The other day I was having a achat with a friend about comics and their value because of the story, because of the year their were published or because of the cover.
I've been searchign for information and this is what I found:
1.- Action Comics #1 (Superman's first appearance June 1938) 440,000 dollars.
2.- Detective Comics #27 (Batman' first appearance May 1939) 375,000 dollars.
3.- Flash Comics #1 (Human torch first appearance October 1939) 330,000 dollars.
4.- Superman #1
7.- More Fun Comics #52 (tied with Whiz Comics #1 February 1940) 84,000 dollars.
8.- All American Comics #16 (July 1940) 160,000 dollars.
In some cases the cover of the comic is so good that makes it a piece for collectors, no matter if the story is the worst of the serie, the worst one ever published in the history of comics or the worst art ever made in 32 pages. The cover is so nice, so well published that might get some thousand of dollars. Of course it depends of the artist and the conditions of the comics. So if you have comics that have a well done cover and the artist is famous you might have a big treasure.
I've been talking to a user about an article written in a website about Wonder Woman, and I've realized that Amazons and the women of Lemnos are together, are one tribe in the Wonder Woman stories.
According to mythology the Amazons were daughters to Ares (god of war) and nymph Harmony. Other stories say that that Amazons were under the protection of Ioalus, god of wind. I also read that they were risponsable to keep the Argonauts in their island for almost one year making them almost forget their mission, but this story is more for the women of the island of Lemnos whom killed their men for being unfaithful. Then we have the island of Lesbos, Greece's third biggest island, famous for her poet call Safo, whose poems described her love for her female inhabitants.
There's also a story about Hyppolita and Heracles (Hercules for Romans). He had to get the belt of Hyppolita but instead of having a fight she fell in love with him and gave it to him, but Hera was jealous and made a confusion to start a fight. That is when Hippolyta dies.
I think Mister Marston combined all these tribes ato make one for his creation of Wonder Woman that's why there's so much confusion, and that's why many people how to consider the Amazons, good or bad.
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Days ago I watched "The dark knight" again and I have to say I really like this movie. Finally they make a movie of heroes thinking in adults with a good plot, good actors and a good director.
Then we had Fantastic Four part 2 and it was like a punch in the face after this good movie, so childish and with a weak plot. They didn't take advantage of Galactus or Silver Surfer and they treated Dr Doom like a fool. I felt really disappointed.
Not to mention movies like "Daredevil", "Elektra" and "Spirit". What were they thinking when they wrote the scripts? How long did it took to make them? A weekend? At least "Ghost rider" has good moments. "Iron man" was entertaining too and I keep watching it everytime I can.
This year we have 4 movies of heroes: "Green Hornet", "Green lantern", "Thor" and "X-Men: First Class". "Green Hornet" wasn't that good and the trailers of the rest of the movies doesn't look good enough.
They say they're going to make a new Superman movie but after the last one I don't expect something so good, but I have big expectations from the same producers for the new Batman movie.
What about the new "Spider-man" movie? I think the reboot of the character comes too early and we still remember the other three movies.
I think the movie producers are abusing of heroes and that's hurting these genre that is so entertaining and maybe is hurting the movie industry too.
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Today I was checking the news on the websites of DC and Marvel and there's an option to download digital comics, that means you can download a comic to your computer, in the case of DC for 2 bucks.
By now I've seen new comics only, at least that's what I've seen, I suppouse you have the possibility to download old comics that are hard to buy. At the same moment I was listening to the song "Radio killed the radio star", this brought a question to my mind: "Is this the end of the classic comic?" If we can download comics for only 2 dollars and get all the ones we want, what shall we do with our comics in the closet? We have mountains of pages of comics that remind us how much money we have spent from our salary to get them, the illusion of smelling the ink of the comic that was already printed, how happy we wre of finishing a collection. A friend of mine told me that a collector may pay me hundreds of dollars for some of the comics I have, maybe because they're good and hard to get, or, becuase of art on the cover because it's made by a good artist.
I smile when I listened to that but the smile disappeared when I thought of the possibility of downloading these valuable comics from Internet, and just paying a couple of dollars instead hundreds or maybe thousand of them. So, what am I going to do with them if that happens? Pick up the crap my dog leaves in the street or use them to clean a dirty window.
Radio didn't killed the radio star and maybe it won't, but, will Internet do that to classic comics printed in paper? Fine, that means go green, but, what about all that people that lives of making them, I'm not talking about artists and writers, I'm talking about all that people that prints them, put them in the boxes and transport them to the stores. I'm a graphic designer and I'm feweling that everyday I'm less necessary thanks to digital magazines.
I recognize I have some digital comics recorded in DVD and I feel a strange sensation, in part because I can get them for a little price, but at the same time I feel bad because that's what is taking away many jobs and some illusions.
Today I was watching the Three Stooges and I remembered that they want to make a movie using three actors of these days. If I'm not wrong two of them are Sean Penn and Jim Carrey and I don't imagine them doing something like this, at least Sean Penn.
These last months we've seen impressive trailers of videogames where the characters were very real sometimes making you wonder if they were real actors, the textures of the skin are acceptables as for the expressions of their faces, that are no longer forced like we saw in movies like "Final fantasy". They say they can bring any legendary actor like Humphrey Bogart or Clark Gable to life thanks this technique, something that sounds good to me, even for Moe, Larry and Curly. And why not Shempo too whom is my favorite stooge.
For me the questions are: if they bring them back, how will they make their new movies? Who would act for them? Will people accept their jokes? They should adapt their jokes to these times. It would be great to seem them back and I can understand if they adapt their jokes for these times.
How many times we imagined to see those movie legends side by side with our favorite actors of nowadays? Bette Davis acting with Meryl Streep in the same movie would be interesting or wi any other actors in any other movie.
Everything started in 1968 with George A Romero's "Night of the living dead" a film that had a lot of success nad it was a shock, nobody sae living dead in a film and eating flesh or a woman walking around naked. Then there was "Dawn of the dead" in 1978.
Years after we've seen imitations, bad imitations, of his stories about flesh-eating living dead. PLAGIARISMS is the word for what they've done especially Italian-Spanish productions in the 1980's. "Resident evil" started this kind of "plagiarism" in the computers of all the world with their zombies and then the movies which are some of the worse I've seen. Now we have "Walking dead" where we have more cannibal living dead. And so on.
I was surprised to hear thar mister Romero was happy to see how people was still making films using his idea, is that so? There's a very thin line between being a good person a fool and he crossed it. He sees plagiarisms everywhere and he doesn't react.
I have to say that I'm tired of this kind of movies, series and games for consoles that are always the same. The same goes for vampires. What will be next? Wher have the ideas gone to?
Today I've been checking some images of uniforms worn by heroes and villains.
I'm surprised by the new uniform F4 are wearing and Spiderman too, I think they're very nice and modern, I have to recognise I never like number 4 in the uniform of the team or the typical red and blue in Spiderman. I like the black/grey uniform Spiderman worn in a parallel world I think, it was more sofisticated and it gave him a more intimidating look.
I remember when I saw Superman's suit in "Godfall" that was new, fresh and gave him another look like more modern. I wonder why artists don't change his suit as they have made with other heroes, ot at least some modifications. The most impressive changes have been for Iron Man we have seen a lot of impressive upgrades, some of them ugly like adding many lights to the suit, but in most cases they're stunning and shows the interest of the artists to make the character better.
What about the Green Lantern's suits? Every Corps have they own uniforms and by difference the Greens have the worse one. And it doesn't get any better with what I've seen in the trailer.
The most recent case is Wonder Woman with her change of her classic swimsuit to that biker look. I'm not convinced with the new uniform especially with the straps around her arms, she looks like a badass girl, not like a woman you can trust.And why removing her powers. I don't understand.
About villains there are things to say. Dr Doom's suit has been the same for several years, I'm complaining about the mask because I want him to keep it, but that green cape and cowl it's retro. Even Magneto has that white armor that is very nice. I wonder why the artists have never changed Hobgoblin's mask to something more terrific when he's a thrilling as the Joker. I think villains had had less changes in their outfits when they should have more as heroes, changes in villains make stories keep the interest.
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Today I've received a DC comic and I had to pay three 2.99$ dollars for it. For 32 pages and it wasn't very good. 1.66$ per page.
I checked the comic to see what part was 1.66$ and didn't find the answer starting by the cover, there's a girl dressed in casual clothes, smiling and the backgound it's white. The art inside is "acceptable" but the story could have been better. I wonder what causes that comics are so expensive. I checked the digital comics and I found that they're a little bit cheaper just 2 bucks but I can understand that. Come on sometimes we spend 2 weeks to get a number and it's so bad you can hang it in the toilet because you forgot to go to the supermarket and buy paper. As long as I know the companies are publishing the comics in recycled paper so that makes things cheaper.
And what about the merchandising? Today I've seen an action figure of Green Lantern that costs 17.99$ and there's another one of the same serie but an alien and costs the same, and I asked to myself: "Who wants this ugly action figure?" I think produce an action figure costs less than the price the fans pay for them. The same goes to t-shirst, caps, shoes, posters and many other things of lower quality. That includes Blu-rays that don't have the quality that this format offers.
I think this is a total lack of respect to the fan who has to save several months just to buy an action figures or a t-shirt.
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These last days I've been thinking of a possible crossovers that may be very exciting. One of them is Birds of Prey and Gotham City Sirens.
Both teams follow the line of Batman with their intrigue and unexpected twists that make ask for more. It would be interesting to see these two groups fighting and having an expected final. It could be great because now that seems that Barbara Gordon can walk again she would feel the need to go back to action and take those three bad girls to justice, of course, Catwoman, Harly en Poison would have a plan to destrot the heroic trio.
I'm impressed that DC haven't made this yet because all this would have a big potential to attract old fans of these series and new readers, something that is always good for a company like DC, that lately, in my opinion, has lost some interest. Blackest Night was good but a little repetitive. And there so many stories about Batman that I can't follow them all.
The other cross over could with Marvel comics with Joker and Green Goblin I find they have many things in comics, they like to cause troubles and they enjoy doing this. In my consideration they're the most representative villains in comics, and see them fighting against their all time enemies, Batman and Spiderman, would raise the thrill, especially because both heroes have a different way to see justice.
I ask DC Comics to consider this optiosn that I believe very attractive and interesting.
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