I buy almost all of my comics from my local comic book store. I go there every week and pick up my pull list comics and I also order things like those big and expensive Artist Editions from them. But I also buy cheap collected editions off of eBay and Amazon every now and again and also have an Amazon wish list for my family to buy things from for birthdays and Christmas. I mention this because I want to note a few things that I just ordered.
Artist Editions are big books that go from around 11×17 inches up to 16×20 inches. They are printed from high resolution color scans of comic book original art and are then printed to look exactly like the original art. If you like comic book original art then they are very cool. And I like comic book original art.
But as I said they are also expensive. Most of the ones I’ve purchase from my LCS were from about $100 to $125. I keep my eyes open for online bargains but I don’t find them too often. A couple of years ago there was one that I wanted but didn’t have the money for so I kept my eyes opera for a bargain. It was called the “EC Comics Covers Edition” and it was one of the more expensive ones.
One day, months after it came out, I saw a used copy on Amazon from a seller for about $80 total. I decided to take a chance on it and bought it. It arrived damaged. It was so damaged that it looked like all four corners were smashed with sledgehammers. It was crazy. So I returned it just a few hours after I bought it. Since it was a used book it couldn’t even be exchanged. So I had a copy for only a few hours.
Over the two years since that happened I’ve kept my eyes open for that book but had never again seen it at that price. It usually goes for at least $125. Then just last week I was scrolling through Facebook and up popped a picture of someone holding that book. It was from an EC fan group that I wasn’t in but I read the post. He had just bought that book from a seller on eBay for $60.
I read some more of the posts in that thread and other had bought from the same eBay seller too. Some even said that they offered the seller $50 and she took the offer. I clicked on the link for the seller and saw the eBay page. It looked legit so I decided to get one myself. I clicked on the “Make an Offer” link because I was also thinking about making a $50 offer but the link said that there were already 23 offers on the book. The page also said that there were over ten in stock with 50 already sold. I decided to not take a chance on missing out and just paid the whole $60 so mine would be bought before the 23 offers.
The total came out to $73 with tax and shipping but that was still a good deal. I see now that the shipping price has been raised to $28 so I’m glad I got mine in at the low shipping price. I haven’t received my book yet so there is no end to this story but I look forward to getting it. (Update: I got the book and everything is cool.)
The second thing that I ordered was another expensive book that I’ve been waiting for the price to drop on. It’s a Marvel Omnibus. They usually are priced at $125 to $150 but you can often find them for at least a 20% discount.
I used to have a bunch of these Marvel Omnibuses but I sold off all but two of them over the years. The last one I bought was in 2017 (it’s October 2024 as I write this) so I really haven’t been as into them as I once was.
This one that I was interested in is a Crossgen comic book. Crossgen is a comic book publisher from the early 2000s that I liked. They went out of business after a few years of making good comics and their stuff was bought up by Disney. A few years after that Disney bought Marvel Comics so now Marvel has the rights to all the Crossgen stuff. Last year they started putting some of the Crossgen stuff into Omnibuses.
I bought a lot of the Crossgen series off the shelf, back in the day, but not all of them. Since they went out of business I’ve always meant to buy some of the series that I never bought. Each series is about 40 to 45 issues and to get a complete series on eBay would probably run me from about $60 to $75. So I never pulled the trigger.
It was back in December of 2023 that Marvel put out the “Sigil” omnibus. That was one of the Crossgen series that I wanted the read, since I never had, but the new collection was priced at $125 full retail. I didn’t want it for that much. The original issues were cheaper! I kept my eye on it but it was never priced where I would buy it. Then I kind of forgot about it. Until this week.
Marvel Omnibuses have a weird price trajectory. Full retail price is usually high but then the price on the book drops down a little. If it’s a desirable book the price doesn’t drop very much until the book is out of print. Then the price of it rises. Of course popular books come back into print fairly quickly and then the price drops again.
For less desirable Marvel Omnibuses the price starts the same but then drops more precipitously. It might take a while but sometimes the price can be cut in half. But then after it goes out of print the price rises. It sometimes rises to way above the original retail.
Back in 2014 I bought the Marvel John Carter Omnibus from Amazon for the crazy price of $35 (with a random promotional credit that cut the price to $15). I don’t know why it was that low but I’m glad it was. Now the only one you can get on Amazon has it priced at an insane $1500. No one is going to buy it for that since you can find it on eBay for between $120 and $200. But even those prices are high considering.
As I was looking around on Amazon last week I decided to check on the “Sigil” Omnibus. To my surprise the price was down to $65. That seemed like the sweet spot to me. I also like the reviews I read of it as there was a lot of good extra material in the book. (Update: it’s back up to $90 now.)
I had been saving up credit card points so I could get the box set of Peter Bagge’s “Hate” but I already had the original issues and softcover collected editions of that series so I decided to put it on hold (for around the third time) and use those point to get the “Sigil” Omnibus.
Neither physically big and expensive book has arrived as of this writing but I’m looking forward to getting them. Keep an eye on my YouTube channel because I’ll probably be making videos about them.