Crafts-Hobbies Information

It is unbelievable when one says, yeah, I collect comicbooks, what the general public response might be? Oh no, aslightly off the wall geek. Here is someone who has losttouch with reality. Or someone that is in his or her ownlittle world. I think not. Yes, comic book collectors maysometimes march to the beat of a different drummer, but whosays we all have to be cut from the same mold. Comic booksare big business.

Back in the days of my youth (what, several millenniaago?), I loved reading comic books. And so did a lot of myfriends. Whenever we had an extra dime or sometimes aquarter, we could run up to the local small town groceryand spend some very happy times at the comic book rack.

We would even go out and find small odds jobs for pocketchange, which was enough then to purchase 2 or 3 goodflights of adventure and fantasy. I can even remembercrawling under our house to retrieve a cat that had themisfortune of dying there. My Dad couldn't stomach thesmell and enticed my friend and I to accomplish the chorefor ample pocket change. We braved the spiders and othercrawly creatures to retrieve and bury the unfortunate cat.Not long after that, we were the proud owners of yet,several more intriguing comic books. Even the local bully(who was really a pretty good guy) would purchase our wornout or unwanted magazines for far more than they wereworth, so we could purchase new ones.

I didn't know much about collecting then. I just likedsaving what I enjoyed. I had a large cardboard box that Ikept under my bed, filled with all my little treasures. Ididn't realize that I had the beginnings of what could havebeen something very lucrative. In later years when I headedoff to college, I dragged my large cardboard box with me.At one point in time, I left most of my belongings in thecharge of what I thought were trusted friends. When Ireturned from my forest firefighting adventures, my boxfull of magazines were no where to be found. And needlessto say, were my trusted friends either. Others had seen thevalue in what I had and wanted it for themselves. Oh well,live and learn. That limited collection of comic books andother magazines would have been worth a small fortune today.

Are there big bucks in the comic book genre? Just look atwhat Hollywood has been up to for the last few decades. Asfar as I can tell, the really big blockbusters started backin 1978 with the release of Superman, The Movie. And sincethen there has been comic book hero after comic book heroto hit the silver screen. And they all make tons of money.The Hollywood moguls may or may not be "into" the genre,but they can smell large profits. And these kinds ofprofits aren't harvested from a small out of touch withreality niche. It take large numbers of individuals forkingout 5 to 10 dollars a pop, to accumulate the astronomicalprofits that Hollywood is seeing these days. Made up buindividuals who may or may not want to admit their avidinterest in comic book characters. I will stand up and say,I enjoy watching these movies and have even started my owncollection of comic book character DVDs. Who knows, maybesome day my DVDs will become as valuable as comic books.Probably not.

Although, not every individual's collection has magazinesworth thousands of dollars, there are a sizable amount ofcollections that can be worth hundreds of thousands or evenmillions of dollars. These are not people that have losttouch with reality. A while back, the actor, Nicholas Cage,put his comic book collection of about 400 magazines up forauction. Word was that he might have realized a value intoseven figures. That ain't chicken feed.

It is not uncommon for single additions to be worth severalhundred to several thousand dollars. Some comic books canenter the realm of several hundred thousand dollars for onemagazine. Now the owners have to be some pretty richeconomically savvy geeks. Are these the types of smallniche individuals who have lost touch with reality or don'twant to confess they like comic books? So the next timeyou hear someone profess, yeah I collect comic books, youmay want to look inside yourself and say, how do I releasemy hidden passion and start collecting myself?

Now that you know this, isn't it about time you start acomic book collection for yourself? It is fairly simple,but there are several things to take into consideration. Toget started on the right step, I am accumulating some ofthe best information on the Net about comic bookcollecting. Come on over and satisfy your curiosity.

Dave Gieber the owner of a website builtaround one of his childhood passions. Learn the basicessentials to comic book collecting success. To receiveyour free 5-part mini course visit: Collecting Comic Books!