The Comic Book Bubble

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the comic book industry found itself in a giant collectors boom. Old, vintage comics were now worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, and people started looking at comics just as much as investments as sources of pleasure.

However, as the number of collectors and investors grew, so did production. It wasn’t before long that the bottom fell out, and the golden years of making money in comics ended. The comic book bubble officially burst in 1997, when even giant comic publishers declared bankruptcy.

The Comic Book Bubble game reboots comic book investment in the modern era using actual comic covers by publisher Red 5 Comics. Are you savvy enough to make money in that same industry before the bubble bursts?

The Comic Book Bubble casts players as comic investors. The game board represents the market. The genre tokens move around the board; their order is referenced with the year on the genre board to find the purchase price and the sell price for comics.

Each card represents a comic book issue. The row of genre icons on the left of each card indicate the cost to purchase the comic as well as the money you’ll get when selling it from your catalog.

At the start of each turn, players select one comic card from their hand, then simultaneous place it on one of the three actions for that turn – Buy, Super Power, or Speculate. The Buy action lets you add that card to your collection for the current market price. Super Power performs the action on the bottom of the card. Speculate adjusts the tokens on the genre board. Any players that didn’t buy a comic may sell one comic for the current price.

The player with the most money after four years wins!

Each card represents a different comic from publisher Red 5 Comics.

Players, Ages & Time

The Comic Book Bubble can be played by 1-5 players, ages 10+ in about 45 minutes.

1-5 players
ages 10+45 minutes

Scott Almes | Game Designer

Hello everybody! My name is Scott Almes, your friendly neighborhood designer of APE Games’ title, The Comic Book Bubble. I’m very excited to be following up my first game with APE Games, The Great Dinosaur Rush, with this awesome production.

A bit about me: I live in Pittsburgh with my wonderful wife. I found comics later in life, but dove in hard and am always looking for new series or standalones to explore. Through game design, I love to explore my other hobbies – and comics are no exception. I hope you’ll enjoy this playful take on a crazy time in comic history!”

Red 5 Comics

Comic Publisher – Houston, TX

Red 5 Comics creates and produces cinematic-style comic book entertainment. It earned the 2007 Gem Award for Best New Publisher and its titles have been nominated for three Eisner Awards and two Harvey Awards.

Red 5 Comics was founded by Paul Ens, former Director of Lucasfilm’s Lucas Online, and Scott Chitwood, co-founder of TheForce.net and writer for Superherohype.com and ComingSoon.Net. Red 5 Comics is published by Paul Ens, Scott Chitwood, Dave Zeibart and Joshua Starnes.