Get To Da Choppa!... I mean, the comics. If you’ve been watching the comic book popularity list, you might have noticed the astronomical rise of Conan the Barbarian #1; which at the moment increased by a whopping 656 spots to be the #32 spot on the list. When we look a bit deeper, we notice that the market value of quite a few key Conan the Barbarian comic books have been on the rise for the last 3 years.

 

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #1

Despite the popularity of the Conan movies and television show, the very first overall appearance of Conan the Barbarian occurred in the Weird Tales magazine during the early 1930s. With that, what we are particularly interested in here in this comic book blog is his first comic book appearance, which finally came almost a half-century later in Conan the Barbarian #1 (1970), published by Marvel Comics. Additionally, the book also contains the first cameo appearance of Knull.

In the market, sales prices for CGC 9.8-9.4 slabs of Conan the Barbarian #1 were flat for the majority of its history; that is, until late 2017. This was likely due to the news of a Conan TV series in development with Amazon that started to spring up around that time. It was not the only Conan related news, which we will see in the next book below. Back to the book at hand, in the following graphs, we observe the sales data for Conan the Barbarian #1, graded in CGC 9.8-9.4 which represents the top 2.0-15.2% of the CGC census.

  • From the graphs, you can clearly see the distinctive shift to an upward trend in late 2017. Since then, the sales prices have steadily trended upwards in the observed grades. The initial Amazon TV series appears to have not worked out. Most recently, in Sept 2020, it appears Netflix has announced that they are developing a new Conan TV series. It would appear Conan is quite the hot commodity in TV land. With the long history of flat sales prices that only moved upwards due to the influence of TV news, this book in terms of speculation opportunity is somewhere between a hold and a cautious add.

 

 

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #23 & CONAN THE BARBARIAN #24

You can’t talk about Conan without also including Red Sonja into the conversation. She had her first cameo appearance in Conan the Barbarian #23, and first full appearance in the next issue #24. Between the two books, the market appears to have embraced Conan the Barbarian #23, which is the book we will focus on here. Yes, if you’re speculating on Red Sonja, both books are worth looking at; but again, just focusing on #23 due to its higher market value at the moment.

When looking at a similar time frame to Conan the Barbarian #1, we find that the sales volume for Conan the Barbarian #23 really kicked off in 2012. It might be easy to write this off as a tracking issue. However, Conan #1 was selling fairly regularly at that time. The main difference, however, is that upon the initial increase in sales volume has been an overall upward trend in sales prices.  Conan #1 did not see in the same time frame. Then in late-2017/early-2018, the book’s sales prices experienced a large acceleration upwards; nearly doubling in price in roughly 2 years. This was likely due to the previously mentioned Conan TV series. This news was subsequently further amplified by news of a Red Sonja movie in development.  You can observe this change in the sales data below.  CGC 9.6/9.4  represents the top 15.6/36.8% of the CGC census.

Oddly enough, the upward trend of Conan the Barbarian #23 that existed prior to any movie or TV news makes the book a more interesting long-term investment opportunity than the Conan #1 book above. Conan #1 will undoubtedly benefit from whether or not the Netflix series pans out; but comparatively, at least Red Sonja had her overall first appearance with  Conan the Barbarian #23. If the Conan focused show is a hit, a Red Sonja spinoff would surely be an instant green light.  While everyone is focused on #1, this book could be an overlooked opportunity.

 

“There is always a way, if the desire be coupled with courage.” - Conan