I would ABSOLUTELY not sell AB right now. The animated series is going to be a massive success and if they decide to do a live action movie or TV series (hint: they will) itās a wrap. Going to the moon and never coming back down. Sell at your own peril.
For transparency I have zero copies of AB1 (first print) or any All In Special (first print). I have sold them all before they really busted open.
Naomi got hot at a time when everything was rumored to be optioned and it fueled speculation. The audience was never there and it only became apparent what a bomb it was when the show finally was released and never got renewed. Absolute Batman grew organically and it only really popped as the massive supply dried up and then started to increase in price. There were never enough supply to satisfy the demand.
When I first got back into comics many years ago everyone told me to go buy and read Invincible. It was always on my radar as I keep hearing how good it was but at the time I was reading Saga, Rat Queens, Five Ghosts, Sheltered basically all the Image Comics that I loved. Invincible taught me that if youāre going to speculate, speculate on books that are quality, rabid fan base and have a low print run that doesnāt satisfy demand. AB of course is an anomaly as it has a huge print run but the demand far outweighs that.
For every Naomi there are thousands of books like it that were hyped by shady or misinformed āinfluencersā, bleedingstool. Books like Tosin, Peter Panzerfaust, Shadecraft, the list goes on.
If youāre going to speculate, do it with quality not hype.
Disclaimer: these are all my opinions, theyāre not speculation or financial advice.
One more thing about Absolute Batman that we havenāt talked about in this forum. Batman officially becomes public domain on January 1st 2035. At that time anyone will be able to publish Batman books, movies etc. Weāre already seeing it now with Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse. However Absolute Batman is something that DC will own for the foreseeable future. You can sure bet DC will be going all in on Absolute Batman.
Ok, I wasnāt reading Naomi at the time nor was I speculating on books back then. My point still stands that books like Naomi are bad specs and you canāt extrapolate what happened to Naomi will happen to AB. At one time they might be good because everything was going up in value. Nowadays my opinion is that the best specs are quality books that has a long term outlook. Absolute Batman has proven to be an anomaly in this hobby.
I say this as someone who has extensive experience selling books way too early before they ever went to the moon (ie Mark Spears Monsters)
The Batman that will go into the public domain is the Batman that appeared in Detective 27. Got to remember there are changes that happened over the years that donāt go into the public domain. Itās tricky.
Well, unless lawyers are going to argue āBatman without a gunā didnāt debuted until 1941, or go after the details of the costume, Batman has pretty much been Batman since 1939.
BUTā¦.the supporting cast and surrounding details donāt come along until laterā¦so no batcave, Batmobile, Robin, joker, Alfred, etc, for a while.
Itāll be interesting to see how independent companies approach it, for sure.
The look has changed greatly. Think about Superman when he first came out. Would be easy to say he hasnāt changed much either. But the faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound (yeah he didnāt fly).