Originally published February 8, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1473
Herewith the final installment of our time-traveling view of the 1992 poll about what the comic industry would be like in the year 2002.
Year: 2014
The BID Poll Revisited, Part 4
Originally published February 1, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1472
As we continue our little time-traveling venture by looking at the results of the “What will the Year 2002 be like?” survey from ten years ago, I have to say I’m gratified by the response I’ve been getting thus far. Folks seem genuinely intrigued by both the hits and the misses of the respondents.
Thus far, for those who might just be coming aboard, back in the year 1992 (which seems as far off to me now as 2002 did then) readers of CBG predicted that: Marvel would be the top company (instead it’s neck and neck with DC); Image would most likely be gone (it isn’t, outlasting Valiant, Innovation, Now, Comico, Eclipse, Malibu, Disney and Personality); the top-selling comic would be one that wasn’t being published at the time (which DK2 wasn’t); that Iron Man was the most likely hero to be killed off and replaced (Jim Rhodes, Iron Man at the time, didn’t die, but was replaced by Tony Stark); Mark Gruenwald would be editor in chief at Marvel (obviously wrong, sadly); Mike Carlin would be editor in chief at DC (one for two); that Rob Liefeld would be the anti-Christ (no comment); that Youngblood #4 would just be hitting the stands (it came out in 1993); that the standard Marvel Comic would be 32 pages and cost $2.50 (one for two, although the true quality Marvel books, such as—I dunno—Captain Marvel really are $2.50).
The BID Poll Revisited, Part 3
Originally published January 25, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1471
We’re continuing with the poll of ten years ago which ran in BID and endeavored to get a feel for what the readership saw as the state of the industry ten years hence… that is to say, now. The year 2002, which at the time seemed so far in the future as to be ludicrous. Well, no one’s laughing all that much.
Moving on:
Happy birthday, Caroline
Caroline was born 12 years ago today.
As is the case with the births of all my daughters, I will always remember the circumstances of that day. Part of what I recall is the change in accommodations for fathers. When my other girls were born, I got to sit in a comfortable white plastic chair for hours on end. This time there was not only a couch for me, but when I tried to lie down on it, the nurse informed me it folded out into a bed. So THAT was great.
Kathleen was amazing. She started labor on the train home from work and didn’t even realize that it had started, assuming that it was Braxton-Hicks. We went to the hospital a little after midnight and she gave birth around 2:30 the following afternoon. For some reason, she became fixated on an article in the newspaper about the history of the latest tree that was put up in Rockefeller Center. She kept asking me to read her the article and I did so about twenty times.
I still remembering the nurse saying “Oh my God” shortly after Caroline was born, which alarmed Kathleen, until the nurse clarified that she was reacting to the size of Caroline’s feet, which were so large that they extended outside of the squares on the piece of paper for footprints. Caroline, as some of you longtime readers know, was named after Carol Kalish, the Marvel Direct Sales Manager who hired me as her assistant and launched my comics career.
She’s now 12 years old and has received her first report card from Middle School. She got all A’s. I couldn’t be prouder of both her and her mommy.
PAD
The BID Poll Revisited, Part 2
Originally published January 18, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1470
Picking up from last week, we’re doing a bit of time traveling backward and forward simultaneously, by reviewing the poll taken in this very column back in 1992 speculating as to the state of our little industry ten years hence… which is to say, 2002, i.e., now.
Yes, cast yourself back to the early 1990s, back when we were bombing the crap out of the Middle East and a guy named Bush was president. Back in that far-flung era bearing no resemblance to our own, fans believed that after the turn of the century: Marvel would be the top company; Image and Valiant were the two likeliest companies to be out of business; and the comic topping the sales charts didn’t yet exist. Now let’s see what else they, and we, had to say.
The BID Poll Revisited, Part 1
Originally published January 11, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1469
It has been said that time travel is not only possible, but routine. Because, in a sense, we are all time travelers, heading as one toward a future destination. It’s just going to take a while to get there, that’s all. And once we’re there, we look behind us, see where we were, and marvel at how we managed to get to the present point.
You and I have been doing some time traveling in this column. And now we’re going to reset our minds to where we were while simultaneously keeping hold of where we are. Thus we have achieved time travel… or, at the very least, a couple of columns.
Back in the year 1992, I ran a survey in this column that took its cue from a weekly news magazine. That magazine took a poll of its readership, endeavoring to project what the shape of the world would be like ten years hence. I decided that it would be interesting to do the same with CBG readers. To take a whack at discerning the state of the comic industry in the then-unthinkably far future of 2002. It seemed a lark. First, just the year itself: 2002. It sounded so… so science fiction. One year past the iconic 2001. Second, who even knew if there would be a comic book industry at the time (although sales were certainly strong enough to indicate that everything would be fine.) And third, I knew beyond question that I’d never be able to follow up on it because, hëll, there was no flipping way that I was going to be writing the column ten years down the road. Fifty-two weeks a year, year in, year out?
In any case, to the astonishment of not a few, most of all myself, I’m still here. CBG is still here. The column is still here. And we are now rolling into the far-future year of 2002. We know where we are. I thought it would be interesting and instructive to compare that to where we thought we’d be. As John Lennon said, life is what happens while you’re making other plans. And he should know, because look what happened to him.
So let’s set the Wayback machine to the dim past of 1992 wherein we posed questions that got the following results. The whole number represents the total respondents, the percentage the total percent of all votes tallied.
Holiday Gift Suggestions, 2001
Originally published January 4, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1468
Christmas is coming, yes, the most dangerous time of the year. Dangerous in that the suicide rate supposedly spikes, and dangerous because people get reeeaaaaal sensitive about it. I once described Christmas as a “mythical birthday.” What I was referring to was that Biblical scholars doubt that December 25th is the actual date of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Instead I got deluged with mail from people claiming I said that Jesus didn’t exist and that I obviously hated Christians.
But you know what’s safe to talk about?
Presents.
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