Comic Book Resources

Regular page counts? But 32 is more than 22….

I’m glad somebody finally noticed…

Rich – that’s 32 pages including ads.

Rich, the page count in the solicitations includes the adverts. 32 pages is a standard length.

Yup! I’ve been talking about this with Augie & friends over on the Pipeline board:

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=246359

i guess they’ll find out if comic fans are recession proof.

Alarming Cutbacks in the Dan Bailey Pull List.

Could it have something to do with The Hulk being in the red?
(Ahem. Sorry.)

I’ve noticed that Marvel’s limited series’ have been $3.99 despite not having any extra content for a while now, and due to that have stopped buying Marvel limited series. They start doing it with their regular comics, too, then I just won’t be buying marvel at all any more. $4.00 for a 5 minute read is not worth my money. $3.00 is already enough of a stretch.

Driving home from work last night, I had NPR on the radio & heard an economist talking about how the fact that many prices are falling could be both good & bad for the businesses & consumers in question.

Looks like THAT’s a bullet Marvel & the like will be dodging …

Like anyone needed more reasons not to buy The Hulk and Dark Avengers.

Really, I’m fine if they do that with their top 10 ranke dbooks, things like Uncanny and New Avengers and Hulk that are going to sell anyway. They ought to keep their more marginal titles at less, though I suppose the logic could be completely reversed on that too.

What bothers me is that in attempting to keep the ending to “Secret Invasion” under wraps, they’re asking people to pay more money with little to no idea what they’re even paying extra for!

This is all becuase of the fear of nonround numbers. Woudl anyone complain if a $3 book went up to a Walmarty $3.10? Or $3.22? Nope. But as soon as comics hit a quarter, then $0.50, then $75, then $1.00, it was a quarter-sized expansion. We saw fifty-cent increments of expansion, and now it’s a full dollar.

The bete noire of pricing-model arguments says that as a product gets less popular, prices should INCREASE, so that the few remaining brand stalwarts make up for the sunny-day fans who have jumped ship. Looking at things from a 10-year POV, that seems to be the case.

Final thought: how is my pull list like John McCain? When we heard about the economic crisis, we both dropped everything.

Yeah, this can be seen at random intervals through the publishing schedule already. Punisher War Journal this week was $3.99 for no discernible reason, as was the atrocious Ghost Boxes a couple weeks ago.

Has anyone noticed that trade paperback prices seem to be going up too?
The Captain Britan and MI:13 trade costs SEVENTEEN DOLLARS for FOUR ISSUES
It would have cost TWELVE dollars to buy in singles, right?
Usually trades are at least a little cheaper than the singles.
Charging an extra five bucks after a 6 month wait seems pretty crazy.

Dan,
Is that for the “Trade Paperback” or the “Premier Hardcover”??

Either way, for once I’m glad that I bought the original comics…

Guess this means I won’t be buying Dark Avengers or Hulk.

Wasn’t planning on getting Hulk either, but Dark Avengers looked interesting.

Captain Britain is $10 at Amazon with a price of $15 before the discount, I guess it depends where you’re buying it from though.

“Really, I’m fine if they do that with their top 10 ranke dbooks, things like Uncanny and New Avengers and Hulk that are going to sell anyway. They ought to keep their more marginal titles at less, though I suppose the logic could be completely reversed on that too.”

Yeah, I look at it the reverse. I can understand when prices are raised on marginal-selling books, if it’s a question of raising the price or cancelling the book altogether. Frankly, that’s why Dynamo 5 is $3.50. If we priced it any less, we couldn’t do the book. But raising the prices on books that are in NO DANGER of not selling is hard to swallow. But then again, if those raised prices help subsidize marginal sellers, I guess it all evens out.

I predict illegal torrent downloading will skyrocket.

But then again, if those raised prices help subsidize marginal sellers, I guess it all evens out.

This is the strategy that keeps jazz music recordings alive. The sales of the Justin Timberlakes of the world basically subsidize niche markets like jazz.

Bah, this is crap. I get that they need to make money, but raising the prices on their top books doesn’t seem to make sense to me, at least not based on how price increases usually occur. I already stopped collecting all the mini series because of the increase (though based on the Captain Britian example, trades may not be the way to go, either). I think I will end up swithcing to trades and ordering all of them from DCBS or someone for a much cheaper price.

Marvel’s prices have been driving me nuts for a good while, now.

When the Canadian dollar approached par – and briefly exceeded the US Dollar – every other company apparently decided the few pennies difference wasn’t worth the effort, and synchronized the prices. Marvel didn’t. (Granted, for most of that time the difference has been close to the actual conversion, but being the only company that actually bothers with different prices just seems petty.)

Even now that there’s a pretty good difference again (last I checked we were back down to 80 cents), DC, IDW, and Dabel Brothers (the three non-Marvel companies I have recent books from handy) have the US and Canadian prices the same.

I can tell you that I won’t be purchasing comics at $4, and many others will follow suit. This could be the end of the industry, especially one struggling to keep sales up.

I did note that the Air comics series from DC has gone back to using cheaper paper. It doesn’t work badly at all, and I would prefer comics on that paper if it would keep the prices down.

We’re all going to be the losers in this game. Many people walk into comics shops with their children and buy nothing because they see the prices are too high already. Wake up, Marvel & DC!

(Did anyone notice that the ridiculous Franklin Richards comic that just came out was also $4!)

By the way, consider signing the petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/comicscosttoomuch/

Talking about subsidising the line, surely Marvel’s recent movie profits should help them LOWER their comic prices against DC and thereby grab a larger share of the sales??

I will cut my books back to only those that I’ve been reading consistently for a long time (Ult Spider-Man, Walking Dead, Daredevil, New Avengers, BPRD, Jonah Hex, & Hellboy) and scrap the fringe books. Anything new with a $3.99 tag I will pass, except if it is deeply discounted on DCBS. My local library system is fantastic, I still meet my reading needs through that avenue and I may switch to TPB (if cheaper) on a few titles.

Ironically, I can pick up many older comics online for less than the new books. This is worthwhile especially if the comic was never collected in a TPB. I’ve also been allocating my money towards filling my silver and bronze age collection in lieu of the newer comics.

If they move to a $4 base price, I will drop all my Marvel but X-Factor and Guardians of the Galaxy and just go for the $60 yearly sub to Marvel Unlimited. DC, not having an online option, would see a little less of a drop from me, but I’d still cut the hell back, as there is a very limited number of books I’m willing to pay more than $3 on.

Yeah, as a trade-waiter, I was pretty pissed at the price on that Captain Britain trade. Pissed enough that I posted on Paul Cornell’s blog about it, calling it gouging by Marvel. He didn’t seem to feel that anything can be considered gouging in today’s global financial state. I strongly disagree.

My only hope is that they screwed up on the page count and it’s actually the first six issues, not just four. That would put it in line with other collections coming out that same month, like Nova vol. 3, with six issues for $16.99. We’ll see.

“Rich – that’s 32 pages including ads.”

Thanks to Anthony and Paul for pointing that out!

I’ll definitely be cutting back more on principle than anything else. After the crap both Marvel and DC have pulled over the past couple weeks (I’m looking at you, Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes and Kingdom Come Special: Superman), neither company deserves to start charging $3.99 for a “regular” book. And Marvel, you’ll be feeling the hit first, as over the past few weeks you’ve put out next-to-nothing of interest. Also, both of you? I’ll be putting a moratorium on “event” books. I’ll most likely be able to borrow them in trade from my local library, FOR FREE!

There was an interview with Joe Q. I think from ComicCon earlier this year and he stated that he’s trying to keep all the main titles at $2.99, but with anything new coming out in 2009 ( or Limited Series titles) will automatically be at the new $3.99 price point (why not $3.50 and ease us in…?)

With DCBS’s regular 40% discount price, a $3.99 book is now $2.39 (instead of the $1.79 for a $2.99 comic.) Still, buying 10 comics at 2.39 does saves you more than $16 of the regular cover price. This price increase will mainly hurt the LCS’s as more people drop titles and go online.

Wish I owned a site similar to DCBS; they will easily be getting more customers (more business) once the price increase hits next year.

It’s kind of sleazy how marvel is trying to slip 4 dollar books past us. It’s like they’re trying to soften us up to the idea, and want to keep bumping the price of more titles until they sense that we’re going to flinch. I say we more than flinch.

By the way, consider signing the petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/comicscosttoomuch

Nothing’s going to convince them as strongly as simply not buying the books. If a ton of people sign the petition but the books sell, it won’t make a difference.

I hadn’t decided on Dark Avengers yet, but I will be passing based on that price point. What I think is worse though is that the final issues of both Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men are both $3.99 for only 32 pages. That is simply a kick in the balls to any loyal readers who have collected from the beginning. Marvel’s arrogance is putting me off them more and more each day.

I bet that all that happens is new books will struggle to find an audience, and the consistent top-sellers will continue to sell to the diehard fanboys.

In other words, I bet nothing changes.

To quote Senator Clay Davis, of The Wire:

“Shhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit.”

I agree with Jeff Ryan. What’s wrong with a $3.25 price point? Or $3.45? I jump of a dollar is a 33% increase. That’s a huge bump in price. Comics are already a more costly entertainment option than movies or video games, if you factor in the amount of time you get for your dollar. It seems like the comic companies have just decided that the comic buying fanbase is going to keep shrinking and shrinking, so they might as well milk every last dime they can out of us before we’re all gone. Seems like if they could parlay some of the attention from the numerous popular movies, tv shows, and video games based on comics into more people buying comics, then they wouldn’t have to pull stuff like this.

And I know this is somewhat of a different conversation here, but there’s no reason for comic readership to be dropping. People are still interested in the characters and stories. Kids still like comics. This Halloween I gave trick or treaters the option of getting candy or a comic book, and over half picked a comic. And it was pretty evenly split between boys and girls choosing the comics. If American comic companies are losing readers and not able to sell to kids it’s because of horrible marketing and distribution on their part. Do something about that, and you’ll increase your profits long term, as opposed to the short term gain they’ll get from raising their prices.

Could it have something to do with The Hulk being in the red?

*claps*

[...] Alarming Prices in the February Solicitations [...]

Don’t forget to mention New Avengers #50:

48 PGS./Rated A …$4.99

Yeah…I’m pretty sure that should usually be 3.99….

Geez. A whole dollar bump? Time to cut back on my monthly titles. Going to drop at least 5 out of my regular 14, then. I’ve got one new series I’m planning on picking up next year and this will not make me happy, but other titles will have to go. This is getting ridiculous, the economy will not support this. I sure won’t.

Blackjac, Marvel’s movies profits are seperate from the publishing division. each division whether publishing or film has to make its own profit. as far as price increases go, i dont like it but i accept it as a fact of life.

coming from the business world i know that 99% of the time, companies will not raise prices unless they feel its necessary in fear of driving consumers away.

One option to avoid the price increase (and even save over current prices) would be to subscribe through Marvel. Most titles are $24/year, or $20 if you already subscribe to one. The downside is that delivery can be erratic—I’ve received comics as much as a week early and as much as three weeks late, with normal delivery time being within a day or two of street date—and the possibility of comics being damaged in the post. But getting comics for less than $2, as opposed to $4 each, isn’t a bad deal.

“…subscribe through Marvel. Most titles are $24/year…”

And the subscription prices will be going up, too. It’s inevitable.

Elongo, companies might usually try to avoid raising prices due to possibly driving customers away, but that doesn’t mean when prices are raised they have no other choice. I’m a salesman. My salary is 100% commission based. And I know from experience that one very viable, and usually preferable, option to raising your prices is to increase your volume of sales at existing or even lower prices. That’s what the comic companies should be trying to do. Stop depending on the hardcore 100k or so fans that are left and try to branch out to the huge market that watches the movies and tv shows or reads manga. As I said before, raising prices is a short term fix, that will hurt them in the long run. That hardcore 100k fans will shrink to a hardcore 60k, and then a hardcore 30k, until there aren’t any hardcore left. New readers are what’s needed to keep comics alive.

Elongo, “the business world” is rather large, diverse, and full of mistakes. Having been involved with Chartered Accountants, Management Consultants, Publishing, Lawyers, and currently being employed in the Investment Banking industry, the view that you are suggesting Marvel takes is the view that led to the collapse of companies like Lehman Brothers (and don’t forget, Marvel has filed for bankruptcy before).

Jazzbo has the right idea. Marvel actually need to LOWER prices. They need to have what are called “loss-leaders”. Comics that ARE funded by the huge profit made by movies like Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk.

A dozen years ago, the accountancy firm that I was working in refused to order new PCs for the accounts department. Despite the PCs being five years old and technically write-offs, the argument from on-high was “Your department doesn’t generate any revenue!”…

Our response? “We are the accounts department. Without us you won’t know if you have ANY revenue…”
A week later we had brand new PCs.

A few years later the presentations department at a leading investment bank appeared to be costing more than the average similar department at a rival institution. The department was outsourced. Rates and working conditions were changed to a lower-cost structure to save money. Good operators left. Cheap inexperienced ones arrived. One year later, the bank had fallen an average of six places on all the relevant league tables. They weren’t winning as many pitches, because the quality of their presentations were below par.

Marvel needs to say, “Our movies are more profitable than our comics, but our comics inspire and lead teh decisions on which movies to make. Therefore, the movies need the comics to stay alive and need them to be read by more people. Ergo, the movies need to subsidise the comics in order for BOTH to survive…”

Thankfully, I happen to work for a small firm where experienced, intelligent support staff are actually valued and recognised as contributing to the overall whole. Sadly this is NOT the norm, though, as I have worked at far too many places where they would rather sack 20 people on 30k, just to keep one person’s 500k annual bonus, and the next year wonder why they are working even harder, longer hours for an even smaller bonus…

That hardcore 100k of fans that Jazzbo mentions, by the way? For a reminder of how much of a niche market comics are, the current estimated population of the US is over 300,000,000. Add into that the population of Canada (over 30,000,000), the UK (just below 60,000,000) and for good measure, Australia, (over 20,000,000) and you have a total of 410,000,000 people. That 100,000 hardcore? Less than 1%. 1 in 4,100 in fact. Now go and look at some box office figures around the world…

Is it wrong that I don’t care if the books I don’t buy skyrocket so long as the ones I do buy do not?

I do have to say, if they up the price more I’m going to have to cut back majorly.
Then again, on the plus side, it seems like Marvel and DC are helping me out on that, most of my fave titles either get canceled or lowered in quality.

Is it wrong that I don’t care if the books I don’t buy skyrocket so long as the ones I do buy do not?

Not wrong, but possibly short-sighted. I guess the best to hope for is that everyone stops buying the $4 books sending a clear message to Marvel that they can’t sell them at that price.

“I guess the best to hope for is that everyone stops buying the $4 books sending a clear message to Marvel that they can’t sell them at that price.”

Is it even possible to send that message “clearly” though? I’m 100% in favor of voting with my wallet, and I agree the only way any publisher is going to care about our reaction to these changes is if the money doesn’t come in…but is it even possible for the publisher to know WHY we’re dropping a title?

I mean, if Marvel notices a drop in the sales of a book, how do they know to what to attribute it? Is it the increase in price? The creative team? A plot point? The lack or presence of an event tie-in? Anyone could decide not to purchase a book for any of those reason, but how does Marvel know for which reason the numbers are dropping? It isn’t like there’s any exit polling for dropped books…

Do we just have to hope that when the new price point rolls out, enough people drop enough books that specific month to send the message that the changing price accounts for the sudden drop in sales? How likely is that to happen, when most likely, books’ numbers will decline steadily over a long period of time as people adjust to the new price and make cuts accordingly?

For me, it’s not just about the money – it’s the lack of quality in the comics I read. I find myself questioning more and more the amount of money I am spending for what I am getting in return. $4 for something that takes me 10 minutes to read just doesn’t seem like a good value….

And if a bunch of folks stop buying comics, how will there be trades to collect??

My thoughts are that the big two, DC and Marvel, will solicit the monthlies as on-line issues and discontinue publishing the pamphlets (or cut back to a much smaller production rate). I think they will collect the on-line issues into trade paperbacks. Any thoughts to this theory?

And if a bunch of folks stop buying comics, how will there be trades to collect??

Well they could:
A – keep producing the comics as loss leaders for the trades
B – stop publishing them and go straight to trades
C – go to some other form of distribution such as digital
D – realise that comics are more profitable if they’re cheaper (I have no idea if they would be or not) reduce the price and get back the readers.
or
E – Something I haven’t thought of