Comic Book Resources

I remember they charged $20 for a flimsy, sloppily-bound softcover of "52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen" with no extras.

I don't think you can justify that even from the looniest marketing perspective.

The 52 Aftermath: The Four Horseman trade has the same issue count as the Batman Confidential trade, Chris (six issues long).

I'll have to see it, but as I recall there was a lot of buzz around that book at one time or another. I don't think anybody really gave a patoot about the Four Horsemen. I"m not talking so much about content as I am the quality of how the book was put together.

I think if Marvel can put out an X-Factor trade with phenomenal binding and absolutely wonderful paper for fifteen bucks-and as I recall, X-Factor isn't selling too well either-I'm just saying I wouldn't pay more than 13.99 for the Four Horsemen trade they put out.

I wonder what drives companies to price things certain ways. I mean, aside from the "popularity tax"(I really dig that term, by the way).

In other words, DC appears to figure out a price that people will pay, and charges it, with content being a secondary consideration - “People seem willing to spend about $20 for a book, so let’s try to make most of the books about $20.”

I'm not sure you haven't got that backwards (or at least partly). Sometimes, I think their thinking is "The demand for this book is going to be small so the only way we can make the TPB profitable is to up the price", which suggests that maybe the alternative in those cases is no TPB at all.

Generally the obviously popular books from DC tend to be quite reasonably prices. (This is my own observation and the facts might not actually back this up)

That is certainly an idea that comes up often with sales a lot, Dan, and might come into play on some trades, but for the most part, I do not believe it is the driving force at DC.

They really seem to have zeroed in on "people will pay about $20, so let's charge about $20, the page count is not a big deal, unless it's around 200 pages."

To wit,

Justice Society of America Vol. 1 HC has 144 pages and was $20.

Justice Society of America Vol. 2 HC has 160 pages and was $20.

Justice League of America Vol. 3 HC has 144 pages and was $20.

Justice League of America Vol. 4 HC has 128 pages and is $20.

“People seem willing to spend about $20 for a book, so let’s try to make most of the books about $20.”

So that's why the stories have gone from your traditional 6 issue arc, down to 5 and in some cases 4!
I was wondering what the deal was, you know... 'cause I wasn't expecting the reason to be something practical like wanting "the monthlies" to be reader friendly, and/or not trying to stretch out a story for half-a-year.

My problem with DC is the lousy paper they are using in some HCs. I mean, if the paper is no better than the regular comic, why spend 20 bucks on an All-Star Superman book?

And don't start me with the Kirby Omnibus. 50 bucks for souped-up NEWSPRINT?!?

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

Those Sinestro Corp's hardcovers were a rip off.

As well as Justice

Yeah, I saw the Justice Hardcovers. I can't believe they can get away with a lower printed quality on a hardcover than they have on the monthlies.

I’m not sure you haven’t got that backwards (or at least partly). Sometimes, I think their thinking is “The demand for this book is going to be small so the only way we can make the TPB profitable is to up the price”, which suggests that maybe the alternative in those cases is no TPB at all.

I don't know about the comics world, but when I worked for a small retailer in another sector there was a lot of research that showed people were more likely to spend in certain amounts. As such our pricing changed to reflect those amounts, in an attempt to gain extra sales. DC may have hit on the same process here--people may just be drawn to the $19.99 price point.

I'm drawn more to the $9.99 price point, personally. I really liked when they were trying to push good, but low-selling titles by publishing a quick trade and pricing it at 10 bucks. They did this with a couple of titles. Gotham Central and Losers are two I can think of off the top of my head. Of course, some of those series didn't follow up too well. If I remember correctly, they rushed out the first GC trade only to drag their feet on the second. I guess they thought I was going to rush out to pick up the monthly. They thought wrong. Instead, I didn't buy anything past the first trade.

At least if Marvel is asking more for the popular titles that follows the law of supply and demand. If, as was suggested, DC asked more for a book BECAUSE demand was expected to be SMALL, that is contrary to that law.

RJ : you have to remember that production costs are a factor. If they are expecting a large demand the book will have a larger print run, reducing costs, thereby allowing them to reduce the price.

But if they then price it higher than I feel like paying, I don't buy a copy and it goes unsold. I really can't take responsibility for their publishing costs. I don't require glossy (is it still called "Hudson"?) paper. I'll settle for Mando to keep the price down.

And I don't like hardcovers either, honestly.

Hardcovers are great on the shelf, but reading a comic in that format isn't very fun, since you "lose" some of the art down the page join. It's not easy to translate staple-bound art into a squarebound format without something looking weird as a result.

The increasing (or changing) price of collections is affecting me recently. It looks like some collections are starting to be priced at $17.99 MSRP and that's honestly dissuading me from purchasing them. One example is recent Wildstorm books (such as Welcome to Tranquility) with the standard 144 page count.

Eric P., you're looking at the INEXPENSIVE books. It gets MUCH worse.

Honest question (although it sounds snarky):

Does no one here take advantage of buying online? When I pre-order one of these HCs from my online shop, they're usually 40-50% off.

Similar prices if you go to Amazon.

I find it hard to complain about these prices when after I do the math, I sometimes get a better deal than if I bought single issues. I think the Sinestro War HCs ended up being about 12 bucks a piece. Same thing with Justice.

So that’s why the stories have gone from your traditional 6 issue arc, down to 5 and in some cases 4!

Since when has a six issue arc been 'traditional'?

If I remember correctly, they rushed out the first GC trade only to drag their feet on the second. I guess they thought I was going to rush out to pick up the monthly. They thought wrong. Instead, I didn’t buy anything past the first trade.

If they rushed it out, they probably had to wait for more issues to be made to collect in the second.
Or the trade didn't sell to well, as the series never did, and so they waited until they thought they could sell more.

Either way, trades for every arc in the series are out now.

But if they then price it higher than I feel like paying, I don’t buy a copy and it goes unsold.

I suspect that books generally have a certain amount of people who'll buy it whatever the cost and then a load more who'll buy it if the price is good. Obviously what DC have to work out is what point the ratio of those two is and therefore whether they'd get more money by decreasing the price to get more sales or increasing the price and just getting the hardcore fans.

There's always been a similar pricing problem with "normal" mainstream novels... Go to any bookshelf (in fiction at least - non-fiction has it's own laws) pick a slim (half-inch thick) novel and another twice as thick (inch thick) and turn them over. 99.9% of the time they are the same price... Publishers will argue that the number of pages doesn't make a difference, the cost arises from all sorts of other sources... like distribution, marketing, etc...

Since when has a six issue arc been ‘traditional’?

Wait, I know the answer to this one! ...since Bendis started writing comics?!??!!?

¡SCORE!

IIRC it came from Bill Jemas.

I think it was him I read in an interview saying that audiences didn't like shorter trades and they would lose interest in a comic if there were more than 6 months between trades, so he felt that 6 issues was the optimum.

Personally I'd be happier if they settled around the 8-12 issue range.

(but not necessarily just holding one arc)