Marvel's Giant Comic

[sciquest2525]

Yesterday I picked up Marvel's latest attempt at a giant reprint comic and set a record of 128 pages with five apparently full length stories drawn from X Men Legacy, Nova, Ghost Rider, Ms. Marvel and Iron Fist. It seems that these stories are reprints of books printed in the recent past. The price was $6.99 and I was wondering if such a book could be done with all new material for $7.99 or $8.99 assuming we could afford the latter and the publisher could make money if sales were good despite the production costs of a five in one book like this.
Now while this project may fail it does show at least, some experimentation with other formats than the standard 32 page floppy.
If all of Marvel's output was placed in this type book, a newstand with limited rack space might be able to carry all of Marvel's regular books in one fifth the space and certainly the higher price would be welcome to the various distributors and newstands as the unit profit would be larger.
I want to put this up for discussion. Could original material be made for such a book provided sales and pricing were right and should such experimentation continue. Would you buy it?

 

[miraclefan]

Maybe. But I don't buy anything from the big two, so I could really care less.

 

[sciquest2525]

I am just interested in seeing costs come down and believe that with $3.99 floppy 32 pagers are pricing themselves out of the market and that includes everybody both major players apart from the Big Two and independants. Prices are going up and there must be away to improve the pricing perhaps by new formats. I only really know that something needs to be done sometime in the near future. And that means that a nine dollar all new material 128 page or more comic could make it with it's six dollar savings over five $2.99 comics; fine.

 

[miraclefan]

I am just interested in seeing costs come down and believe that with $3.99 floppy 32 pagers are pricing themselves out of the market and that includes everybody both major players apart from the Big Two and independants. Prices are going up and there must be away to improve the pricing perhaps by new formats. I only really know that something needs to be done sometime in the near future. And that means that a nine dollar all new material 128 page or more comic could make it with it's six dollar savings over five $2.99 comics; fine.

Well with that in mind, if it were ALL NEW content, then yes I could see myself buying that. Now the real question is will the people buy it? now that, I don't know

 

[FalTorPan]

Aren't giant reprint comics basically trade paperbacks?

 

[Mr Light]

5 comics for $7? I will definitely buy this if I see it at my comic shop!

 

[sciquest2525]

The title is Marvel: Your Universe and in the newstand edition I bought was $6.95 and have been trying to sit down and read it but have been hung up on other matters. I don't buy comics much as my income is limited but this admittedly reprint comic whose stories come from not so long ago is okay with me if I can catchup on the old favourites I can't afford now.

 

[TheBrew]

I would.

 

[roguephoenix]

i generally tend to buy only collected editions as they look better and neater on my shelf than actual comics.

 

[RJDiogenes]

When I was a kid, anthology comics with multiple stories were common. I bought them all the time. It's a good idea.

But another way to keep down costs would be to use cheaper paper. This shiny magazine stuff does not flatter the artwork at all, and there's no real need of it. Also, they could stop paying inferior artists and writers so much money.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

i generally tend to buy only collected editions as they look better and neater on my shelf than actual comics.

X 2

 

[sciquest2525]

There is good reason for buying collected editions though they cost more, something I keep track of is comic prices.
I will take a moment to ask how big could a comic be and still be viable; a regularly published reprint or all new stories book? 160 pages? 192 pages with six or seven full length stories? Priced at $8.99 for the 192 pager? New stories for $9.99? Just a thought.