Comics and Conservatism

Another factor is the condition of the comics. The better the condition, the more valuable they are. A third factor is whether or not the comic has been professionally graded by one of the three major grading consortiums. A fourth factor is pedigree: Believe it or not, certain individual books hail from landmark collections and if you can prove that your copy of Detective Comics #359 is from, say, the Mile High Collection or the Hawkeye Collection—both of which are notable in comics lore—then it becomes even more valuable.

And finally there’s the signature: If you get your comic book signed by one of the artists responsible for its creation, that can add quite a bit of value, too. One of the comics I’m fondest of is a copy of Fantastic Four #49 which is signed by the great Stan Lee. (I picked it up five years ago as reward for finishing the manuscript of my first book.) But aside from the value-add, having a signed book is really pretty neat. Most of the signed books I own are worth very little in dollars; but I treasure them all the same.

Anyway, the signing of comic books is about to get much more complicated in the state of California.

California has a problem with autograph mills—that is, businesses that churn out an endless supply of signed memorabilia that may, or may not, be genuine.

Or perhaps I should say, California has a “problem”—because it’s not clear why an issue like this should rise to the level of state legislation. If people are willing to squander their money of a baseball cap they find on eBay that’s supposedly signed by David Hasselhoff—well, that’s a limited, avoidable injury. You might even classify it as Darwinism at work.

But let’s grant the state of California’s proposition that autograph mills must be brought to heel. The state’s remedy is a bill that imposes an incredibly onerous regime of compliance on any signed object worth more than $5. The bill mandates nine separate criteria on businesses, including documentation on provenance of the item, written forms witnessing the signature, and much, much more.

And the law is written so broadly that it pretty much guarantees that showing up to an artist’s signing at a comic shop (or an author’s signing at a book store, if you’re a fancy intellectual) is impossible. It would take you, the artist, and the store owner forever to fill out the paperwork just to get one book signed.

As you might imagine, comic book store owners had a minor freakout over the bill.

The California legislature’s response has been to reassure comic book fans that the bill doesn’t really mean what it says and that, in any case, the comic book shops don’t have to worry because the law won’t be applied to them.

And that, my friends, is why some of us are conservative. Conservatism—or at least what used to be called conservatism until about seven months ago—understands that government should be smaller wherever possible and modest in its goals. That not every problem can be remedied by government. That when governments attempt to impose remedies, they often do so clumsily and ineffectually. And that even well-meaning legislative remedies can cause unintended downstream effects.

This is not to say that all government is illegitimate or that we should be a nation of Cliven Bundys—but rather that government is important and necessary. And because in a large nation the government’s hand will be automatically heavy, it ought to be moved with a great deal of humility.

Anyway, that’s what conservatism believes and it’s easier to see the wisdom of this view when you move away from the hot buttons and look at an anodyne subject such as comic book signings.

Or at least that’s what conservatism used to believe. And with a little luck, that’s what conservatism will believe again. Very soon.