Comic book investing can be extremely tricky as the industry is always evolving. In the last thirty years the comic world has seen significant changes from the rise of big cons to the introduction of new publishers. This poses a threat to the current incumbents in the industry, and to the ever-growing trend of how comics are published as graphic novels. Yet despite all these factors that have changed the industry there have been five constants that have remained the same and determine the value of a comic book: Print Run, Comic Ratio, Key Events, First/Last/ Landmark Issues, and the Artist.
Print Run:
Print Run refers to the number of books that were printed for the comics first run. Print runs are not the actual books sold, rather the number of books that were printed. Popular titles that companies know will sell have a higher print run than books that are less popular. Many publishers that are uncertain of how a book will sell will order a print run based on preview orders through comic shops and additional books over that. This is to reduce the risk of having an overstock of books, as a comic can always go into a second printing. When a comic has a low print run on a first issue and is a success that comic tends to become more valuable based on the scarcity of the book.
Comic Ratio
Comic Ratio also known as Variant Ratio refers to the number of a variant covers in conjunction with a regular cover. An example of this is if a comic had a print run of 50,000 regular covers and then had a variant that was a 1 to 100 for every 100 regular covers there would be 1 of this type of variant. This is done for comic shops who order a lot of comics to help reduce their costs as many comics do not sell through at full price. If a comic shop has a 1 to 100 variant in their store they typically can sell that comic at a higher price, which helps to make up for the regular covers that did not sell. Naturally, based on scarcity a comic that has only 500 covers in the world (based on our example) will be worth more than a comic that has 50,000 copies of it.
Key Events
Key Events are important in comics as comics tell stories and every once in a while, an event happens that changes the nature of a comic or a company for decades. A perfect example of this was in issue 121 of The Amazing Spider-Man which had Spider-Man/ Peter Parker fail and ultimately kill off his girlfriend Gwen Stacy. This event changed Marvel as a company along with the character of Spiderman for over 45 years and is looked back on as a definitive moment in comic history. When comics take these leaps and measures of engaging in events like this it dramatically increases the value of that book as it has direct consequences that impact every decision that is set to come after the event. Even in the current comic era where events happen and every five to ten years a universal reset occurs these events are still monumental and add value to comic books as they define and help new writers and artists capture and tell stories with these characters.
First/ Last/ and Landmark Issues
First issues can be one of two things; either the first issue is the first issue of a particular comic book or a series (hence issue 1) or it can be the first issue a character appeared. Both these books are sought after as the initial start to a series can be significant depending on the culture impact the comic book or a character has on the comic or culture world. A last issue is very similar to a first issue except for the fact that is ending the series and giving closure to the readers. These tend to be valuable as it is the ending to a story and in many cases these issues wrap up what has occurred. Furthermore, many people tend to have full collections or have enough of a collection that this is the final piece in a part of the collection, and having this issue increases the overall value of all the books. Landmark issues are when a comic reaches a certain number issue. Typically, these numbers tend to be in the 100, 200, 300s, but can also be in increments of 50 as very few comics make it past that number. A lot of comic publishers use 100 issues to celebrate their comic books reaching that number by offering a lot of variants, or special covers, exclusives and other promos. While there are a lot of these books a publisher uses this as a quick way to make money. Some of these books are worth money as they are related to key events, have a specific comic ratio, are Landmark issues, and tend to highlight a variety of different artists.
Artists
Another defining factor that helps to determine a comic’s value is the cover of the comic. In particular, this refers to the artist who worked on it. Different artists tend to bring different value to a book. An example of this is that a J. Scott Campbell or an Art Gem cover tends to be worth more than if the interior artist did a cover on a book. This is due the style, selectiveness, and branding that these artists have built and developed for years within the comic community. Furthermore, these artists tend to engage in exclusive limited work for a comic company or for their own companies which further the limits where it can be purchased, thus affecting the price of the book.
These are a few factors on what determines a comic’s value. In many cases these factors are combined in a variety of ways that all add to the value of a comic. It includes having a comic that has a low print run with a 1 to 100 comic ratio that is done by a specific artist or having a low first print run of a first issue comic. In both of these circumstances the factors affect the value of the book and it is imperative that a person does proper research to identify the Print Run, Comic Ratio, Key Events, First/ Last/ and Landmark Issues, and the Artists associated with their comics to determine the proper value of the comic books they own.
