I think the decreased amount of art being purchased has more to with the sunk cost of just going to SDCC, as well as more and more popular artists skipping SDCC altogether. When going to SDCC has you committing 1K (generalizing, of course you can do it for a bit less with some extreme budgeting and luck) before you get in the door.
That's not even getting into the cost of commissioning art to begin with, which I believe has dropped a bit compared to five years ago, if you are a discriminating shopper. It's still expensive nonetheless.
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