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Drawn in 1987, the height of the comic speculation boom. Editorial comic using characters that look suspiciously like the ones in Walt Kelly's famous comic strip. Originally appeared in Critters #21.
Category All / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1280 x 895px
File Size 633.5 kB
Listed in Folders
Actually, it was the second or third.
Seagate, and Pacific comics both had speculator runs in the 70s and very early 80s- but they were smaller and mostly forgotten.
Both companies were owned by the same guys who ran Blackthorn comics, who really got the huge black and white boom going.
They owned their own printing presses, and had them technically owned by an inlaw of on of the two guys running things, and leased them back- so there were no technical assets to seize.
They then proceeded to print literally everything they could get their hands on once the TMNT "buy it all and bag it" craze got underway.
Since the industry was paying cash up front for books that were scheduled to be printed, but not yet actually produced, the stage was set for a pirate event of massive proportions.
It was classic futures investment speculation come to comic books, and these two guys made a couple of million dollars in advance money off of books they KNEW wouldn't sell.
They also promised payment to anyone who would produce a comic book story, no matter how putrid it was.. Dozens of titles.
I know about this firsthand, because I was hanging out with several groups of people who were working for Blackthorn, making comics for them at the time.
(Ed Luena, The Kamikaze Art Squad guys, etc.)
The magnitude of the scam did not become clear to us until well after the fact- and it was the main reason most of the comics distributors went out of business..Which is where the bust came in.
It came close to destroying the independent publishers comics industry, which has never really recovered.
-Badger-
Seagate, and Pacific comics both had speculator runs in the 70s and very early 80s- but they were smaller and mostly forgotten.
Both companies were owned by the same guys who ran Blackthorn comics, who really got the huge black and white boom going.
They owned their own printing presses, and had them technically owned by an inlaw of on of the two guys running things, and leased them back- so there were no technical assets to seize.
They then proceeded to print literally everything they could get their hands on once the TMNT "buy it all and bag it" craze got underway.
Since the industry was paying cash up front for books that were scheduled to be printed, but not yet actually produced, the stage was set for a pirate event of massive proportions.
It was classic futures investment speculation come to comic books, and these two guys made a couple of million dollars in advance money off of books they KNEW wouldn't sell.
They also promised payment to anyone who would produce a comic book story, no matter how putrid it was.. Dozens of titles.
I know about this firsthand, because I was hanging out with several groups of people who were working for Blackthorn, making comics for them at the time.
(Ed Luena, The Kamikaze Art Squad guys, etc.)
The magnitude of the scam did not become clear to us until well after the fact- and it was the main reason most of the comics distributors went out of business..Which is where the bust came in.
It came close to destroying the independent publishers comics industry, which has never really recovered.
-Badger-
That was the conventional wisdom, yes.
But what happened, was that some collector paid a hundred dollars or more for a copy of the original Teenage mutant ninja turtles black and white comic..And then just a few months later, someone else paid close to that for a copy of the first print run on Radioactive blackbelt hamsters..A parody of a parody, with really amazingly shitty art drawn by a guy named Parsonovich.
That caused collectors to freak out- if someone would pay a small fortune for a parody of a parody..And one so badly drawn that you had to wonder what the artist was smoking....Then who knew what some collector was shell out for next?
There was a collector's guide being put out a couple of times a year called the Overstreet price guide that reported the latest sales totals for a given book..And it was starting to show wildly inflated prices for independant black and white books no one had ever heard of.
The fact that no vetting or hard confirmation on reported prices was done whatsoever undoubtably had an effect on inflating things beyond control- but in the short term, everyone was jumping on the bandwagon.
Collectors and speculators were hitting comic's shops ans buying 10 copies of everything, sight unseen and unopened, just to have it in case it went collectable.
At the height of this hysteria, there were books being published that were nothing but text stories, stuff that was generic comics without word balloons or dialogue, and even completely blank books.
(No kidding.... I had a copy I got out of a quarter bin years later that I used for a sketch journal for a while because it was printed on top of the line paper....)
I was a very active collector during this period, and I was getting all the comics industry periodicals, as well as hanging out with writers and artists at cons and events..So I was getting an earful of the industry gossip as it was happening.
It was fun times while it lasted.
-Badger-
But what happened, was that some collector paid a hundred dollars or more for a copy of the original Teenage mutant ninja turtles black and white comic..And then just a few months later, someone else paid close to that for a copy of the first print run on Radioactive blackbelt hamsters..A parody of a parody, with really amazingly shitty art drawn by a guy named Parsonovich.
That caused collectors to freak out- if someone would pay a small fortune for a parody of a parody..And one so badly drawn that you had to wonder what the artist was smoking....Then who knew what some collector was shell out for next?
There was a collector's guide being put out a couple of times a year called the Overstreet price guide that reported the latest sales totals for a given book..And it was starting to show wildly inflated prices for independant black and white books no one had ever heard of.
The fact that no vetting or hard confirmation on reported prices was done whatsoever undoubtably had an effect on inflating things beyond control- but in the short term, everyone was jumping on the bandwagon.
Collectors and speculators were hitting comic's shops ans buying 10 copies of everything, sight unseen and unopened, just to have it in case it went collectable.
At the height of this hysteria, there were books being published that were nothing but text stories, stuff that was generic comics without word balloons or dialogue, and even completely blank books.
(No kidding.... I had a copy I got out of a quarter bin years later that I used for a sketch journal for a while because it was printed on top of the line paper....)
I was a very active collector during this period, and I was getting all the comics industry periodicals, as well as hanging out with writers and artists at cons and events..So I was getting an earful of the industry gossip as it was happening.
It was fun times while it lasted.
-Badger-
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