Comic Book Resources

i'm with you on the make everything $3.25 idea.

The price increase is helping me with the ongoing effort to wean off of the floppies and onto the TPB.

I've been picking and choosing which Marvel books to read at $3.99. First issues with extra content like Agents of Atlas and Secret Warriors have been something I'd try (especially if subesequent issues are at the lower price point.)

But the 'must buy' high-profile books are the ones that I dropped like a stone.

I think any strategy is difficult for a publisher because what they can never accurately gauge is "perceived value" on the part of the consumer. Me? I'd probably pay $5 or $6 or more for an issue of something containing Morrison/Quitely or Paul Pope or someone I personally like because, to me, it's worth it. Conversely, most of the stuff currently being put out by the big two wouldn't tempt me unless it was offered at $1. How can any publishing strategy accommodate this inherently diverse consumer mentality for thousands of fans?

I wish they'd maybe consider rolling back the paper quality and cutting costs rather than raising prices. I've loved comics for years, but if they hit the $4 across the board threshold, I'm unlikely to add new titles and more likely to start cutting back. The thing is, I'd probably read more titles if the price was more reasonable. I wouldn't mind reduced production quality and lower prices because it would enable me to read and discover more titles. But I grew up with comics on paper that wasn't glossy or digitally produced. I don't know if younger readers would be as keen to such a drop in quality.

I'd prefer 3.35 over all. I'm sticking to the core books and any tie-ins and crossovers are skipped. If the story is missing something important I'll just read the book through a bit-torrent instead of being forced to buy something I don't normally do.

I'm getting tired of all these event arcs.

Just buy less.

Marvel and DC should take a look at the total disintegration of major newspapers--the Denver Rocky Mountain News most recently--and how other newspapers (the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the USA Today, the New York Post, and the New York Daily News) have fared since doubling or tripling their cost from two years ago. The print newspaper business is in danger of dying, in part because customers were willing to spend a quarter or fifty cents for a print version of a newspaper instead of reading one online but they are not willing to spend more. Of the two approaches, Marvel's is more cowardly, raising the cost of the books that are more popular without providing anything to make up for the extra cost. At a certain point, the high profile books whose costs Marvel raised will no longer be able to be considered high profile; and the sales will plummet. Also, it is not the right time to be raising the cost on any comic books--which succeed precisely because they are often a cheaper form of entertainment, just like newspapers were...

This reminds me of the philosophy behind drug companies raising prices on pills AFTER they go generic. the idea is that if people were buying based on price, they'd buy the genric. Therefore, those who are still buying our pills are buying based on quality. Therefore, we can charge more for that quality, and make up some of what we're losing to the generics.

It's more than that. Look at how many of the mini's Marvel is doing that have a $3.99 tag. That's annoying as all get out. Plus look at how many titles Marvel has currently solicited! They're putting out more books now than they ever did! And I'm not even talking about the literary, Marvel Adventures, or Icon lines.

I, too, grew up with comics printed on newsprint. I get why the change to better quality paper was required to keep up with printing technology. I also get that everyone who's involved in the creation of a comic is trying to make a living from doing something they love.
But, c'mon...
I no longer collect comics because of the hefty price tag. Here, in Canada, it's up around $5.00. That's $5 for a Superman comic!!! Our minimum wage is $9.50 in my province (Ontario). I don't make minimum wage, but if I did, I'd have to work for more than an hour just to buy 2 books.
It's not worth it and I've given up even bothering.

They should at least keep all minis at $2.99. I just can see spending $20.00 for a five issue miniseries when I can wait for the trade and save five bucks.

The Vertigo thing of a $1.00 for all number ones is a great idea, it will be interesting to see if the following issues will be $2.99 or $3.99

I hate how Marvel has convinced people that only 4 or 5 titles are $3.99 when over half their solicits are pegged at $3.99. Just about any miniseries, event or non-ongoing title is $3.99 pricepoint.

The increase has hit harder in the UK, as its been accompanied by a massive drop in the value of sterling against the dollar. The average price has almost doubled, from about £1.55 to nearly £3.

I prefer Marvel approach of making all books written by writers I don't like 3.99! That was a BRILLIANT idea!

However they forgot to do so with Mark Millar books.

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

This idea was called the DC Explosion back in 1978. Less popular books were folded into the surviving ones as backup features and the prices were increased from $0.35 to $0.50. When the idea imploded, the backup features were dropped and the comics' prices retreated back to the more reasonable $0.40 level.

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

— George Santayana (1863–1952)

I am just frustrated by the increase in TPB prices. It used to be that the collections were a bit cheaper than buying the individual issues. Now they are the same price and only occasionally offer added content (if you include a cover gallery as "added").

"This idea was called the DC Explosion back in 1978. Less popular books were folded into the surviving ones as backup features and the prices were increased from $0.35 to $0.50. When the idea imploded, the backup features were dropped and the comics’ prices retreated back to the more reasonable $0.40 level."

The idea only "imploded" because a freak East Coast blizzard scrambled distribution -- and, thus sales -- figures for the first two months of the initiative. Newly-installed Empress Of All Things DC Jenette Kahn looked at those numbers, ignored all context surrounding them (like the good little Ivy Leaguer she was), and promptly canceled the initiative. And about half the line.

Nobody knows what would have happened had the expanded format and slightly increased price-point been given a realistic chance in the late 1970s. We do know, however, that an effort in the early 1970s to do much the same (albeit with an abundance of golden-age reprint material) lasted for a few years before creeping inflation forced DC to hold the line on price by excising the extra material. We also know that the Dollar Comic format, putting random or only thematically-related features together in one book, also lasted for many years and was also a creation of the explosion/"implosion" period.

So, clearly, aggregating barely-related material can work in the market. =That's= your "history".

Well, my "history" includes the fact that I was 13 at the time and with my dad out of work, I could no longer afford to buy all the comics I had been buying. When they went back to $0.40 I had already missed enough issues to decide not to pick the titles back up again. I'm reasonably sure that I wasn't alone. So there's some math to go with my history. You sound like you are part of the business side. I'm sure it looked different to you. I guess we'll see if raising the prices to $3.99 during the "worst economic crisis since the Great Depression" works. Good luck with that.

Both approaches have their merits, I suppose (Marvel's is good for me since I don't buy those particular books, while DC's has me curious to actually try some of those titles, which is interesting), but it's all just putting off the inevitable jump to a web-to-print model.

For the people advocating cutting printing costs- printing technology has moved forward so much in the last decade or so that short of switching right over to the japanese black and white phonebook anthology way of doing things, there isn't really anything publishers can do in that regard that'll actually save enough money to affect the price- the difference in paper costs between the stocks they currently use and newsprint is negligible, and b&w doesn't even cost much less than colour these days. At current circulation levels, comics are about as cheap as they can be and make a profit. So we need to look for other solutions.

at 3.99 Battle of the cowl suddenly went from looks interesting to I'll wait for the trade. Unless its something I get an exclusive essay with (like criminal or incognito) i'm not bothering.

ninjawookie- obviously you should do whatever you want with your money, but Battle For The Cowl is a three issue mini, and issue one, at least, is 30 story pages- so not only is it longer than your average 2:99 book, buying the whole mini, at $12, is still likely to be cheaper than the eventual trade. Just a thought.

Like Kirk said earlier, Marvel seems to have you guys forgetting that most mini-series being put out by them these days start at $3.99. There are very few new mini-series that are starting at $2.99 anymore. Marvel didn't raise prices to $3.99 "last month", they've been doing it for a while. Don't listen to the spin that only "4 titles have been made $3.99", there are plenty of books by Marvel that have had price increases. Here's a list:

Every "top selling author" title, that is, Anita Blake, Ender's Game,
Every soleil title and literary adaptation: Trojan War, Universal War One, Pride & Prejudice, Ythaq, Wizard of Oz,
Event mini-series and tie-in mini-series as well as: Ultimatum, Dark Reign: Hawkeye, Elektra, Young Avengers, The Hood, New Avengers: The Reunion, Skrull Kill Krew, Savage She Hulk, Marvel Zombies, The Noir line, Timestorm, War of Kings, War of Kings: Ascension, Genext: United, X-Men: First Class Finals, Deadpool: Suicide Kings,
MAX Titles: Punisher MAX, Destroyer, Terror Inc,

NEW ONGOING TITLES: Spider-Woman, Wolverine: Weapon X,

Those are all the books in the May previews listed as $3.99 or higher with stand 32 pages (except She-Hulk, which claims to have "8 pages of directors cut content!")

So don't tell me that what Marvel is doing is smart, or that they are only raising prices on 4 books. It's a lot more than 4 books.

$3.99 is not acceptable "maybe it was "Acceptable in the eighties", no pun intended) but not now, not never, Lower the price, don't want the back-up story if I'm paying for it, get more advertising in the books and go to the "mom & Pop" printers and print for less $. I shouldn't have to break the bank to read Comics, They should be fun to read otherwise don't print anything and make comics only as a download for 25 cents an issue, I'm in for that, and I'll even print it off on my on printer for 25 cents including two staples and glossy paper. Marvel is not the leader for quality product it's all about dollars and cents, not about imagination and a favourite past-time, rarely if ever do we ever learn anything from comics anymore, what ever happened to "Sea Monkey's", "X-ray glasses" and the "skinny kid becoming the muscle guy" adverts, now that might be worth $3.99. Bring back the excitement to comics as it is not there anymore!

Personnally I am not buying anything that has a 3.99 cover price. It'll be cheaper in the long run to wait and buy them as back issues online somewhere like e-bay or CCL. I paid 99 cents online for Batman # 682 because I missed it through my sub service for some reason. And that's almost a $1 less than what I usually pay for new comics through that same sub service.

"Every soleil title and literary adaptation: Trojan War, Universal War One, Pride & Prejudice, Ythaq, Wizard of Oz,"

I have to clarify that the Soleil books don't cost 3.99. They cost 5.99 BUT have AT LEAST 44 pages of comics every issue (standard european comics pagination starts at 44 pages!).

Please don't spread wrong information about them, they already have to fight an uphill battle on the US market.

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

Like Kirk said earlier, Marvel seems to have you guys forgetting that most mini-series being put out by them these days start at $3.99.

Excellent point, I totally forgot to specifically mention that it was about Marvel's ongoing titles.

Oh, wait, I DID specifically mention "it results in fewer ongoing titles raising in price." (emphasis added)

Never mind, then.

Hopefully, today's back-up stories won't cut the lead in half but add extra content as DC is promising. When I first started reading DC back in the early 80's, back-ups were pretty common. Books like DC Comics Presents' "Whatever Happened To..." and The Flash's classic Pasko/Giffen "Dr. Fate" were far better than the lead stories, whereas the "Adam Strange" back-up in Green Lantern turned me off the book after a couple of issues since it cut the Wolfman/Staton stories in half and I disliked Infantino's later works with a passion. The art has always been the deal breaker for me in all of these cases.

That being said, I'm already getting books like Jonah Hex where the art changes with every other issue. I don't think an extra buck will help improve matters on that particular title. The only $3.99 Marvel I'm getting is Thor and it doesn't even come out on a regular basis. I might just drop it and wait for the eventual trades now.

garbonzo said:

"I am just frustrated by the increase in TPB prices. It used to be that the collections were a bit cheaper than buying the individual issues."
=========================
As the monthly comic books continue to sell fewer and fewer copies, the price of the trades will go up.

Gazoo-

get more advertising in the books and go to the “mom & Pop” printers and print for less $.

With circulation as low as it is, comics aren't exactly prime sources of ad revenue right now. Nobody's going to pay very much to advertise in a book that reaches less than a hundred thousand people. Which is why there are so many "public service" ads in comics these days (Don't do drugs, kids! Grant Morrison? Who?)

As for going to smaller printing companies- they normally charge more, not less, because they have higher overheads.

make comics only as a download for 25 cents an issue

*or*, serialise them for free on the net (which would also be a much more attractive proposition for potential advertisers), then just publish the collections in print form.

I think it'd be worth 25 - 50 cents per zip file to be able to trade in my long-boxes for a couple of thumb drives, personally.

DC has made the move to counter rising prices with increased content on several occasions with different results:
1) Around 1971, 1972, the standard price point was 15 cents, heading for 20 with approx. 23, 24 pages of story. DC ups the page count to 52 pages and the price to 25 cents. Except the added pages were reprints. Eventually, DC goes back to 32 pages and the price goes to 20 cents and with in a year or so, the story page count goes to 20 pages. By 1978, the story count had fallen to 17 pages with the price up to 35 cents.
2) 1978: DC Explosion. Looking at an increase to 40 cents, DC adds 8 pages of story and the price goes to 50 cents. As the poster noted above, a freakishly cold winter blizzard zaps distribution and totally messes up DC's numbers. But as I understand it, it was DC's overlords at Warner who ordered the cut in titles and size. I'm not sure how much Jeantte Kahn had a say in that. (One of her stated goals on becoming publisher was to increase NEW content.) After 3 months, it's the infamous DC Implosion and it's back to 17 pages of story. Price: 40 cents.
3) 1980: DC tries it again with a 50 cent price point and 8 extra pages. It helps that Marv Wolfman and George Perez come to DC at this time to launch the Teen Titans which helps lift a lot of boats at DC. To the poster above who complained about Adam Strange cutting into Green Lantern's page count, GL's story count was 17 pages going into the increase, the 8 page back up was added to the book just as the Whatever Happened to... in DC Presents was added to the 17 page lead. Several solo books maintained the 17 page lead/8 page back up ratio. Only when the story page counts began to decline that the solo books began to take up the whole book and move away from back ups.
4) A couple of years later, the price goes to 60 cents and DC adds 2 more pages: 27 pages of story and art. This only lasts a few months and eventually the page count falls to 23 pages before setting at 22 around 1985, 1986. Around this point, the price heads up to 75 cents and no pages have been added with any subsequent increases although some price increases have been pre-ceded by upgrades in paper stock and coloring.

So will DC's latest strategy to face the increase to $3.99 work? Based on the past, any success will be limited but I rather a company add value with an increased price that just jack up the price with no consideration of the consumer. (Of course, I would even more prefer the price not go up at all....)

Marvel is definitely going the highway robbery route, with not just a few main universe titles but also minis, event books and one-shots. I mean at least with DC and Final Crisis, you got 40 pages for 3.99 whereas Secret Invasion was 3.99 for 32 pages. At least DC is giving us a proportional amount of extra content, so it's hardly like they're raising prices, but rather producing more comics.

I've yet to see any corporate Marvel/DC that was worth the $3.99 price tag for any reason. (Not even Final Crisis, which I liked, was really worth the price of admission.)

I'll happily pay $3.99 or more for issues of creator-owned works or Vertigo, where I feel the extra cost is going directly to supporting the creative endeavor. With the Big Two, while rationally that may be true, the feeling I have about the raised prices is that they're going to support the editorial bureaucracies that I don't feel are really contributing value to the books anymore.

Basically, I'll support Marvel and DC now when they license their characters out to good creators in other media, or when they issue good TPB collections that contain coherent stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. Otherwise, nothing is going on with them creatively that's really even competitive with the quality a lot of adventure webcomics I can read online for free.

(Personally, I don't think Marvel and DC have put their books openly online yet, in webcomic style, because that would involve admitting to the world at large how much of both companies' output is just surface-level dreck churned out to take up shelf space and take money from compulsives. When you put that caliber of material freely online, it will attract the scorn it deserves. So, they aren't.)

@ David Wynne- I forgot to mention I live in Australia, the US rate is doubled over here for single issues, but the trades will generally sell at a cheaper exchange rate.

It's really painful considering there was a period when the Australian dollar was at 90 cents compared the US dollar. A 3.99 is 8 dollars. That's almost lunch + a drink!

Thank you, Dave Lane, for your DC price hike timeline. Brought back memories. I never heard the story about a blizzard causing the DC Implosion.

I've had to stop buying new comics. As a compulsive DC buyer, I still get the twitches reading sites like this for wanting my comics...but the price just isn't worth it, it can't be justified. I must be strong!!

I have always thought the idea of going back to the 4 color comics and newspaper print was a valid idea...but from the sounds of things that really isn't an option.

Oh well...when cash loosens up, there is always Ebay.

There are plenty of minis I wouldn't have objected to having as back-up stories in main Marvel titles in return for the extra $1. A useful way to introduce people to new characters, or reintroduce past characters who've "fallen by the wayside".

ninjawookie-

Ouch! That's some serious price disparity there. I definitely see where you're coming from now.

I tihnk everyone is missing the big problem to why Marvel is charging more for books. They've lost all their advertisers. Look at the last marvel boom you picked up. The only ads appear on the inside cover and back cover, and those ads are typically licensed marvel products. The amount of inhouse ads have increased dramatically in the past few months. Advertisers are leaving print. It's why magazines and newspapers ae failing all over the country. Hell rumor has it wizard will be gone by the end of the year.

A couple years ago we all complained when marvel added pages for more ads. I wish we hadn't because now the books can never go down in price because without ads, I can definetly see the death of the monthly. It'll start slow, with the death of the mini which will help test the market for constant OGN.