The scene is so different today for us comic book collectors in India.
Gone are the days when imported comic books were hard to readily find and arrived in occasional crude bulks as ‘remaindered’ copies to India from the USA via the UK or the Phillipines, but those books were real cheap, some as cheap as two bucks a piece (in the mid 1980s) and in good to fine condition.
Then as the demand for them grew, the asking price of the comics (mostly DCs, a few Marvels) went up from 2 to 4 to 5 and then 7 apiece. By 1992 such issues were priced between 12 to 15 rupees, depending on your retailer/dealer. Finally settling down to a flat Rs.18 a piece from 1996 onwards.
Around that time bulk copies of Image and Malibu, Topps and Valiant and Defiant made it to the old bookstores in Kolkata. I picked up around 400 issues (mostly Image) for a cool six grand (15 bucks apiece) in one go in the summer of 1997.
And then… about mid 1998 Gotham comics had to run in and dilute the import market pricing their reprints at 20 bucks apiece. Can’t say the quality matched those of Malibu and Image and DCs, but they did sell well. Superman and Batman and Tarzan. Woo!
Those old imported pulps are still available the way I remember, in most moldy old bookstores… but the scene is so different now. Giant bookstores like Landmark, Crossword, Walden and Blossoms are selling those very books at converted cover price (a ripoff). Imagine a 32 page Superman going at 299 rupees in India. Hah! I’ve heard a parent or two chiding his/her child that a small, thin Spider-man comic book (Gotham) is too expensive at Rs 10. The Graphic Novels, however, are fairly priced. 180-200 pages of cool artwork and killer stories priced between 700 – 1000 bucks. Not bad.
I picked up graphic novels/bound comic book sets like OMAC, GRIFFIN, TEMPUS FUGIT, STREET FIGHTER, STARWARS JEDI TALES at 90 to 140 bucks apiece back in the mid 1990s. Cheap!
I may be speaking for myself here, but the searching, browsing, hunting and finally acquiring those thin pulp papered books back in the 1980s and 1990s was such an exciting and cherished endeavour, and I miss it. Now you get them all in pocket book size, the colours are poor, paper stock is bad and print tiny.
No offense to the Gotham Comics people, but comic books should be of A4/One4 size. Even better if they are magazine size, like the British LEM Superman/Batman series from 1988. Got some of them for 15 bucks a piece back in 1993.
I’m getting kinda lost here composing this, but you get the picture. Those were the days.
Gone are the days when imported comic books were hard to readily find and arrived in occasional crude bulks as ‘remaindered’ copies to India from the USA via the UK or the Phillipines, but those books were real cheap, some as cheap as two bucks a piece (in the mid 1980s) and in good to fine condition.
Then as the demand for them grew, the asking price of the comics (mostly DCs, a few Marvels) went up from 2 to 4 to 5 and then 7 apiece. By 1992 such issues were priced between 12 to 15 rupees, depending on your retailer/dealer. Finally settling down to a flat Rs.18 a piece from 1996 onwards.
Around that time bulk copies of Image and Malibu, Topps and Valiant and Defiant made it to the old bookstores in Kolkata. I picked up around 400 issues (mostly Image) for a cool six grand (15 bucks apiece) in one go in the summer of 1997.
And then… about mid 1998 Gotham comics had to run in and dilute the import market pricing their reprints at 20 bucks apiece. Can’t say the quality matched those of Malibu and Image and DCs, but they did sell well. Superman and Batman and Tarzan. Woo!
Those old imported pulps are still available the way I remember, in most moldy old bookstores… but the scene is so different now. Giant bookstores like Landmark, Crossword, Walden and Blossoms are selling those very books at converted cover price (a ripoff). Imagine a 32 page Superman going at 299 rupees in India. Hah! I’ve heard a parent or two chiding his/her child that a small, thin Spider-man comic book (Gotham) is too expensive at Rs 10. The Graphic Novels, however, are fairly priced. 180-200 pages of cool artwork and killer stories priced between 700 – 1000 bucks. Not bad.
I picked up graphic novels/bound comic book sets like OMAC, GRIFFIN, TEMPUS FUGIT, STREET FIGHTER, STARWARS JEDI TALES at 90 to 140 bucks apiece back in the mid 1990s. Cheap!
I may be speaking for myself here, but the searching, browsing, hunting and finally acquiring those thin pulp papered books back in the 1980s and 1990s was such an exciting and cherished endeavour, and I miss it. Now you get them all in pocket book size, the colours are poor, paper stock is bad and print tiny.
No offense to the Gotham Comics people, but comic books should be of A4/One4 size. Even better if they are magazine size, like the British LEM Superman/Batman series from 1988. Got some of them for 15 bucks a piece back in 1993.
I’m getting kinda lost here composing this, but you get the picture. Those were the days.
