I don’t make it a habit to visit many comic book websites anymore since I find many of the big guns are either too obviously in the pockets of the comic book companies, a complete visual, near illegible mess or just a complete embarassment to the medium. Really, I really should be neither surprised nor upset over this, but I quite accidentally stumbled across a section of the Wizard website following a blind link, and I ended up in the middle of a mindset that I thought had been more or less taken out to the woods, shot in the back of the head and left for dead in the middle of a cold, snowy winter. Unfortunately, Wizard keeps plugging along, dirtying up the comic book cityscape with their intellectual graffiti. And not the good, artistic graffiti either. No – it’s more like the 10 year old who got a can of spraypaint and tagged your garage door with a giant dayglo penis.

Ahem…

As I was saying, I inadvertently found myself browsing through the Wiz site and came across a link labelled “Market Watch: Comics.” I should have known better, but for some reason I assumed it was going to be an article on how many copies of Civil War: Peter Porker were sold and other industry analysis. What I got, and in retrospect it’s what I should have expected, was a facefull of secondary market pricing for various books, as well as a guide for people still fool enough to treat buying comics like geek Wall Street.

My favorite part of this whole thing is the way that Wizard lists these titles as being “surefire moneymakers.” I’d love to see some fool follow Wizard’s recommendations to a “T” for a year, lose a ton of money and then try to sue them for bad investment advice. There’s no chance in hell of this happening or anyone being successful in such a venture, but man it would be entertaining to watch.

BEST BETS
Our picks for this week’s surefire moneymakers:

1. Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. #12 (Marvel, $2.99) It’s the last issue of this cult hit, so it’s possible low orders could make this issue a rare find if trade sales generate extra interest after it’s gone.

2. Sensational Spider-Man #35 (Marvel, $2.99) Black costume fever has already swept the comic book world, so fans will be ecstatic to get their hands on the second book to bear the “Back in Black� banner.

3. Thunderbolts #111 (Marvel, $2.99) It’s the second issue of Ellis and Deodato’s T-Bolts revamp, and with all the hoopla surrounding #110, you can expect there will be a lot of new readers jumping on this issue.

Spread the word!