Borrowed from Scripps Howard News Service
It's a stock ... it's a bond ... it's a comic book?
By KRIS HUNDLEY
St. Petersburg Times
Call it the triumph of the comic book nerd over the techie variety.
As the stock market has slumped, the market for rare comics has taken
off.
Neil Johnson, owner of Emerald City Comics & Collectables Inc. in
Seminole, Fla., said the market for comics went bust in the late 1990s
as investors flocked to the equity market.
"Why buy comics when you can pick a stock and make money that way?"
he said. "But whenever the stock market is down, our market does very
well."
Johnson says the trick to picking comics as investments is to stick
with older, tried-and-true heroes. Even better if Hollywood decides to
feature one of them in a movie. With the Incredible Hulk, X-Men,
Superman vs. Batman and Daredevil coming to the big screen in the next
few years, Johnson said he's already seeing buyers hunting for those
titles. Really smart investors bought them years ago.
"When I was a kid, I could have gotten Action Comics No. 1, with the
first appearance of Superman, for $500. Now it would be worth $350,000
in near-mint condition," said Johnson, 39. "Of course, my mom would
have killed me if I wanted to buy a $500 comic."
What a pointless waste of a reporter's time...
-km-