The Cynic Express(ed) 2.05: Adventures of Stock Market Man

     The Stock Market, capital S and M, plunges a couple of hundred points a couple of hundred times, and all of a sudden, for about the same reason that it went up so high, it came down so quickly. And that reason is: no particular reason at all.

     Although I am only lightly invested in the stock market, I am invested in other commodities whose worth Fate and the invisible puppeteer of capitalism fickly jerk up and down. No, not REIT (which are Real-Estate Investment Trusts, sort of like Landlord Mutual Funds, wherein the investor puts some money but no effort into someone else's venture), nor the great horsetrack of Currency Futures, wherein one throws sometimes a billion dollars and a major British bank onto 22 Black and hopes that one country's currency is worth more and another is worth less. I am talking about comic books and baseball cards.

     I have been collecting comic books for far longer than I have been in the Stock Market. As a matter of fact, I have been collecting comic books for longer than I have been post-pubescent. Therein lies my authority. And hereafter lies my wisdom:

     Since I began collecting in the late seventies, I, too, have seen the Initial Public Offering craze go through the roof, into the solar system, and across the galaxy to face the Galactus as the Living Tribunal watches. After all, the initial purchase price of buying comic books has increased to roughly six times what it was when I was eight. Even adjusted for inflation, that's quite a hike. Like the stock market, where an occasional IPO catches on for the splashy colors on the cover or the neat-o idea behind it and not real revenue of which to speak.

     Sometime in the height of the Eighties, in the era of Michael Milliken and Michael Douglas's character Greco in Wall Street, suddenly the everyone hopped into the market. Speculation became rampant. Suddenly, comic books no longer served as stories for children of heroes, but investments. Suddenly, for very little particular reason, titles like Solarman glutted the market. Several new companies, like Image and Impact, exploded into the marketplace, rushing many titles with words like "#1 Spectacular Collector's Item Issue" emblazoned on the cover to the stands. People, even I, started stockpiling dubious titles like Brigade #1 (I have six) and Cable: Blood and Metal #1 (I have eight) for no other reason than the return that they would have in the near future.

     Just like the crazed comic-book speculators, snapping up every next gee-whiz, gritty-like-life-or-bad-Television Vigilante-of-the-Month comic books, lemming-like investors that follow each other to new gee-whiz, neat-o unprofitable but promising technology company of the minute forgot some very essential things. Like perspective.

     The reason to buy comic books is not to have the next McFarlane start-up. Buy comic books to read them more than once, to enjoy the art work in the modern day mythology in the Marvel Universe. That's why I have more Speedball than Spawn.

     And don't buy stock with the idea of retirement by forty bought with the money you earned reading the financial section of the paper in the mornings and hitting E-trade six times a day. Buy a stock in a company you know and believe will prosper for decades, bringing you eventually a nice cushy retirement at seventy. Buy stock in a company in which you believe. That way, you will take a dip of ten percent in the short term as seriously as you take a dip in the price of Ravage 2099 (ticker symbol: RVG2K99).

     And if everyone followed this practice, we would not have a bubble in our economy where people think their 401K plans are spendable income and where a sudden downturn sparks panic and actual trouble. And just maybe my Wolfpack limited series would be worth something.