Sunday, August 15, 2021

The Comic-Book Bag and Board Shortage is a Real Pain

Oftentimes people will store their comics in a, "Bag and board." It is a piece of treated cardboard within a plastic sleeve you can slide your comic into. It helps keep it a bit safer than just having your book sitting out in the elements or getting all smooshed up in a box. There are various kinds of bags and boards with some being a bit fancier, but basically, any bag and board is better to have than nothing. Hence, my immense annoyance at how there has been a shortage of bags and boards nationwide.

COVID-19 brought shortages to lots of things. We all remember how every couple of months toilet paper would vanish from the shelves. This lack of bags and boards seemed to creep up slowly, however. It seems with everyone locked up in their homes more it inspired folks to buy a lot of bags and boards so they could put some fresh ones on their comic collections or for all the comics they were buying while at home (as we know, the comic market has gone pretty crazy in 2020 and 2021). As we hit the end of 2020 the manufacturers of bags and boards were announcing big backorders and stores were finding themselves running out of bags and boards to put their comics in. It is the Summer of 2021 and this shortage is only getting worse.

If you really need bags and boards you can find them at a hefty mark-up on sites like eBay or you have to hope that your store will be getting some more in as companies rush to try and fulfill the big orders from comic shops. It is a real pain to be paying out the nose for bags and boards but hopefully, in a few months the supply will catch up with the demand and this will all be resolved.

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