Comments on: DC and Marvel Both Taking Clever Approaches to the $3.99 Comic

By: DaveOMac

DaveOMac — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:44:59 +0000

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.

By: David Wynne

David Wynne — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:31:48 +0000

ninjawookie-

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

By: Patent Dragon

Patent Dragon — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:25:44 +0000

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”.

By: sackett

sackett — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:03:29 +0000

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.

By: ninjawookie

ninjawookie — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:01:19 +0000

@ 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!

By: Lynxara

Lynxara — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:49:11 +0000

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.)

By: Preston

Preston — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:55:03 +0000

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.

By: Dave Lane

Dave Lane — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:16 +0000

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….)

By: Suzene

Suzene — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:23:17 +0000

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.

By: David Wynne

David Wynne — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 22:12:27 +0000

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.

By: Alan Coil

Alan Coil — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:22:50 +0000

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.

By: Lt. Clutch

Lt. Clutch — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:51:07 +0000

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.

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:36:19 +0000

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.

By: Pedro Bouça

Pedro Bouça — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:24:19 +0000

“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)

By: Sherman

Sherman — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 08:48:57 +0000

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.

By: Gazoo

Gazoo — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:45:29 +0000

$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!

By: Ron

Ron — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 05:15:27 +0000

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.

By: David Wynne

David Wynne — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:20:47 +0000

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.

By: ninjawookie

ninjawookie — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:43:45 +0000

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.

By: David Wynne

David Wynne — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 01:22:36 +0000

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.