As we all know, the comic book market has been experiencing a long-running bear market for the past two years. I think there are some reasons to believe that there's light at the end of the tunnel: stock market is at all-time highs, the Federal Reserve is cutting interest rates, and inflation has dropped to 2.5%.
Still, we haven't seen any evidence of the bear market slowing down in the comic market. A bear market refers to a widespread decline in asset prices of at least 20% from recent highs. For example, take a look at GoCollect's Copper Age CPI with the five-year view:
The decline displayed above meets the definition of a bear market. After reaching an all-time of 1,409 in July 2021, we entered a bear market around late 2022 / early 2023 when the Index fell to 1,100. The CPI currently sits at 809. In other words, the CPI has lost about 43% of its value since it reached its all-time high. Ouch.
Nobody wants to have their assets stuck in a bear market, but there are ways to minimize your losses. Personally, I have a pretty high risk tolerance when I invest in comics and that's why I'm often looking to buy them during bear markets. Others have found ways to minimize their losses by investing in comics that declined much less than the broader market during the past two years. Here are three well-known comics Copper Age comics that have weathered the bear market better than most.
Since July 2021, Secret Wars #8 has lost 28% of its value.
Perhaps the most recognizable cover of the Copper Age, Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8 features the first time Spider-Man acquires the black alien symbiote suit. While a 28% drop in value certainly isn't good, Secret Wars #8 has outperformed the broader market by significant margin during the past five years. If you're one of the many collectors who have several copies of this issue, you'd have minimized your losses in recent years. This is more remarkable considering that the supply of graded copies has exploded during the same period of time. Back in December 2019, there only 11,449 copies of Secret Wars #8 on the CGC Census; today, there are over 27,000 copies.
Notably, Secret Wars #8 has held up much better than other major key issues related to the symbiote including Amazing Spider-Man #300. Since July 2021, ASM #300 has lost 54% of its value.
Since July 2021, The Tick #1 has only lost 5% of its value.
A Copper Age book that has done even better than Secret Wars #8 over the past five years is the Tick #1. Published by New England Comics in 1988, this late Copper Age book is a "special edition" that includes the first appearance of the Tick in a regular comic book (and not a newsletter). In addition to his own comic series, the Tick has appeared in several TV shows, a video game and on merchandise.
If you exclude sales of 9.8s, The Tick #1 has actually had a positive return over the past five years across six other CGC grades.
One reason that the Tick #1 does so well is its rarity; New England Comics only published 5,000 copies of this issue. Only about 12% of these 5,000 (590) have been graded by CGC according to the CGC Census. If you can find a reasonably priced raw copy of this issue, it could be a great investment especially considering that you don't ever have to worry about a huge surge of graded copies flooding the market in the future.
Superman #75 has held up well during the current bear market.
Another issue included in the Copper Age CPI that has held up very well during the bear market is Superman #75. This may be surprising to many since Superman #75 is sort of like DC's version of X-Men #1; an over-printed comic that represented the excesses of the 1990s for the comic book market. Some investors thought they were going to get rich off of this book. Well, over 30 years later, this book is still hanging onto its value and generally outperforming many of its peers:
Ever since the current bear market began about two years ago, Superman #75's contribution to the CPI has been about the same (4.29 in late October 2022 vs. 4.0 today).
