The comics industry in 1993 can be best described as a slow motion train wreck. Some people saw it coming and sounded an alarm, but too many people believed they had time to make one last dollar before they needed to put on the brakes. Anyone who paid attention knew the wild growth from the previous years (1990,1991, and 1992) was unsustainable, but retailers, publishers, and distributors were hopeful/delusional enough to believe their products or practices would endure the coming crash, or that they could time the market and avoid losses. It worked out badly for everyone.
The year started off still riding the high from the death of Superman in November 1992. There over 9,300 retailer accounts set up with comic distributors (a significant fraction sold comics as a sideline, not a primary product), and they had all benefited from the national event coverage. They all also felt the first tremors of trouble in February when none of their new customers returned for the follow-up story, ‘Reign of the Supermen,’ which started in “Adventures of Superman” #500. Valiant, also expecting the big crowds to return, launched “Turok” the same week as “Adventures” 500 to piggyback on it. When the sales didn’t materialize, retailers and speculators hoping for big demand found themselves struggling to unload copies at a discount.
For most retailers, the natural response to this loss was to follow the Martingale gambling strategy and double their bet on the next big thing, hoping to recoup their initial investment. Since they bought a combined 190 million comics in February and lost, they bought 400 million in April. Publishers obliged them by offering not just new titles, but whole new universes. The Marvel U and the DCU were long established, but Valiant and Image had both seen great success with their recently-created shared universes. If it worked for them, then surely it would work for anyone else.
Malibu debuted its Ultraverse. Dark Horse introduced its Comics Greatest World through a 16-part miniseries. Milestone put together the Dakotaverse. Frank Miller banded with fellow creators to form the Legend imprint at Dark Horse, which wasn’t meant to be a universe but was taken as one by retailers and fans. New companies like Triumphant and Lightning were formed to fill the apparent need for more comic universes. Both of them also put great emphasis on their print runs and reprint policies to enhance their collectability. Jim Shooter, the mastermind behind Valiant’s success, tried to duplicate it with Defiant. Topps licensed concepts from Jack Kirby’s estate and launched the Kirbyverse. Brian Pulido launched Chaos Comix with Evil Ernie and Lady Death. Many of the publishers promised not to interfere with the creators’ artistic vision, which resulted in a general lack of editorial insight and an overabundance of weak plots and artwork.
Publishers with existing universes didn’t want to be left out of this party. Marvel partnered with horror writer Clive Barker for the Barkerverse imprint. Image merged its universe with Valiant for an intercompany crossover called “Deathmate.” DC packaged its adult-themed comics under its new Vertigo imprint, which started out as an interconnected universe with “Sandman,” “Hellblazer,” “Death,” and others.
The mania was so intense, some unexpected parties tried to get in on the action. The shopping channel QVC had special episodes offering “Limited Signed Copies” of miscellaneous comics for high prices, playing up their “out of print” status. (They were limited to the number people would buy, and all periodicals are out of print prior to their on-sale date.) The video rental giant Blockbuster experimented with new comic sales in 18 franchise stores with store fixtures displaying about 200 comics. Even Burger King jumped the bandwagon, developing a full-size, full-color line of comics featuring the characters from their Kid’s Club. It only ran for four issues, but the talent attached included big names like Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai, and Scott Shaw!.
The volume of new comics being released over the summer received the unflattering name “the glut.” Everyone knew it was too much – readers, retailers, distributors, even the publishers. They all knew there weren’t enough collector dollars to keep every book profitable, but the retailers couldn’t afford to miss the next big thing. The distributors couldn’t afford not to offer a full catalog, less they lose business. The publishers had all convinced themselves that their books would be fine, because they were the only ones putting quality first.
Continued belowThat, or they slapped on a cover enhancement to distract readers from the vapid interior and make a quick buck. Special covers carried a premium well above the production cost – holograms were $3.50, foil stamps and lenticulars were $2.95, polybags started at $2 and went up based on what was included in the bag.
Neil Gaiman wasn’t afraid to speak out against this. He was a guest speaker at a summer gathering of about 3,000 retailers and he let them have it. He compared purchasing multiple copies of the same comic to Tulip Mania and said it was obvious they were in a bubble. He told them they were being immoral when they sold cases of comics to children who believed they were “collector’s items” that would appreciate. Gaiman probably didn’t change any minds that day, and it was probably already too late even if he did, but he tried.
Not everyone was swept in the rush. Jeff Smith’s “Bone” was a commercial and critical success, and the low print runs of early issues drove prices up. Smith ignored the hype and conventional wisdom and started reprinting the story in trade paperbacks at reasonable prices. Retailers traded high profits on back issue sales for sustained profits on a collection they could reorder. More importantly, the reprints kept cash flowing to Smith for his work. The only ones hurt by Smith’s move were speculators. Meanwhile, Comico publisher Andrew Rev put the whole company’s output on hiatus in May to avoid being lost in the glut, and the company spent the next two years getting ahead of schedule.
For a brief time, on paper, it looked like the industry might still be booming. Retailer orders were up on non-returnable product, so the distributors and publishers were making money. The sudden growth of new publishers ate into Marvel’s market share, dropping it from a high of 51.5% in July 1992 to 35% in August. Through massive crossovers like “Reign of the Supermen” and “Batman: Knightfall,” DC was able to grow a bit in the same period, from 21% to 24.7%. Most of Marvel’s loss was picked up by Image (+9%) and Valiant (+4.4%). [Note: these percentages are market share by piece, not dollar.]
Soon, the reality of a bust was undeniable. Retailers were saddled with unsalable comics that disrupted their cash flow, causing future orders to drop. This caused the upstart companies to died out one by one, eliminating any hope retailers had for future sales of their back issues. No one was going to buy the first issues of a universe that didn’t survive past its origin. In November, national distributor Capital City reported the monthly comic had shrank by 200 million units. That was a 50% decrease from April and a return to February’s numbers. Milton Griepp, then head of Capital City, cited five reasons for the market downturn: the loss of speculators, over-exploitation of key franchises, too many new books, increased complexity due to gimmicks and variants, and late books. Noted retailer Chuck Rozanski reduced it to three: overproduction, higher prices, and lower quality of art and story.
This kind of market correction is usually a healthy move for an industry. There’s short term pain that eliminates the poorest performers and produces a more efficient, profitable remnant that resumes sustainable growth. That appeared to be the path comics were going down as 1993 came to a close, and maybe it would have worked out that way if management at Marvel hadn’t gone insane, but that’s a story for another time. As it was, the industry had hit a sales peak of $900,000 in 1993 and wouldn’t have another year of positive growth until 2001.
The year wasn’t all bad for comics, though. The long-running WaRP series “ElfQuest” survived the glut and ended the year with higher sales. Dave Sim’s “Cerebus” hit the halfway mark of its planned 300 issues and he went on a year-long tour to promote it. Scott McCloud published “Understanding Comics,” a seminal work on comic theory and received positive attention from national newspaper outlets like “The New York Times,” “The Boston Globe,” and “The Chicago Sun-Times.” Publisher Kitchen Sink / Tundra had expected relatively low interest and had planned for a print run of 6,000, but initial orders from the direct market alone were over 10,000. The book has since gone through multiple printings and multiple publishers.
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