The journey is over. This month's Walking Dead #193 ended up being the final issue of the long running Zombie/horror series, and so we are left to ponder the aftermath that the conclusion of the saga will have on the Robert Kirkman comic.
How will the end of the original comic affect the value of the series? Should you buy or sell The Walking Dead right now?
If you’ve never read the comic, it centers on protagonist Rick Grimes, a police deputy from Kentucky who is shot in the line of duty. Falling into a coma, Grimes eventually awakens to learn that the world he remembers is no more…in its place he finds a post-apocalyptic nightmare world: the world of the walking dead.
The Walking Dead #1 was actually an unlikely hit. First published 16 years ago, it was a gamble for writer Kirkman to offer an original comic series based on the premise of an undead uprising and lightly adapted from old 1970s Zombie films, but that was exactly what he did for Image Comics in 2003.
The series was not exactly an immediate hit, but by its first year was selling around 15, 000 copies a month. Print numbers on the series actually stayed quite low until its third year or so. Gradually, through word of mouth, its popularity began to grow. By 2010 (the same year it won an Eisner Award for ‘Best Continuing Series’) there emerged the popular TV show based on the comic. After that, video games, animated online shorts, novels and, of course, even more comics emerged. Today there’s even a 'Walking Dead day' (October 13).
Why did Kirkman decide to end the series?
This move came a complete surprise to fans. More so than the death of Grimes in the previous issue. In Kirkman’s own words:
"The Walking Dead has always been built on surprise. Not knowing what's going to happen when you turn the page, who's going to die, how they're going to die … It's been essential to the success of this series,… [i]t just felt wrong and against the very nature of this series not to make the actual end as surprising as all the big deaths." (see here).
For a long time, The Walking Dead #1 was the most valuable modern comic book- worth more than Batman Adventures #12 and Spider-Man #300 put together in its heyday. That was a while ago.
Originally released by Kirkman with some help, first from Tony Moore – later –after issue #6- from Charlie Adlard (illustrations), today there are a total of 3, 078 copies of Walking Dead #1 on the CGC census. Of those, 2, 545 are blue label Universal copies, 69 are qualified and a disproportionate number [459] are signature series, with 5 restored copies. Given that a fair number of these books must have been destroyed (its original print run was around 7, 200), it seems like almost the entire original print run of this issue has been sent to CGC.
Growing popularity combined with scarce numbers has led this comic to sell for insane prices. Even lower graded copies, like the 9.0 which sold for $2, 000.00 (on 08/09/2018 in an eBay sale). It’s unnerving to ponder that the same comic can be purchased today for under $900.00. And the drop hasn’t just been felt on lower grades.
All grades except 8.5, 7.0 and 6.0 (but including 9.9’s of which there are actually 24 copies on the census) have dropped significantly over the last five years.
Over the past three months, however, returns looked as follows:
9.8 are up at positive +16% after 10 sales (last sale: $1, 999.99)
9.6 are slightly up at +1% after 4 sales (last sale: $1, 225.00)
9.4 are down negative -30.8% (last sale: $875.00)
9.2 are down negative -27.2% (last sale: $910.00).
There was only one 9.0 sale over the last 12 weeks, and it went for: $965.00.
Today the TV show continues but returns are mixed at best and trending down. Unless you’re a super-fan, it’s probably time to sell the Walking Dead. Although the TV show is still going, that too will eventually come to an end. At that point, I think the prices will drop even further.
