A while back, the weblog Listen to Us, We’re Right posted “An Open Letter to Guys That Check The Spine of Every Comic”, and I do have to say that I’ve had my fair share of customers like that over the years. It doesn’t really bother me so much…if it makes them happy, if they’re spending money, and it’s not interfering with other customers purchasing comics, hey, go to town. I do agree with Listen to Us’s assessment that, ultimately, the condition of the comics being purchased probably isn’t going to make much difference since the prices on the books in question aren’t, in most cases, going to skyrocket…unless comics become huge again, with million-copy print runs, and people start trying to snap up back issues that had print runs of about 30,000. That doesn’t seem terribly likely, however.
It did remind me of a story I used to hear a lot when I was younger, generally second or third-hand, about folks who’d go to the local newsstand, pick out the best copies of the “hot” comic to buy, then damage the rest of the books to ensure that they’d have the best copies in the local market. Like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve heard about someone doing this (last time I heard the story make the rounds around here, it was about Thor #337), and I think Mark Evanier may have related a similar story, either on his site or in one of his books. I haven’t seen anyone try to pull this in our store (God help them if they do) so hopefully this is one of those fan behaviors that has died, or is dying, out, if it was ever that prevalent before.
When the topic comes up at the shop, I like to tell people that given how these comics are printed and shipped, it’s a miracle they show up in as good as a condition as they do.
