Material culture: collectibles

Comic-book narratives and images are intrinsically ephemeral, although they have a materiality in printed pages and books, and there is a serious market for out-of-print collectible issues of certain titles (though this the trade may bear little or no relationship to the form or content of those images as such). Except in rare instances, and only recently, general libraries do not collect copies of comics, though there exist specialized collections, archives, and lately museums.

An essential characteristic of the traditional format is serialized publication in daily newspapers or popular periodicals, often on cheap non-durable paper. The cheap paper and consequently poor keeping quality of most printed comics make them material nightmares for libraries and even for private collectors.

Many serialized newspaper or magazine titles have been combined, often repeatedly, into book-style publications (referred to as albums in continental Europe). As well, many comic books in North America are published as a series of issues in magazine format, and the more successful of these are republished in trade-book form, occasionally by regular book publishers. The better-known titles will appear in several editions in several forms, and while the pages themselves may remain relatively unaltered, their ink, paper quality and binding will vary. Comics re-reproduction now comprises electronic pages that circulate on the Internet or are "printed" on CD-ROM. Again, while the "original" pages often stay more or less intact, the experience of reading the same words and images may be far different.

The format of the book-style graphic novel -- printed on better-quality paper and bound between covers -- has made the material objects and their images more amenable to study. Reprinting of very old serializations in book form have recovered and re-exposed a great deal of imagery and evidence that would otherwise have been altogether lost, in the same way that compact discs have enabled the mining of recording vaults and the re-distribution of essential music from past decades.

But, like old music on CD, republication of comics is selective. Any attempt to comprehensively survey of comic production, even limited to North America and even limited to a decade or two will be necessarily incomplete. So a survey of comics for material culture studies will have to look carefully at a very few examples, selected to be somewhat representative, but by no means widely systematic.

The images and narratives in this project generally started with a ragtag set of books and magazines whose look I had liked (and, in the case of modern images, happen to have on paper), but with a few exceptions I just happened upon them without a deliberate "acquisition" program, apart from seeking a wide variety of comic styles.

However, in the course of researching and compiling information from various Internet sources, there emerged a whole new range of images on-line (actually, most of them are quite old). So while it remains true that I have paper or book copies of many of these images (and many more), in a number of cases all that I have is a URL and a captured screen image.

Many people buy, sell, and collect comics. For a period in the 1980s and early 1990s, comics and sports cards, old and new, turned into the hot collectibles of the age, recalling the tulip mania that gripped 17th-century Holland until its collapse in 1637. That particular comic mania has since faded (collapsed wholesale according to those trapped in the wreckage), and with it a number of specialty direct-sales shops.

But there remains a sizable and relatively disciplined market in collectible comics and comic artwork in North America, which even Sotheby's cultivates (Overstreet 1999: 29 ff., 148–49). There are institutionalized condition-assessment standards, numerous paper-conservation consultants and material suppliers, mail- and Internet-order comic shops, and an entire section of the on-line auction giant eBay.com. There are even guidelines for collecting -- you can collect by title, by creator, by character, or just "by the numbers" (J. C. Vaughn, in Overstreet 1999: 91–94).

There are even a few comic-art museums scattered around North America, though hardly comparable to the nationally subsidized centres in France (Angoulême) and Belgium (Brussels).

As an aside, just as private circulation of personal music libraries on Napster (http://www.napster.com, though maybe not for long) has frightened the major record producers with the prospect of a huge loss of traditional sales revenues, so the private circulation of comic images may threaten both newsstand sales of mainstream comics and the stalwart comic specialty shops. But, on the other hand, the same circulation of ephemeral imagery also tends to boost those sales by piquing interest in non-collectors. (While there some comments about this issue below, in the conclusions, there is no attempt to resolve it here.)

Next: Who loves comics?

		Ephemeral landscapes: material culture The artifact as collectible

`back to the beginning of MATERIAL CULTURE MODELS`		Comic-book narratives and images are intrinsically ephemeral, although they have a materiality in printed pages and books, and there is a serious market for out-of-print collectible issues of certain titles (though this the trade may bear little or no relationship to the form or content of those images as such). Except in rare instances, and only recently, general libraries do not collect copies of comics, though there exist specialized collections, archives, and lately museums. An essential characteristic of the traditional format is serialized publication in daily newspapers or popular periodicals, often on cheap non-durable paper. The cheap paper and consequently poor keeping quality of most printed comics make them material nightmares for libraries and even for private collectors. Many serialized newspaper or magazine titles have been combined, often repeatedly, into book-style publications (referred to as albums in continental Europe). As well, many comic books in North America are published as a series of issues in magazine format, and the more successful of these are republished in trade-book form, occasionally by regular book publishers. The better-known titles will appear in several editions in several forms, and while the pages themselves may remain relatively unaltered, their ink, paper quality and binding will vary. Comics re-reproduction now comprises electronic pages that circulate on the Internet or are "printed" on CD-ROM. Again, while the "original" pages often stay more or less intact, the experience of reading the same words and images may be far different. The format of the book-style graphic novel -- printed on better-quality paper and bound between covers -- has made the material objects and their images more amenable to study. Reprinting of very old serializations in book form have recovered and re-exposed a great deal of imagery and evidence that would otherwise have been altogether lost, in the same way that compact discs have enabled the mining of recording vaults and the re-distribution of essential music from past decades. But, like old music on CD, republication of comics is selective. Any attempt to comprehensively survey of comic production, even limited to North America and even limited to a decade or two will be necessarily incomplete. So a survey of comics for material culture studies will have to look carefully at a very few examples, selected to be somewhat representative, but by no means widely systematic. The images and narratives in this project generally started with a ragtag set of books and magazines whose look I had liked (and, in the case of modern images, happen to have on paper), but with a few exceptions I just happened upon them without a deliberate "acquisition" program, apart from seeking a wide variety of comic styles. However, in the course of researching and compiling information from various Internet sources, there emerged a whole new range of images on-line (actually, most of them are quite old). So while it remains true that I have paper or book copies of many of these images (and many more), in a number of cases all that I have is a URL and a captured screen image. Many people buy, sell, and collect comics. For a period in the 1980s and early 1990s, comics and sports cards, old and new, turned into the hot collectibles of the age, recalling the tulip mania that gripped 17th-century Holland until its collapse in 1637. That particular comic mania has since faded (collapsed wholesale according to those trapped in the wreckage), and with it a number of specialty direct-sales shops. But there remains a sizable and relatively disciplined market in collectible comics and comic artwork in North America, which even Sotheby's cultivates (Overstreet 1999: 29 ff., 148–49). There are institutionalized condition-assessment standards, numerous paper-conservation consultants and material suppliers, mail- and Internet-order comic shops, and an entire section of the on-line auction giant eBay.com. There are even guidelines for collecting -- you can collect by title, by creator, by character, or just "by the numbers" (J. C. Vaughn, in Overstreet 1999: 91–94). There are even a few comic-art museums scattered around North America, though hardly comparable to the nationally subsidized centres in France (Angoulême) and Belgium (Brussels). As an aside, just as private circulation of personal music libraries on Napster (http://www.napster.com, though maybe not for long) has frightened the major record producers with the prospect of a huge loss of traditional sales revenues, so the private circulation of comic images may threaten both newsstand sales of mainstream comics and the stalwart comic specialty shops. But, on the other hand, the same circulation of ephemeral imagery also tends to boost those sales by piquing interest in non-collectors. (While there some comments about this issue below, in the conclusions, there is no attempt to resolve it here.) Next: Who loves comics?
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The artifact as collectible