Comics, food and scarcity

The next ten days are, I hope, the last of the frantic end-of-semester deadline dooms (article, conferences) before I can get to the various projects I have on hold for June. That's why the posts are a little less sustained and a lot more of the cool-things-I-want-to-archive variety.

Or uncool things.

These three articles came across my screen today and for some reason converged:

• Rising cost of airfares will alter comics convention plans
• Expensive comics crossovers--a luxury good from boom times?
• NYC Food Bank demand up 24%; donations down 44%

From the last link, a Dylanesque quote that resonates on several levels: "We have a lot of cereal but we don't have enough milk."

Where I'm going with this is not the gratuitous and ultimately unhelpful puritanical assertion that comics are frivolous compared to food or some such--far from it, actually. Social gatherings and creative expression are essential aspects of human identity, and to say that we should set these aside until poverty is gone is to strike a Faustian bargain in reverse--we go to hell now to get nothing in the future. Moreover, rumor has it that at least one or two people in the comics industry use it to get money so they can buy food themselves. But as information like the above propagates through the system, so too will the pressure to take palliative action, some of which will be counterproductive over the long term.

In a somewhat related note, the following comment on the Hero Initiative's Gene Colan fundraiser merits a response:

Um… way to come up with a great idea then mess it up.

If this is to raise money for Gene, why would you limit it to 250 pieces???

That’s only $6,250!!!! Unless they’re planning on releasing 20 different covers or his illness is only an ingrown toenail, it’s not gonna help too much.

Hospitals charge on average $5,000 just to STAY in the hospital for a week. This doesn’t include doctors fees and surgery costs.

I hear this sort of thing all the time in my primary gig--I teach & write about charity & business--so a word of explanation. What you hope for in a fundraiser like this is

• to get people to buy a sizable number of goods they wouldn't otherwise buy at a price they wouldn't otherwise pay, and

• to inspire people to make additional donations both for the immediate need and general programs.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, increasing the number of available items does not necessarily increase the amount of money raised. It can actually create a sense of abundance, which in turn can depress sales & contributions compared to a market with a relatively limited supply. This is often referred to as the scarcity principle, and it has applications in a number of areas of life beyond the marketing of goods.

Like, um, becoming a "chick magnet"--

Oy.