Well we are at the end of the second week of 2014. I have been meaning to ask you all a couple of questions.
1. What are your favorite new series of 2013?
2. What books did you have the most success selling?
3. What are you looking forward to in 2014?
Please feel free to answer in the comment section, the next part is my answers to the questions, which you can skip over if you think it’s bragging or hyperbole. 2013 was a weird year with books selling really, really well up until March and then the market softening in April onward.
For me, my favorite books for 2013 were Five Ghosts, Sheltered, FBP, Afterlife with Archie, and Ghosted. Of course I trimmed a lot of books off my subscription list going into the new year as well, no longer subscribing to any Marvel or DC books.
Sales-wise, I mostly sell variants and signed comics, but do jump on speculation books. My top sellers this year, in dollars and volume, was 1. Sixth Gun 2. Rachel Rising 3. Strain 4. Peter Panzerfaust 5. Mind MGMT and 6. Cryptozoic Man, of course my biggest seller was the Third Eye Variant of Pretty Deadly #1 signed (had some signed with sketches). My biggest surprise sale was a mini-litho of Red Sonja signed by Gail Simone. I couldn’t give it away for weeks and then two bidders got into a bidding war, the first buyer backed out (hate when that happens) and the second highest bidder took the second chance offer and I was floored.
Cheers!
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Informed Comic Book Speculation and Pop Culture News
It was an exciting year for me as I decided to dive full time back into new comics after focusing the last 15 yrs on mostly the bronze age.
My favorite personal reads of the year include: Nowhere Men / Mara / Last Of Us / Afterlife With Archie / Manifest Destiny / Saga / Peter Panzerfaust
I had many highs and lows as I bought almost 10,000 NEW release comics during 2013. I had some great success stories and some really sunk me LOL. The most surprising and successful title of the year for me was Sex #1 (Image March) I pre-sold almost 200 copies at $9.99 each !! and then once it came out it quickly died off as the Image glut had begun. I sold more East Of West #1 than any other comic during the year.
I interviewed some up n coming indie publishers and helped create a buzz which led to huge price gains directly on some comics in the summer such as Outliers, Watson and Holmes, Skyward, Farlaine The Goblin, Mythopolis.
I do worry that there are too many speculators competing in a small comic book back issue market making it harder for new titles to become hot with price increases.
My biggest concern for 2014 is the further increase in postage prices which makes it harder and harder to sell new comics and make any profit. Courier prices from Diamond in the first place are quite high and after paying ebay and paypal fees there is very little room to make money on regular new products except for that lucky 1% of new items that actually goes up in value.
I think I also read that Canadian Post offices would discontinue home delivery. Any truth to that?
Hi Anthony. First & most Important, Thank you so very much for all of your highly informative info & input that you tirelessly provide. I have enjoyed stopping by here with almost daily ritual for many months & will continue to do so throughout 2014 🙂
Lots of Great collectibles & reads in 2013 including Five Ghosts, Uber, Ghosted, Suicide Risk,Department Of Monsterology, East Of West, Afterlife With Archie, Todd The Ugliest Kidd On Earth, Ballistic etc, etc.
Selling the Variant Negative Edition of Cryptozoic Man #1 for over $30 was a good day 🙂
2014 hopefully continues to give the Independant Comic Books a voice & market for the likes of Image, Boom, IDW etc. Looking forward to seeing Justin Jordan & Kyle Strahm’s new Horror / Sci-Fi project Spread come to print, along with Escape From Jesus Island.
Happy New Year to you & all who stop by here Anthony 🙂
Cheers and thank you. I am looking forward to the Spread as well. I spoke to Justin Jordan about it at the Dead Body Road release and it is coming out. He was supposed to send me some of the NYCC previews. Still waiting for them
I happened upon your website about the time of the DC 3-d cover boom, and I am happy to say you helped guide me away from this. Instead, I was able to direct my spending toward books like Department of Monsterology, Afterlife with Archie (which has been my surprise favorite), Pretty Deadly and Umbral. Highlight of my year was meeting Mike Mignola at Phx con, and best selling moment was flipping the monster variant covers of Mignola after purchasing them very cheap from TFAP, thanks to your tip. Thank you and hopefully we’ll see a successful year for the smaller companies and markets, as they carve out their place in the market from the top two as they continue to reboot and remake their universes yet again.
1. East of West, Afterlife With Archie, Sex Criminals, Letter 44, Superior Foes of Spider-Man, FBP and The Fox. Those would be the top of the list of ongoing series in 2013. I got plenty of close second favorites.
2. Not big seller but I’d say the best sell was flipping “The Outliers” from $5 for $40. I also dumped Thief of Thieves 1-10 for $100.
3. As more of a collector, I actually want less variants in 2014. I think at times they get carried away, especially when they have more than 3 or 4 for a 1st in the series. I’m a minimalist type of guy and when a great new comic debuts, I really like don’t to break the bank each time because I feel the need to buy $100 worth of #1’s with all the exclusive variants so the collection is more complete..
Rat Queens was hands down my favorite series last year, and I expect it to do more as it picks up steam this year. Saga, Sex Criminals, Samurai Jack, and anything by Brandon Graham were runners up. I am hoping to get a couple of Best Cellars I picked up for under $10 each signed by Eric Powell in a few weeks at the Portland Comic Con.
I liked Rat Queens. I read 1-3 in one sitting. I am so far behind on my reading pile
I like sitting and reading like 3-4 in a row at times, makes the story more enjoyable and more likely I remember the story line as well. My reading list is so huge already, been trying to cut it down some. But I’m still all caught up for each week currently.
Oh crap, I knew I was missing one. Put Rat Queens in my top list as well. 😉
I have a few picks for the year. I hated Saga when I first read it but went back this year and it is now a favorite. I loved the Rover Red Charlie debut and am yearning for the next issue. Uber blew me away. Spider Man remains a favorite throughout time. Letter 44 is also a new favorite. Sex Criminals and Sex are exciting as well.
I agree with Drew in that I am getting a little tired of the psychotic amount of variants that are flooding the market. I love collecting, and it makes it harder to collect the series that I want because I am cycling mad cash into getting all of the covers!!!
As for sales, I sold a rack of Walking Dead 108 and Batman Incorporated 8 this year. I also unloaded a ton of Forbidden Planet variants as well. I also sold some Cryptozoic Man sets with the sketch variants by DF for a load of change to some overseas buyers.
I am looking forward to anything Image. They have come out with some great stuff in the last year and I am really looking for Dead Body Road 2. Issue one was way cool. And I am just plain curious to see what is going to happen with Spider Man. The Earth 2 storyline with Supe and Batman is also beginning to interest me.
I enjoy your blog, your site, and hope to get much more great info from you and the contributors throughout the next year!!! Thank you!!!
I was sold my collection of The Damned and Prodgical Sons for $300.00 and The Sixth Gun #1 for $200.00 at the best time. I only paid $40.00 total for all 9 comics total so i made profit of $460.00! Then the show was cancelled by NBC and the prices dropped back down. I actually bought the whole collection again for around the same $40.00 price just so I could have them again! 🙂
Nice. Buy low sell high and buy back low again
Hawkeye continues to be my favorite comic. Fraction/Aja are hitting it out of the park every month. I was very surprised how good afterlife with Archie is. Great story and Francavilla’s style fits perfectly. TMNT’s city fall was one of my favorite arcs. I’m really loving what Lemire is doing with trillium and green arrow. Five ghosts and fugly Todd round out my favorites for 2013.
In 2014, I’m looking forward to seeing where velvet, manifest destiny, black science, a voice in the dark and letter 44 go. Devils Hopyard seems to be an interesting title that I am awaiting.
I’m totally sick of the big 2’s reboots and events. If the rumors about superior spidey ending is true, then I will be down to 1 marvel title. I am continually looking forward to finding new independents and image comics to read, like missing have you seen the invisible man from accent uk that was discussed here yesterday!
I don’t sell at the moment, just collect for personal reading. Still trying to learn the game, and this site has been extremely helpful for a guy who was out of comics for a long time. Thanks Anthony, keep up the good work.
Thanks Shima. I am loving Letter 44, Black Science and Voice in the Dark as well.
Yeah, Black Science is way up on my list as favorites as well. VITD is good, I thought Issue 1 seemed a little drawn out but Issue 2 sparked more interest for me for sure. I like those surprises, The Walking Dead does that, some issues seem bland but then it all comes together and bang, big surprise! 🙂
Been enjoying this site since August. I’ve been reading and collecting for about seven years and selling things off and on for much of that time.
My favorite new series have been Superior Spider-Man, Rat Queens, Letter 44, A Voice in the Dark, Sheltered, Sex Criminals and the very overlooked Superior Foes of Spider-Man. Like many of you I am very burned outon the big two. However i work at a large and successful comic shop so I am able to read pretty much everything and the comics I do take home come at a massive discount so I still read a ton of junk (every Infinity and Forever Evil tie-in).
This year I had great returns selling as a lot the first 18 issues of New 52 Batman, Saga 1-11 (kind of regret that) and 1-7 of Sixth Gun. All were bought from my shop at less than cover price and they sold on ebay for 180, 190 and 250 respectively. MY biggest success was Skyward. I have known Jeremy Dale for years and have had the original Skyward graphite editions since he self published them. My shop had dozens of these just laying around. I bought up 4 more sets in early August and sold most of the sets on ebay (I still have one set just in case) for a grand total hovering around 1000 bucks!
I am looking forward to The Guardians of the Galaxy movie and more great Image b titles.
my overall favorite comic was CATALYST, its just so crazy. i actually have a letter in the most recent issue too 🙂
my best seller was probably the WHAT IF VENOM BECAME DEADPOOL which i listed at the absolute perfect time in the summer when speculators were first waking up on this and made $95 (?!). i think i still have the highest sale price, but ebay searches dont go back that far
It is great if you can sell at just the height of the market and get top dollar. I hate leaving money on the table.
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Speaking of favorites, my Rat Queens #1 CGC submission from the Austin Comic Con came back today at a grade of 9.8. I was really hoping for a 9.9 as I thought it was pretty much perfect out of the ones I had but still happy. 🙂