(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST MONTAGE)
NICK FOUNTAIN, BYLINE: Christmas tree here.
ALEX BLUMBERG, BYLINE: Make a T-shirt, and then follow that shirt around the world as it gets made.
CHANA JOFFE-WALT, BYLINE: We were Toxie's last owners. She was our pet toxic asset.
A hundred barrels of crude oil.
STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: Yes, we did.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: ...Two, one. We have ignition.
VANEK SMITH: Oh, my gosh.
SMITH: This is PLANET MONEY Studios from NPR.
SMITH: Wow. Wow. We're so excited to have you here. I'm Robert Smith.
MALONE: And I'm Kenny Malone. How many of you are familiar with Micro-Face, just to get a gauge...
SMITH: A few weeks ago, we recorded a live PLANET MONEY episode at the Roulette Theater in Brooklyn.
MALONE: This was the culmination of our superhero series in which we discovered a forgotten 1940s superhero with audio superpowers named Micro-Face. We found a way to own a version of that intellectual property. We resurrected Micro-Face by writing and publishing a brand-new comic book. Eventually - it took us a while, Robert, but we did get there.
SMITH: We got it there. But now that we had that comic book in hand, we knew there was one more crucial corner of the superhero business we needed to explore.
MALONE: And just to set the scene for you, Robert and I are standing on a stage at a couple of music stands. There's a - like a giant movie theater screen behind us showing pictures of the things that we reference throughout the show.
SMITH: One more thing you should know - on stage, Kenny and I are each holding copies of our Micro-Face comic book, hot off the presses. And at the very front of the stage, there is a mysterious black briefcase. It's inlaid with the words Micro-Face origins edition.
SMITH: Could that case contain the most collectable item ever made by mankind?
SMITH: So the podcast we generally begin with a three, two, one.
SMITH: There you go. You're in the podcast now. That was...
SMITH: That was a good move. Respect.
SMITH: All right, in three, two, one. Over the last year, we here at PLANET MONEY have been creating a physical product, which I hold in my hands now - the Micro-Face comic book.
MALONE: Yeah. And, like, for us, this is a kind of work of art for sure. It's the story of a lost character. It's a teaching lesson about intellectual property. But at the end of the day, it is also a mass-produced product that we made in a printing factory, and we've printed 15,000 identical copies. We're selling each of them for the identical price of $6.99. It, like, stops to feel like art at some point.
SMITH: Yeah, that's fine. Like, mass market is fine. We're an economics podcast. We understand this. You sell your marginal comic book for more than your marginal cost, and that's profit. But as any entertainment company can tell you, if you just sell an average product to an average fan, you're leaving money on the table. You're forgetting about the superfan.
MALONE: Leaving money on the table feels a little cynical, Robert, but yes, OK because I am one of these superfan types...
MALONE: ...And when I am into something, I'm all the way in, Robert, as you know. I want the specific shirt from my favorite Nicktoon character. I want the version of "Mad Max: Fury Road" that comes in a steel case. I want the actual film used to project Madame Leota onto a crystal ball at Disney World, all of which I have and own.
SMITH: From a business perspective, if you spot a superfan like Kenny desperate to hand over his money for the love of something special, well, I mean, you would be remiss not to meet that need. If there are collectors, you have to give them objects to collect. You have to somehow create collectibles.
MALONE: Here's where music would go. (Vocalizing).
SMITH: I know, it's exciting.
MALONE: Hello, and welcome to PLANET MONEY. I'm Kenny Malone.
SMITH: And I'm Robert Smith, and we're recording live.
SMITH: We're recording live from the Roulette Theater in Brooklyn, N.Y.
MALONE: Tonight, we have gathered 300 or so PLANET MONEY superfans in the audience...
MALONE: ...They are - for the final test of our little Micro-Face comic. Can we take this mass-produced, stapled collection of papers and transform it into rare collectible versions of our Micro-Face comic?
SMITH: In order to pull this off, we need to study the greatest, the most ruthless, the most hilarious moments in collectible history, and we'll use these secrets that we uncover to make what we believe is the most collectible item of all time.
MALONE: Good. We didn't even tell them to do that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SLAPPING ON CASE)
MALONE: In this case is the ultimate, never-before-seen, one-of-a-kind, knock your socks off edition of the Micro-Face comic book the greatest collectible ever made in human history...
SMITH: OK. Our mission was simple - create the most collectible item in human history.
SMITH: We figured there's got to be an art to this, right? And in order to pull it off, we need to go through the history of comic book collectibles - a journey with just five stops.
MALONE: So we figured, let us begin with what many say is the most collectible comic book of all time - from 1938, many of you will know - Action Comics #1, aka the one where Superman shows up for the first time. Who knows Action Comics #1?
MALONE: Who owns Action Comics #1?
SMITH: Now, obviously, at first, no one thought of this comic book as a collectible, no more than a daily newspaper was collectible. It's cheap paper. You read it once. You throw it away.
MALONE: And apparently, like 99.95% of all people did exactly that. There were an estimated 200,000 copies of Action Comics #1 printed. There are now maybe 100 left. It cost 10 cents in 1938. A nice copy will run you about $3.2 million today.
SMITH: Yeah. So the number one lesson that we've learned for creating a collectible is that we should make most people throw away the comic book...
SMITH: ...And then wait 80 years and profit.
MALONE: Yes, time and scarcity - that's sort of hard to recreate, I suppose. Not that comic book manufacturers didn't try. And for our next lesson, we jump to the 1970s, when at least one comic book maker started to wonder, what could we do to make comic books special without having to wait 80 years? Collectible item number two - the 1977 KISS comic book.
MALONE: In 1977, the band KISS announced that they were partnering with Marvel to make a KISS comic book in which - I'm going to flip through a little bit - I guess KISS goes to space and gets punched a bunch by Dr. Doom?
SMITH: But what's important for our collectible quest here is the actual production of the comic. You see, KISS had found a printer in Buffalo, N.Y., willing to help them do something very special inside this comic.
MALONE: Yes, and I think we need to just let the 1977 local Buffalo reporter explain this because I swear to you, I've never heard a reporter obviously hate something so much in my entire life.
MIKE HEGEDUS: KISS, I'm told, is a big rock group on some level of music, appealing to that portion of the population that finds its collective voice changing and reads comic books. Speaking of which, KISS is going to have its own comic book soon. To that end, KISS flew into Buffalo today - yes, with a plane - a Brink's truck bringing a little white box in which were four vials of real KISS blood, which were summarily dumped into some printing ink for the old comic book. Isn't that wonderful?
MALONE: You know what? It is freaking wonderful.
MALONE: Blood in the red ink of the KISS comic book because KISS had figured out a way to make a mass-produced commodity but still imbue it with something special.
SMITH: And KISS was right. The blood story was valuable. It imbued this physical object with a real story, which is our second lesson. You can create a collectible by making it part of a myth.
MALONE: Yes, yes. OK, time, scarcity, mythology.
MALONE: All right. Now, maybe you can manufacture a little specialness, which brings us to our third collectible - or rather, collectible moment - that is the '90s comic book bubble.
SMITH: In the 1990s, lots of people started to realize that really old comic books were worth a lot. And so a lot of people started to buy up new comic books, thinking - geniuses - well, I'm just going to put them in this plastic sleeve, put them in a box, put them in the back of my closet, and then someday, I'm going to be rich.
MALONE: Now, the comic book companies, of course, are like, oh, oh, you guys want to invest?
SMITH: Sure, let's do it.
MALONE: Oh, well, lucky for you, we now offer lots of collectible editions. You got the foil one, you got the embossed bumpy one, you got the foil and the embossed one, you got the glow-in-the-dark, you got the hologram, you got the 3D Magic Eye.
MALONE: Now, you can imagine the comic book companies just seeing this and being like, more. We need to make more and more and more. Run the printers, charge more per comic, feed the demand. But then came what some people say was the peak of the collectible bubble - the death of Superman.
MALONE: Oh, that's very good. In 1992, DC Comics announced that they were going to kill Superman in a comic book.
SMITH: And I suspect a number of you remember this because this was front-page news. This was on the evening news. Everyone was like, oh, oh, this is the end of an era. And so many of us had the exact same misinformed thought, which is, well, I missed out on the first Superman comic. I'm sure as hell not going to miss out on the last Superman comic.
MALONE: Yeah. It was not the last Superman comic.
SMITH: It wasn't the last one.
SMITH: Liars. DC sold so many of these. And are all the people who bought them rich today, Kenny?
MALONE: At least somebody on eBay is $10 richer.
MALONE: 'Cause this here is a pristine still-in-the-plastic copy of "The Death Of Superman." Adjusted for inflation, I guess that guy made, like, five bucks.
SMITH: See, the problem with tens of thousands of people all buying comics as investments is the comics aren't actually scarce. And that's the irony of Superman #1. It's collectible because no one collected it.
MALONE: And it's Superman. But sure.
SMITH: Yeah. And so the comic book bubble popped. Sales plummeted. It was very bad for a lot of people.
MALONE: Now, it would be reasonable to look at the '90s nonsense and say, no collectible lessons to be learned here, just companies wringing more money out of everybody. But I was a kid in the '90s. This is my comic book era, and I had no idea that, you know, like, shiny covers and bumpy covers and 3D covers were just a gimmick. I loved them, and I still do. I saved all of them. I collected them. They are collectible to me, even if those gimmicky covers came from a cynical period of collectible comic mayhem.
SMITH: Coming up after the break, things got more cynical and weirdly more worthy of love.
MALONE: You guys like that one? We can do a different one to the break.
SMITH: We can do this one.
MALONE: We can come up with another one.
SMITH: I like the mayhem. I thought about playing on the mayhem one.
SMITH: Coming up after the break...
SMITH: I got nothing. I got nothing.
SMITH: There's a famous story in the collectible world. Around the year 1990, a business executive with a kid was forced to watch his kid's favorite movie over and over again - "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory."
MALONE: And reportedly, one scene in particular really started to get into his brain - this scene.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY")
JULIE DAWN COLE: (As Veruca Salt) I wanted to be the first to find a golden ticket, Daddy.
ROY KINNEAR: (As Mr. Salt) I know, Angel. We're doing the best we can. I've got every girl on the bleeding staff on hunting for you.
COLE: (As Veruca Salt) I want it now.
MALONE: This is, of course, the scene where a factory of people are ripping open chocolate bars, then throwing away the chocolate bars because all anyone cares about anymore is finding a golden ticket.
SMITH: (Singing) I've got a golden ticket.
So our business executive is watching this - an executive who happens to run the Upper Deck trading card company. And he's thinking, (singing) I got a golden ticket. I got a golden ticket.
Wait a minute. We should have a golden ticket somewhere in our pack of baseball cards.
MALONE: Which brings us to collectible number four, Find the Reggie.
SMITH: What this Upper Deck executive does is he gets an enormously famous baseball player named Reggie Jackson, has Reggie sign and hand-number 2,500 cards and then randomly inserts those into packets. And, friends, here tonight...
(SOUNDBITE OF BASEBALL CARDS SHAKING IN WRAPPER)
MALONE: ...An unopened pack of 1990 Find the Reggie Upper Deck cards. When I got this on eBay, I opened it and the smell of, like, childhood gambling just, like...
MALONE: ...Flooded my nostrils. And I was like, oh, [expletive]. This is, like, my thing.
MALONE: Oh, my God. Anyway, OK.
SMITH: He's a super fan. It's true.
MALONE: And, friends, I have purchased an unopened pack. We have it right now. But if we never open it, there always might be a Reggie in here. We could resell this pack. It has some value still.
SMITH: But if we open it, it's probably worth nothing. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it's zero or maybe worth hundreds of dollars - sort of Schrodinger's Reggie.
SMITH: So we're going to put this to a vote. Do we open this and destroy its value?
MALONE: OK. OK. Here we go.
MALONE: All right, here we go. Nope. Nope.
MALONE: Kent. Hrbek. That was a tough one. There are three consonants in a row in that guy's name. Nope. Andy Allanson. Nope. Nope. Nope. Matt Young. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. No. No. No. No golden ticket.
MALONE: This is sad, but it is still thrilling. And we were thinking about, why is this thrilling? It's because I actually do believe that finding a Reggie would be special because, like, Reggie Jackson isn't going to sit there and sign cards for eternity. So it really would have been special for me.
SMITH: So this promotion does very, very well, which brings us to our final, our fifth collectible ploy we can learn from.
MALONE: Baseball card companies - they're like, you guys like autographs on cards in your packs? Well, hold on to your butts. We put Sammy Sosa's sweaty game-used jersey onto a card. We've got Ken Griffey Jr.'s bat - we cut it up into pieces and put it on a card.
SMITH: Which reminds me of, like, a medieval relic, right? It's like a sliver of wood from the "true cross" or Saint Clare's fingernail clippings or Babe Ruth's shirt.
MALONE: Babe Ruth's shirt. We put that on the card.
MALONE: People were mad. There's one quote from the time that's like, what's next, George Washington's Revolutionary War uniform? People loved it, though, because it feels - I don't know. It's proximity. It's like I'm close to this childhood icon of mine, and I really like being able to have this. I don't even really care if I can resell this.
SMITH: But this feeling is exactly what we want to create with the Micro-Face collectibles. It's not about the thing. It's not about the investment. It's not about the experience. It's about this kind of love that Kenny has for an object. So what have we learned? What have we learned so far? Let's do the recap.
SMITH: Classic - a collectible must be truly scarce. Do not accidentally flood the market, like in the 1990s.
MALONE: Yes, but if you do want to push your luck, like, a collectible can be variations on a theme - maybe some fun covers. Like, it's not the end of the world.
SMITH: Yeah. Lesson three - a collectible must contain human blood.
SMITH: That's - no that's...
MALONE: No. That was not the lesson. The lesson was...
SMITH: No, OK. It's fun.
MALONE: ...Must contain a good story.
SMITH: Yeah, good story, part of mythology. Yes, yes, yes.
MALONE: Part of mythology, yes.
SMITH: And finally, a good collectible must bring you proximity, maybe even incorporating real physical items that have some sort of connection to a human being.
MALONE: Which brings us to our final collectible.
MALONE: It is here in this case, the one-of-a-kind Micro-Face: Origins Edition.
MALONE: Now, as part of this live show, we listed this very special edition for sale for $1,943. Any of you could have bought this.
MALONE: Admittedly, we only told you that it is very, very, very special. And yet you did not believe us.
MALONE: None of you bought this.
SMITH: But you're going to be kicking yourself because it is worth way more than that $1943. Kenny, show them what they get.
MALONE: All right. For the first time ever, we will reveal.
AMANDA ARONCZYK, BYLINE: And from the briefcase beamed, a brilliant light, for PLANET MONEY had created a Micro-Face collectible comic so perfect, so singular, so complicated that Robert and Kenny are going to have to cut in here and explain everything.
SMITH: And here we are.
MALONE: Yes. OK. Because what we had created and what we revealed to the audience that evening was a single Micro-Face comic book to which we had attempted to apply every single lesson from collectibles history.
SMITH: This, folks, is the whole megillah, if that's what you say.
SMITH: It has lesson one. Like in the 1990s, we wanted an alternative collectible cover.
MALONE: So we secretly made a completely different version of our same comic book with a totally different cover that is also embossed, a little fancy and bumpy. And this edition comes with a real piece of the hand-drawn original comic book art by our illustrator Jamal Igle.
SMITH: But that's not all...
SMITH: ...As they say. The next lesson - incorporate real cut-up pieces of stuff - you know, like jerseys and bats - to create the sense of proximity.
MALONE: Yes, but what is the podcast version of a jersey or bat, we wondered. Cut up a microphone, staple the shirt Robert was wearing to a comic book? No?
SMITH: I love that shirt. But then we remembered, the way we introduced our Micro-Face character to the world was with a little radio drama in which our hero received a mysterious super suit from his grandfather. Here's a little clip from that drama.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
DANNY RIVERO, BYLINE: (As Sam Salazar) It says it's from my grandpa. He's been dead for 10 years.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As courier) I don't know what to tell you, kid.
(SOUNDBITE OF MASK BEING UNCOVERED)
RIVERO: It's some kind of a mask.
MALONE: Yes. OK. Now, that mask, sound effect, the one that that sounds like this...
(SOUNDBITE OF MASK BEING UNCOVERED)
MALONE: ...We improvised this sound effect using, like, a random vinyl bag that I stole from my parents' attic.
SMITH: And we were like, great. That's memorabilia. That'll work.
MALONE: Yeah. So OK, I enlisted my quilter mother to cut that vinyl bag into little squares.
MALONE: Yes, indeed. And then we very artfully attached a little square to our special edition book. And then, like Find the Reggie, we hand-numbered, signed and authenticated the little square - boom - certified pod-used material.
SMITH: But we had to make sure this was truly scarce.
SMITH: Like, how do we prove we won't just flood the market with lots of comic books covered in special little fabric squares?
MALONE: We did have lots of leftover fabric, so we figured there was only one way to create real scarcity here.
I think this - I hope this doesn't go up too fast.
We lit a fire in the backyard, and then we burned the leftover podcast-used material.
Whoa. Step back. Step back.
Real scarcity - that's how you get it.
MALONE: Oh, and then, inspired by the band Kiss, I did take the fiery ashes from our burned prop Micro mask...
Ow. It's still hot, still hot, still hot.
And then poured those ashes into red ink, which I then painted onto a small section of the comic book.
It looks better than you would think, Robert.
SMITH: (Laughter) There was one more thing we wanted to do, or specifically a person that we needed to call.
PEGGY LOUCKS: OK. I put you on speaker. That's better.
MALONE: I think that's OK. Yeah.
Peggy Loucks, daughter of the original Micro-Face creator Allen Ulmer. Her dad created Micro-Face back in the 1940s - one of his favorite characters, according to Peggy.
SMITH: And Peggy told us she didn't have any copies of that original Micro-Face book from 1943. They're pretty hard to find at this point. They're kind of like the Babe Ruth jersey of Micro-Face.
LOUCKS: Oh, oh, oh, oh. What is this?
MALONE: We did - we were able to find a real original 1943...
MALONE: ...Micro-Face comic book - like, the very first Micro-Face.
MALONE: And it was a little bit in shambles, so it was kind of coming apart. But that is a real 1943 Micro-Face page.
LOUCKS: I just - well, I'm sure I will think of more things to say. Right now I'm really, like - it's not me to be almost speechless.
MALONE: That is my experience, yes. That's right.
LOUCKS: Oh, thank you. Thank you.
SMITH: Now, Peggy gets to keep that page, but there is one other pristine comic book page. That is part of our collectible Micro-Face comic book - a real page from the real original 1943 Micro-Face book that happens to be shared with the real Micro-Face creator's daughter.
MALONE: OK. So our super collectible edition of the Micro-Face comic book has a variant cover embossed, with original artist pencils, with signed, numbered and certified Micro mask podcast-used material, the excess of which was burned to ensure scarcity, the ashes of which were poured into red ink to create a weird mythology, plus an original 1943 Micro-Face premiere page, all carefully packed inside foam inside a custom briefcase.
SMITH: (Laughter) This is the result of weeks and weeks of work - mostly Kenny's work.
MALONE: It was maybe not the best use of time. That might be true.
SMITH: And yet, there was still one more thing Kenny added. You know those greeting cards where you open them up and they sing happy birthday to you? Well, Kenny found a place that sells cards that says whatever you want, and then he somehow rigged that card into this special comic book. And you know what? We're just going to go back to the live show and let you hear how this played out on stage.
MALONE: If you open this book up to the magical right page - don't fail me now, Micro-Face.
MALONE: (As Micro-Face) Crime can blame none but itself...
UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER #2: Oh, wow.
MALONE: ...For its most dreaded menace, Micro-Face.
But you, collector, can thank yourself for obtaining this one-of-a-kind comic book.
MALONE: You own one of one, Micro-Face: Origins Edition.
SMITH: So obviously, the greatest collectible of all time - but what is it worth? What is it worth? At this point, it's worth zero...
SMITH: ...Because nobody paid for it, right?
SMITH: But what will it be worth? Will be worth millions? It will - I will say there is this weird beauty to this project and all of the work that you've put into it.
MALONE: Thank you. I just want to hold it while we do this ending.
SMITH: So if you think about it, like a year ago, we set out on this huge artistic project, right? - you know, making a comic book. And we brought together some of the best comic book artists and storytellers, some pretty good radio folks. And it always felt like an artistic endeavor. But then all that work went into making a commodity, right? - a mass-produced book that we will almost certainly keep printing until it is worth nothing. So - but with this collector's edition, we've now spent all of this work and time - mostly Kenny - wrestling back just a little bit of the artistic originality. So this is truly one of one. It's a work of art.
MALONE: Yeah, Robert. Maybe it doesn't matter if we ever sell this book.
SMITH: No. We're totally going to sell it. We've got to sell it. It's the mission.
MALONE: Starting today - not today, but when the podcast airs...
SMITH: For the podcast, yeah.
MALONE: Starting today, this collector's edition of Micro-Face is officially available for auction.
SMITH: Let the market decide. You can head over to npr.org/superhero for details.
MALONE: That's right. Music would probably start here, too. Let me put this back 'cause I don't want to sit on it again.
SMITH: This has been our live episode of PLANET MONEY. And we're serious. Our one-of-a-kind origins edition of our Micro-Face comic book is now up for auction - all of that stuff and the briefcase. The details are at npr.org/superhero.
MALONE: The auction will be live for exactly one week. So do not dillydally if you're interested. And also, I know the list of things we did to make that comic book is huge, but we didn't even mention all of them. If you want to see the full rundown, again, you can head over to npr.org/superhero.
SMITH: This live episode was produced by Willa Rubin, edited by Molly Messick and Jess Jiang. It was engineered by Gilly Moon and Isaac Rodrigues. PLANET MONEY's executive producer is Alex Goldmark.
MALONE: Special thanks to Devin Miller and to our friends over at NPR's live events team, Devon Williams and Gianna Capadona, and to Jessica Goldstein and Joanna Pawlowska, who also helped edit this show. We truly, truly could not have done this without you all.
SMITH: And, of course, a very, very, very special thanks to our Brooklyn Roulette audience. Thank you all so much.
SMITH: And I'm Robert Smith. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.
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