From watching trends of character and title popularity to seeking customers to enticing convention attendees, selling comics and original art takes savvy individuals. Recently, Scoop talked to Ted VanLiew of Superworld Comics about sales in 2016, trends he foresees in 2017, their redesigned website, and his company’s presence at conventions. 

Scoop: How was 2016 for Superworld Comics?
Ted VanLiew (TV): 2016 was outstanding. Our philosophy has always been slow and steady, not trying to get rich quick. By comparison to other years, 2016 was one of the better ones.

Scoop: Which titles or characters excelled in 2016?
TV: Well, there are always the no-brainers like Spider-Man, X-Men, Avengers, Hulk. Marvel, kicks ass and I think it’s partly the movies. The movies have been so popular that almost anyone associated with a movie is automatically in favor. Even if it’s a marginal character. Someone like Ghost Rider. He got hot because he’s in the storyline on Agents of SHIELD.

With DC, Batman far outstrips everyone else – with the exception, now, of Harley Quinn, but we don’t deal much with the era that Harley Quinn is from. But she’s still Batman related. It’s sort of like Batman towering above everyone else at DC with speeds of activity on other characters.

In terms of Golden Age, it’s somewhat unpredictable. There are always certain books that if you get them, they’re going to sell fast. The rest though, they sell when they sell.

Scoop: Were there any artists that stood out in original art sales?
TV: Yes. The funny thing about original art is basically you can almost boil it down to two names at the top of the list: [Jack] Kirby and [Steve] Ditko. Anything Kirby, anything Ditko is extremely in demand. With Ditko – Doctor Strange and Spider-Man. They seldom come up for sale, but when they do, they are hugely sought after. Kirby was so prolific, unlike Ditko, he was all over the place. Almost anything by Kirby is desirable, near the top of the heap.

I break the art up into vintage and Modern era and we deal with both. The Modern era stuff is, of course, much easier to find. [laughs] But the older stuff got destroyed or lost. The publishers saw it as clutter in the old days. It was just paper piled up and they’d give it away, or mop the floors with it. [laughs] It’s funny because that makes what comes on the market as really desirable.

When it comes to original art you can have two pages from the same issue that will be night and day in terms of value and desirability based on what characters and action is on the page. So if you have an issue of Captain America that Kirby drew, there will be a page that’s kind of talking heads, maybe Steve Rogers, but not much is happening, it’s not that dynamic. That page might go for $1,500-2,000. Then you’ll have a page later where Cap is fighting Red Skull in one of those 4-page Kirby extravaganzas and that will go for $15,000. So art is so idiosyncratic. Every single page is unique and different. It’s much harder to get a bead on what the values are with the art as opposed to the comics.

Scoop: Did you see a lot of growth in your customer base throughout 2016?
TV: We did and part of it was our own doing because my lovely wife, Lisa, who is also my partner is far more organized than I am. She has set up a system whereby we encourage people to sign up for the website and get involved with us more. We do more outreach. That has been paying dividends. It’s not like a sudden thing where we get 25 people signed up at once – it happens gradually, but over the course of the year it’s quite a few people.

Reputation is a big deal too, so if people are saying nice things about us on chat boards or Facebook, even just referrals – that’s huge. So that’s been good too.

Scoop: Superworld’s website was redesigned last year. What prompted the change and how has that improved things for the site and your sales?
TV: Well, we redesigned it for a couple of reasons. One is just to make it look more professional. The look was pretty good, the way we had it, and it was very user friendly, but we saw an opportunity to make it snappier. Also, a big motivation was to become more handheld device-friendly. We started realizing that a growing amount of our customer base was contacting us through their phone or Blackerry or iPad. That’s a big deal. I think that’ll just increase things. So we kind of took a calculated gamble that that is, indeed, going to be the trend. The one concern we had was compromising the user friendliness in the service of the design. That’s something we really had to keep an eye on. We knew it would be jarring for a lot of our customers because they don’t really like change. A few people complained. Most people were excited. Some people had questions and made suggestions about issues where it was more difficult to use and we tried to fix that.

Scoop: How has that gone – fixing things based on customer suggestions?
TV: It’s excellent. Their suggestions were very spot on and we were able to make it more user friendly. I’m always paranoid that we’ll cause business to drop off through our own stupidity, but we actually didn’t, it didn’t affect things adversely. It helped things.

Scoop: Which characters or titles do you expect to be big sellers in 2017?
TV: I think Guardians of the Galaxy will resurge again. Rocket Raccoon, who I never even heard of before the first movie was being advertised. I’m old enough that I read the original Marvel Super-Heroes from 1969 that they appeared. It was a completely different team and concept. Then in the ’90s, I think, Marvel sort of took a bunch of spare parts and just threw them together and created this team again and called them Guardians of the Galaxy and that’s what we know of from the movies. The first movie was a big success and much better than I expected and I fully expect the second movie to be a hit as well. So, almost anything that comes out as a movie this year is going to be big. Wonder Woman is going to pick up steam. I kind of have a good feeling about that movie.

Scoop: I’m hopeful. It looks pretty good so far.
TV: Yeah, Gal Gadot makes an excellent Wonder Woman. I thought she was the best part of the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Spider-Man doesn’t really need a boost, but Spider-Man has a new movie coming out. Look for Spider-Man #7 to take off, first appearance of the Vulture, and then subsequent appearances of the Vulture. That’s the speculator end, which is kind of predictable to some extent. They rush from one hot thing to the other hot thing.

That, to me, is trendy, which is not what we base our business model on. That’s too much sand under your feet. To me, slow and steady. It’s the solid, scarce, older stuff that’s really intrinsically cool. Any early Marvel in decent shape is so hard to find now. And so desirable that those are going to sell really fast.

DC started their Silver Age about five years before Marvel, so when you get to about the mid-1960s they’re not as popular. It’s the early ’60s and late ’50s stuff that is very sought after, particularly in nice shape because it’s real tough to find. Certain first appearances, like Brainiac, which is Action #242 from 1957, that book is so impossible to find in any kind of decent shape. If we were lucky enough to find one in better than fine condition, it would go for multiple of the Guide. Some of the Golden Age stuff is crazy. Again, with Wonder Woman, All Star #8 from 1942. That’s the first appearance of Wonder Woman ever, and that book in the last year has gone from, in VG an $8,000 book to a $40,000 book. It’s just gone nuts. It’s a weird phenomenon where certain books will go bonkers and other ones will just stay stable. It’s weird.

I’m trying to think of some other stuff that I just expect to blow up in 2017. Honestly, if we ever find an early Marvel collection – stuff from 1960 to about 1964. That is a scarcer area, they were tiny at that point. They were just hanging on; which people don’t realize. They stumbled upon this new formula and they were starting to find their stride. But that early stuff, there aren’t that many of them out there, and in good shape, really few. If we were to find Fantastic Four #10 in Very Fine condition it would sell right away. Spider-Man #9 would be gone. On the other hand, books from 1967, just to take an example, Amazing Spider-Man #58, unless we found it in Near Mint condition it would be just a regular book. It’s funny how that is.

Scoop: Are there any other Golden or Silver Age titles that are rising in popularity right now?
TV: I think that the early Hulks #1-6, which came out in 1962. Those are scarcer than people think. I think that those are underpriced. That’s my humble opinion. [laughs]

With Golden Age there’s a lot of stuff that is extremely scarce. The funny thing about Golden Age, though, is you have to really know what you’re doing, because there’s a lot of really scarce stuff that nobody really cares that much about. Even it if turns up people would be like “eh, whatever.”

Other scarce stuff that is really cool which guys will trip over each other to get are Speed Comics, Prize Comics, Four Favorites, some of these titles have amazing covers, especially during the war years. They’re just the coolest things and you don’t even know what they look like because they rarely turn up.

A trend that I have noticed, as well, is that there’s a lot more cover collectors than their used to be. A lot of people who just want cool covers. They don’t care what’s inside the book at all. You could have Little Orphan Annie, but if it has a cool war cover by [Alex] Schomburg, they’ll pay a fortune for it.

Scoop: Do you think that has anything to do with third party grading, since you get your book slabbed and can’t open it after that unless you crack the plastic?
TV: It might have something to do with that. I think it’s just more of an overall trend. I think the reason for it is that more mature collectors who have been collecting for a while they used to read the book when they were younger and now they don’t really read the books, whether it’s because of time constraints or because the stories are aimed at a younger audience. They just want to see that amazing image on the cover. It gives them a little more challenge to discover things. With Spider-Man, even though he’s our top seller, we’ve seen him a million times. But, Action Comics #26 you haven’t seen it very often. There’s something exciting about that.

Scoop: How would you describe the comic book market right now? Weak, strong, somewhere in between?
TV: I’d say it’s very strong. It’s the type of thing where it has concurrent markets working at the same time and that keeps it strong. It’s also got an increasingly international market and that keeps it strong. From our perspective, if there’s a little dip in U.S. customers, then the slack might get picked up by Canadians, Europeans, or Australians. Almost anywhere where people speak some English, even if it’s a second language. If it’s fairly prevalent, you’ve got a lot of collectors. The way I see the different markets: you’ve got the reader market – the people who just want low grade, cheap copies to read, and have runs; you’ve got the collector who wants decent books and has a limited budget and will collect pretty steadily; and then you’ve got the investor- collector who is probably the largest area right now. It’s people who want high quality books now, mostly. They want value. Even though they really love the books, they have an eye on resale down the road. I think that helps the industry grow. It’s like a perception. It creates a commodities market in a way. So the books pass through hands and they increase in value and there’s a perception that they’re going to. Then you’ve got the pure investor who is someone who might be from outside the hobby who is looking for a place to put their money. I think you get that a lot with the auction houses. You get someone spending $150,000 for some choice item. And they are resetting the market, but if they are able to hold on to it, they’ll profit from it.

Scoop: Do you take consignments at cons?
TV: We take consignments a little bit. We’re very limited on that, it’s usually just something more significant. We don’t really have the infrastructure set up to do a ton of stuff. If someone’s going to consign to us Tales of Suspense #39 or something like that, we get excited about that. In terms of buying, we do look around. We look for stuff. It’s actually very competitive because a lot of the bigger dealers will look around the rooms, looking for certain items that are needed, and see if they can get a good enough deal and have an upside on it. That’s the pretty constant game that goes on.

Scoop: So when your company is at conventions you are out on the floor…
TV: It’s not just about selling. There’s probably three main parts about the con. One is the selling, which is huge. The buying is huge, believe it or not. If we can buy some good stuff we can put it on our website. Then the other part is meeting people and handing out cards, gaining new customers. There is, actually, a fourth part which is, to me, staying in touch with what’s going on. It’s not just trends, it’s also grading standards – because grading standards shift over time, they get tougher – so you have to be in-tune with it. You have to be in touch with what’s going on, how grading standards might be changing, what people are really after.

Scoop: Do you take specific inventory to conventions or a variety of things?
TV: We take a wide variety. We used to deal with a wider variety of stuff than we do now. We used to carry everything from soup to nuts – low grade, cheap as well as better stuff. In recent years, we’ve been moving up the ladder and specializing more. We’ve eschewed the cheaper stuff and the lower grade stuff, except on the scarcer items. Mostly what we have is higher grade stuff and higher quality, higher value. We still bring a ton of stuff. We bring many thousands of books to the shows. So we have a large presence, but it’s impossible to know what people are going to buy. We can predict a small number of things that are pretty much no brainers. But, other than that, you’re not quite sure. So, there’s nothing more frustrating than someone coming up to your table and asking for something and you say, “Oh, I left it back at the office.” We try to avoid that.

Scoop: At conventions, which titles do people ask for most often?
TV: It’s a lot of key books – Hulk #181, Spider-Man #129. When people come up to the table and say, “Do you have any keys?” What they usually mean is Marvel number ones from the ’60s, which is to say Spider-Man #1, Amazing Fantasy #15, Fantastic Four #1, etc. Any key book – Avengers #4, Fantastic Four #12 with the Hulk. Those are just a few examples. A nice thing is that the 1970s books, which used to be thought of as common, enough time has passed and they’ve been disseminated enough that there’s a lot of key issues in that era that are sought after. Almost anything in Near Mint condition. People are always asking, “What have you got this time?” They’re always looking for something new. One of the paradoxes of this business is that no matter how much you sell, you’re never going to have any money because you’re always going to get new stuff. So, if we do a sale and then a month later we do another show, [attendees] are going to be saying “What’s new since the last show?”

Scoop: I was just thinking about that. If you go to the same con on a regular basis and see the same faces, how do you keep your tables fresh so that they’ll want to keep looking at what you have?
TV: That’s the thing. A lot of dealers don’t seem to understand that and they get stale. The customers get bored quickly. You have to keep them stimulated, keep’em excited.

Scoop: Do you know how many books you usually take to conventions?
TV: Probably about 8,000 or so. It’s a lot of labor. But I always bring helpers – younger than me. [laughs]

Scoop: Dealers and auctioneers have mixed feelings about media stars at comic conventions. What’s your take on the subject?
TV: I don’t mind as long as it’s not to the detriment or instead of comic guests. The media stars are great, they bring people in. But those people aren’t coming to see us at all. So, I don’t mind that, it brings a nice buzz to the show. As long as the show has the comic people too. That’s all that matters to me.

A show could get 40,000 people coming through the door in three days. I’ve had promoters brag to me about that. I have to kind of shake my head because I know that of those 40,000, 39,990 of them are there to see The Walking Dead people and Patrick Stewart and are going to have nothing to do with looking for older comics. But a show that might get 4,500 people but it’s more focused on comics, that is much more useful to me. The best shows are the real media monsters like Comic-Con and New York Comic Con. Those are a combination of everything.

Scoop: What’s on your convention schedule for 2017?
TV: I think we’re going to do about ten conventions this year. The first one we’re going to do is the Big Apple Show in New York in early March. Then we’re going to do the C2E2 show in Chicago in later April. Then we’re going to do Motor City – which is in Novi, Michigan – that’s in mid-May. I think after that it’s going to be San Diego Comic-Con in July. Then in August we’re not sure about Boston yet but we’re definitely going to TerrifiCon which is at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut, that’s in August. In later August is Wizard Chicago, which is a really good show. Then in September we’re going to be at Baltimore Comic-Con, which is one of the best shows for artists as well as comics. Then in early October is New York Comic Con. And then in November is Rhode Island Comic-Con – which is growing. It’s getting crazy.