SCC's Comics Talk

The concept of slabbing collectibles (coins, trading cards, comics, toys, video games) has had its share of (common) problems and controversies over the years. If you are starting or have pondered starting to collect slabbed / third-party graded comics, do be aware of the three concerns below and make a considered decision before slabbing your comics or purchasing slabbed ones.1) You Can't Read the Book Anymore!This is the one thing that amuses me the most when I discuss slabbed comics. Let’s first be clear on what I mean—I really mean that if you remove the book from the (not-unbreakable) slab, you are essentially undoing the grade given by the grading company. That is why people do not remove the book from the slab. Of course, the flipside of this is that you lose one very key reason why the book was to enjoyed and owned in the first place—to be able...

Star Wars comics returned to Marvel Comics again in 2015 to much fanfare. This was especially helped by the release of numerous variant covers creating an atmosphere of having something for everyone. This return came after an absence of almost 30 years (the last issue of the original Marvel Star Wars series, #107, has a cover date of September 1986). During this absence, Dark Horse comics filled the Star Wars comics void by producing a large selection of mostly original Star Wars titles for a good 23 years (i.e. even longer than Marvel had been printing Star Wars themselves). As a long-time Star Wars comic reader, I feel that it is a shame that many new Star Wars comic readers are not familiar with (or had conveniently forgotten) the efforts of Dark Horse so here are five Dark Horse Star Wars comic series that you should absolutely read! 1. Star Wars:...

Ever since the comics boom in the early 1990s, the local comics market has gone through its ups and downs (e.g. shops opening and closing, the effects of the Asian Financial Crisis, changes in story / art quality, emergence of the trade paperback market.) Regardless, I believe that the key factor that drives the market is (and will always largely be) interest in the medium as a form of leisure. On an important related note, how comics compare against other forms of leisure (e.g. video games) will matter too. Comics are meant to entertain. Accordingly, questions like who they entertain and how they entertain matter. In this light, here are three opinions that I have on the near future of the comics market here in Singapore:(i) Serious collectors will run solo and turn to the inter-net much more for the collecting needsSome would say that this has already happened a long...