Osborn is no longer in charge. H.A.M.M.E.R. is back to being known as S.H.I.E.L.D., and Steve Rogers is the new “top cop” in the Marvel U.

The overall feel of this era of the Marvel Universe is much lighter than the one that began with AVENGERS: DISASSEMBLED in 2004 and ended with SIEGE in 2010.

In 2004, there was an overabundance of mutants in the Marvel Universe. It seemed like every third character that was introduced was a mutant, for no reason other than just so another origin wasn’t needed to be written.

The Avengers experienced their worst day in history, when the Scarlet Witch went insane and killed Hawkeye, Vision, Jack of Hearts, Scott Lang/Ant-Man, and cause She-Hulk to go into an insane rage.

Even when the New Avengers were founded, it was because of a breakout at The Raft, Marvel’s maximum security prison, and an endless number of super villains escaped.

During the next six years, the world was completely changed to an alternate version where mutants are the dominant species, only to be changed back to its previous state, but with less than 1% of the mutant population retaining their X-Gene.

Due to a super villain attack on a school, the heroes were divided on whether or not the new government-mandated registration-if-you-have-super-powers was a good or bad idea, and found themselves in the midst of a superhuman civil war, which ultimately led to the death of Steve Rogers, aka Captain America.

While Cap was gone, it turned out that there was an invasion from the alien shape-shifting race known as the Skrulls. And when they proved too much for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, it was the Green Goblin himself, Norman Osborn, who saved the day and publicly killed the Skrulls’ queen, putting him in the role of #1 security guy. So what’s he do? Hires a bunch of other villains to be his version of the Avengers.

But, this time around? Everything is optimistic. Things are being fixed. Norman Osborn’s Dark Reign of terror is over, and the good guys are in charge, again.

Steve Rogers has founded a new team of Avengers, and the first mission’s roster includes Steve, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Spider-Woman… up against Kang the conqueror?

Steve’s also founded a team of black-ops Secret Avengers, consisting of his girlfriend Sharon Carton, The Beast, Valkyrie, Moon Knight, the irredeemable Ant-Man (Eric O’Grady), Nova, and War Machine.

And coming later this month, there’ll be yet a THIRD team of New Avengers, consisting of Ms. Marvel, Wolverine, Spider-Man, The Thing, and Jessica Jones, being led by Luke Cage.

With three Avengers teams actually consisting of Avengers, the world has got to be a safer place, right?

…Right?

I guess time will tell.