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

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

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?

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 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.

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...

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

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.

48 PGS./Rated A ...$4.99

Yeah...I'm pretty sure that should usually be 3.99....

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

*claps*

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.

"Shhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit."

In other words, I bet nothing changes.

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.