Clearly, people are spending big bucks on comics in every form. My
next question: why? What is it about these characters and their
stories that inspires readers' interest and collectors' lust? My
quest had only begun.
NOT YOUR FATHER'S SUPERHEROES
Since comic heroes are always on a mission, I started by visiting
with Mike Voiles, a super-fan with a calling of his own. Voiles,
who runs a mind-blowing website called Mike's Amazing World of DC
Comics, has vowed to collect every issue turned out by DC Comics,
the parent company of Superman, Batman, and many other titles.
That's a tall order: Since its founding in 1935, DC has produced
more than 30,000 issues. Voiles now owns about 25,000 DC books,
plus another 10,000 or so from
Marvel Comics and other makers. He
spent $1,000 a month or more on comics for years.
Though Voiles is only 31, his comics knowledge stretches back to
the 1940s and 1950s. He speaks fondly of the comics boom, when
Americans bought 250 million to 300 million comics a year. At that
time - dubbed the "Golden Age" of comics - a popular title could
sell well over a million copies a month; today, the hottest sellers
would be happy with a tenth of that.
Voiles specializes in DC Comics, but he also likes certain titles
from its longtime rival, Marvel, home of the Fantastic Four, The
Hulk, and Spider-Man. Together, the two companies own about 70
percent of the comics market. As they've tussled over the years, DC
and Marvel have made their characters more complex and realistic,
giving them multifaceted personalities and sending them out to
grapple not only with villains and monsters, but with their own
inner doubts and desires.