Deep dive: Unpredictability, not the find, makes comic book back issue bins irresistible

If you’re the right kind of geek, there’s a good chance you’ve spent some time lately rooting through comic book back issue bins.

Calgary Expo and Free Comic Book Day are just freshly behind us.

Maybe you were hoping the next flip would bring you a particular something on your list for a mere dollar or two.

Maybe a successful dive through the cheap reads means getting exactly issues 520 and 521 of Journey Into Mystery.

Or maybe you were flipping aimlessly, and it was by the Comic Book Gods’ good grace you hit on the “fear-filled final issues” of that specific Marvel Comics series that someone else either didn’t want anymore or couldn’t sell at face value.

It was a rescue mission, regardless.

How comic book collectors approach it is what can vary, says Bill Bateman from Alpha Comics in Calgary.

“While some are looking for anything to fill in the blanks in their collections, others are looking for that elusive rare book that may have been missed by the store,” Bateman told CTV News.

“Some people show up with a binder of notes showing what they’re missing, (while) some have apps on their phones that do the job a lot faster, and some just know all of the books well enough.”

A comic book pro’s own expeditions

At events like Calgary Expo, comic book artist Tom Grummett might be spotted at the back issue bins himself.

The longtime comics professional is also a longtime comics reader.

Grummett says if he needs some time to stretch his legs during days spent sitting at his booth, he’s “still looking for a few things to fill out the collection.”

“I come away more or less empty-handed because there really is never enough time,” he said.

“I could spend hours going through those long boxes, (but) it would try everyone’s patience if I actually did that.

“Every once in a while, though, I do find a gem!”

Psychology of comic book bin diving

Rhiannon Mesler says comic book bin diving “runs on the same machinery that powers a slot machine.”

Likewise, the University of Lethbridge marketing professor and expert in consumer behaviour and decision-making says, “the same machinery social media platforms have spent fifteen years optimizing.”

“What makes it irresistible isn’t the find. It’s the unpredictability,” she says.

“Neuroscientists have shown that the brain’s dopamine system fires hardest not when reward arrives, but when reward arrives unexpectedly.

“And that the dopamine signal actually peaks when the odds are roughly 50-50, when you genuinely don’t know whether the next comic in the box is going to be ‘The One.’”

Mesler says online platforms like eBay haven’t killed this because they “solved the wrong problem.”

“EBay optimizes for finding,” she says.

“Bin diving is about seeking, wherein the friction is the feature.

“Strip it away, and you remove the very experience that makes the find feel earned.”

Grummett has zero interest in taking his hunts into that digital realm.

“(The bins are) way more fun than looking it up online and ordering it,” he says.

“It’s the thrill of the hunt.”

As a seller of comic books, Bateman says he loses a certain human element, too, if the hunt isn’t taking place in his physical space.

He says the magic is in seeing parents bringing their kids in for the first time.

For him, it’s the kid who’s just starting up their collecting hobby.

And rooting through comic book back issue bins for the first time.

“They look so fish-out-of-water when they start and get happier as they find stuff,” Bateman says.

“The other folks that collect are usually pretty chill, and you know the magic for them is hidden away until they get home to put that last book in the box.”

A rescue mission, regardless

Grummett says more than a few people who wouldn’t have been alive when some of his comics were released somehow find those issues and bring them up to him at conventions.

Mid-1990s issues of Superboy or Robin, rescued by today’s teens from comic book back issue bins.

“I’ll sign them—happily,” he says.