shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,349
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Post by shaxper on Mar 21, 2021 4:11:17 GMT -5
Looks like DC is testing the waters with a $5.99 price point for some of their hotter 40 page books. Seems inevitable where this is heading. bleedingcool.com/comics/dc-increases-price-of-batman-monthly-comic-and-others-to-6-each/I still remember "Drawing the line at $2.99" like it was yesterday. I respect DC's efforts to provide value for the dollar, as well as a wide range of price points available to their consumers, and I understand that costs inevitably rise as people and paper both become more expensive, but I can't imagine paying $6 for a monthly book in this age of maximum decompression. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 21, 2021 6:55:30 GMT -5
Yeah, that is pretty steep. I could see it for the more prestige miniseries like Superman: Red and Blue and Wonder Woman: Black and Gold but for a monthly ongoing? Even with a back up that seems to be a pretty steep cost; at 2.99 and 3.99 the trade was about an even value but unless that's going up too(and I hope not!) the trade is going to be a lot better deal.
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Post by hondobrode on Mar 21, 2021 21:36:00 GMT -5
I'm only reading my hardcore favorites, which DC isn't publishing now, like LSH, JSA, Freedom Fighters, Hawkman, Shazam, Jonah Hex, and I'd probably still wait and get them when they inevitably go on sale on Comixology.
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Post by Duragizer on Mar 21, 2021 22:12:33 GMT -5
Back in the '90s, my father would look at me cross-eyed if I bought a comic priced at $4.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2021 22:58:25 GMT -5
NOPE
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Post by brutalis on Mar 21, 2021 23:19:51 GMT -5
So NOT gonna support this. Glad Covid has me trade waiting.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,349
|
Post by shaxper on Mar 22, 2021 5:34:08 GMT -5
I honestly wouldn't weep at this point if DC and Marvel both shut down their print comics. I get that costs are rising, the market is small, and the business seems unsustainable. In the long term, I think we'd get them licensing out the characters to another publisher that could do a better job of innovating/marketing so long as it didn't mess with the franchise's marketability for films, TV, and merchandise. Maybe we'd see Digest and Magazine anthologies of new stories featuring our favorite characters, new every two months, at check-out counters nationwide.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2021 6:57:19 GMT -5
Niche products in niche markets have prices that continually spiral upwards until the customer base gets too small to be viable. Monthly comics are not a mass market product, they are essentially print on demand since print runs are set by pre-orders from retailers with just enough overage to cover damages and a small amount of reorders. The number ordered at FOC essentially sets the print run for the books.
We've seen it with war games. We've seen it with tabletop rpgs not named Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder. We've seen it with science fiction anthology magazines and pulp story magazines. It's the natural course of entropy. If printed comics ever do make a resurgence as a mass market product, it won't be as a periodical.
If you want to continue to buy periodical comics-a niche product, you're going to have to pay niche product prices-and the transition of comics from mass market to niche product makes any inflation rate comparisons irrelevant because niche product prices increase at a rate often 4-5 times the inflation rate for similar products that remain mass market products.
So $5.99 doesn't surprise me and is not out of line with the spiral of niche product pricing. Small press/self-published comics are often priced even higher for similar page counts. Fans just don't want to come to terms with the fact that "mainstream comics" have shrunk to a scale barely more that that of self-published small press books. That's the market reality and is in large part due to not having a discovery market where new customers can encounter periodical comics in places other than destination niche shops that cater to the already existing fanbase for nearly 3 decades now. 30 years of not growing your customer base is a good recipe for shifting from a mass market to a niche market product.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2021 10:15:30 GMT -5
I'm sticking with Batman, anything else is random pickings.
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Post by Randle-El on Mar 22, 2021 11:44:13 GMT -5
I look at a price like $5.99 for a single issue, and I think about all the convention longboxes that will inevitably be filled with those same issues in a couple months selling for $1-$2. And right next to them, the trade paperbacks selling for $5 that have six of those issues.
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Post by badwolf on Mar 22, 2021 12:45:41 GMT -5
I quit at $3.
For that price, I'll browse the back issue boxes.
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Post by Batflunkie on Mar 22, 2021 16:43:32 GMT -5
I quit at $3. For that price, I'll browse the back issue boxes. Same, I've been doing quarter bin hunts when I go to a LCS for years and only buy something hot off the presses if it's something that I really want and just can't trade wait for like Mars Attacks Popeye |
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 22, 2021 17:28:16 GMT -5
Yesterday I bought back issue treasures for 1-2$ each , why would I pay 6 dollars for an inferior product ?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2021 17:51:41 GMT -5
If certain stores pass on discounts to customers, they might be in the 4.00-4.50 range if preordered early enough.
But to the casual customer who's told 5 comics is going to cost $30, say goodbye to sales.
Just the other day I was picking up cool 100 pg books for five bucks....and when I buy back-issue runs, cost per book is usually well below anything with a 2021 cover price. I'll be sticking with that, play the waiting game and pick up new books 6-12 months later when they're most cost-effective.
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 22, 2021 18:05:59 GMT -5
If certain stores pass on discounts to customers, they might be in the 4.00-4.50 range if preordered early enough.
But to the casual customer who's told 5 comics is going to cost $30, say goodbye to sales.
Just the other day I was picking up cool 100 pg books for five bucks....and when I buy back-issue runs, cost per book is usually well below anything with a 2021 cover price. I'll be sticking with that, play the waiting game and pick up new books 6-12 months later when they're most cost-effective.
This is an important point to me, I am better these days buying a back issue for what the cover price for todays books are. |
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