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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2016 21:07:09 GMT -5
When one square inch of paper can be worth more than a brand new car in an Aston Martin showroom I'm interested  My husband collects coins. Well, he did at one time. It is not my thing, but I don't tell him once a week how I simply do not understand why he wants to collect coins. Or why he wants to collect coins a certain way. Nor am I passive-aggressive by just walking around my house saying "When did collecting graded coins become, like, a thing. It is just...I will NEVER understand it." |
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Post by Phil Maurice on Jan 29, 2016 22:09:05 GMT -5
This argument always reminds me of Indiana Jones and Belloq in the Market. Belloq holds up a cheap pocket watch and says:
"Look at this. It's worthless - ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless. Like the Ark."
He continues:
"You and I are very much alike. Archeology is our religion, yet we have both fallen from the pure faith. Our methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me. To push you out of the light."
Now it's true that Belloq is a villain and rightly had his face melted off for his perfidy, but let's not forget that if Dr. Jones had just left well enough alone, the Ark would have made its way to Berlin and melted the faces of the Fuhrer, Himmler, Goebbels, et al.
We see from this that we are simply passing through History. These, these comics are History! 
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2016 13:31:53 GMT -5
If that's the case, then I'd say at least 70% of my books from the 60's and 70's are above that criteria and they are in what most would consider "very good" condition. Most? Grading is subjective of course... |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jan 30, 2016 16:31:36 GMT -5
While some here claim they will never understand collectors who collect slabbed books or collectors who buy unslabbed books, but books whose condition is based on a grading system, well, I will never understand why those people even care enough to think about it. I do not collect stamps or coins, but I would never tell someone who collects these things that I find the type of collecting they do to be ridiculous. Nor would I have to remind them once a week that I do not understand why they collect something the way they collect it. If you don't like that someone pays a lot for books that are slabbed or unslabbed, graded or not graded, who cares?  ? Ooh, me! Because the idea of reducing comics to commodities takes away from it's validity as an art form. America is so far behind Japan and Europe in acknowledging what you can do with comics and graphic novels and I think the focus on collecting comics over reading comics has been part of that - although the perception does seem to be shifting, and comics are becoming more and more accepted as worthwhile on their own merits. Still, I think about comics a lot, and I would prefer that people wouldn't interact with them in a way that I think is silly. And maybe if I point out that people's behavior is silly they will stop? SOMETIMES this works! |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2016 16:42:21 GMT -5
Ooh, me! Because the idea of reducing comics to commodities takes away from it's validity as an art form. How did you arrive at that conclusion? |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jan 30, 2016 17:16:20 GMT -5
Ooh, me! Because the idea of reducing comics to commodities takes away from it's validity as an art form. How did you arrive at that conclusion? Reading a lot of articles on comics and specifically researching how comics are perceived by the mainstream media. Articles that deal with comics as commodities do not deal with comics as art, and vice versa. And until fairly recently American media really focused on the first waaaaay more than the second. "Local housewife finds Action # 6 in the attic!" type of thing. (I really, really welcomed the "Biff! Bang! Pow! Comics just aren't for kids anymore!") Now this is changing a lot recently - Between the (undeniably) great volume of worthwhile literary comics, especially in auto-biography/memoir and the comics-as-source-for-big-budget-movie narrative, the idea of comics as commodities is less important to how people perceive 'em. If you graduate from college with a liberal arts degree you are probably gonna have to read (and analyze) a comic or two, and that is HUGE. And some of this is simple personal perception. I read comics in public a lot (I don't have a smartphone to play with) and end up talking about them with a lot of different people. And the idea of comic as commodities is how a lot of folks (especially over the age of 40) see them, and really the only way they can relate to them. I also end up talking about Fabulous Furry Freak bros. a lot to people in that age group, depending on their "lifestyle" in the '70s. So it's a fight that is going to be won in my lifetime - I assume that tablets and smartphones are only gonna increase the number of comic *readers* while collectors (which I'd count myself as, too) are going t o die out. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2016 17:38:45 GMT -5
Original art pages and script is art, once it is reproduced to be sold en masse, it is a commodity whether or not people collect it. The stories may be artistic, the books that contain them are commodities sold in a marketplace to a mass audience and then to a secondary market as a collectible. Even if the secondary market dries up or never existed, comic books would still be a commodity produced by a business and sold to make a profit. The creation is art, the object bearing it is the commodity. Even fine art becomes a commodity once it is bought and sold and reproduced to be bought and sold. The original Starry Night is art, all the prints and posters sold reproducing it are commodities. Ditko's Spider-Man pages are art, the books containing reproductions of those pages done on a printing press, bound and sold in a commercial market are commodities.
Comics are not commodities because people collect them, they are commodities because they are objects created to be sold as commercial products.
That takes nothing away from comics as an artform, the use of words and pictures to tell stories, but the actual physical objects are inherently commodities. Steve Ditko is not creating each individual comic, he created the pages which were then reproduced and sold as commodities.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2016 17:48:43 GMT -5
Articles that deal with comics as commodities do not deal with comics as art, and vice versa. And why should they? People who marvel at the Mona Lisa and Michelangelo are not going to marvel at Joe Shuster's Superman artwork in Action Comics #1 because it's not exactly a masterpiece of some sort. Its scarcity, as well and having been the first Superman artwork is what makes it tick. Should I view a Rob Can't Draw Feet Liefeld comic as art when it literally burns the skin from my eyes with its contemptibility? |
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Post by JKCarrier on Jan 30, 2016 18:19:13 GMT -5
Still, I think about comics a lot, and I would prefer that people wouldn't interact with them in a way that I think is silly. And maybe if I point out that people's behavior is silly they will stop? SOMETIMES this works! I would hate to live in a world where people are never allowed to be silly.  |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jan 30, 2016 19:16:42 GMT -5
As if you can't treat comics as both commodities and artforms at the same time. Or doesn't first printings of classic books or original paintings get sold for sky high prices as well as be revered as art? When they get thought of both ways, then they are thought of within the public more often
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Post by DE Sinclair on Feb 1, 2016 12:15:53 GMT -5
Still, I think about comics a lot, and I would prefer that people wouldn't interact with them in a way that I think is silly. And maybe if I point out that people's behavior is silly they will stop? SOMETIMES this works! I would hate to live in a world where people are never allowed to be silly. It's amazing how many arguments on the internet really come down to this at heart. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Feb 1, 2016 13:12:40 GMT -5
As if you can't treat comics as both commodities and artforms at the same time. Or doesn't first printings of classic books or original paintings get sold for sky high prices as well as be revered as art? When they get thought of both ways, then they are thought of within the public more often Well, you'd think so. But outside of comics culture they're two very separate ideas. I did a lot of research on changing public perceptions on comics in college because of course I did. And there really was no overlap between the idea of comics as art and comics as commodity. Not just on the article level but writers would only write about one, and - with something like 80% certainty - a publication that dealt at one point with comics as an art form or comics as commodity would never deal with the other. Plus it seems like in cultures where comics are generally considered art (IE Europe and Japan) the idea of comics as commodity is much less prevalent. But in America there were decades where "commodity" was dominant, and the idea of comics as art barely existed outside of the Comics Journal and Village Voice style magazines. It really did seem to be a binary in greater American culture. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Feb 1, 2016 13:25:32 GMT -5
As if you can't treat comics as both commodities and artforms at the same time. Or doesn't first printings of classic books or original paintings get sold for sky high prices as well as be revered as art? When they get thought of both ways, then they are thought of within the public more often It really did seem to be a binary in greater American culture. And that's a good thing. Some people think of comics as an artform, some as valuable commodities, some as just pop reading material. Which only means a higher visibility in the publics' mind since it has different meanings to different groups of people. That's my point. It shouldn't be pigeon-holed. |
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Pat T
Full Member
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Post by Pat T on Feb 1, 2016 16:00:15 GMT -5
mrp already mentíoned the difference between the comics we buy and the original pages, which would form the single original pîece of art. The comics are just copies
printed in limited numbers. The original's status as art îsn't affected by what people choose to do with the copies offered for sale to the public. The market decîdes
what the copies are "worth", not a person or committee. And I don't see why that's such a problem for some. Different things make people happy, and isn't that the reason
we're involved in this hobby anyway? To do somethīng for ourselves the way we want to?
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Feb 1, 2016 23:06:12 GMT -5
The only thing I don't love about grading is that there are certain things that bother me more than others and these affect my own "grade" but they may be just fine for someone else.
Example. I just got ASM #28 and it has some decent creasing and cover wear. There are also two hole punched holes randomly on just the back cover near the edge of the book (not through any other part of the book). This might really bother someone (or CGC) but not me. The comic is complete, readable and I love it!
However, I also have a few Spidey books that I sold because the centerfold was detaching. Now, on a really collectible to find book, I may overlook that but for me a popped staple on the cover or centerfold is annoying. As stated I do have a very high grade ASM #82 where the top staple is detached but because the rest of the book is just so sharp, I can live with it. But in general, I am disappointed by this as a defect more than I am over a few creases, folds or even a name written on the cover's edge.
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