Rising comic book prices, what to do?

[miraclefan]

Oh, THAT! well HELL I've known that for a while now! do you go to comicshops much? I just came from one today, and they were ''stocked'' with nothing, but WOLVERINE crap on display (with the excepetion of one DEAD-POOL CLASSICS VOL 2)for the upcoming movie!

Sad, isn't it?

My FLCS once upon a time were stuffed to the GILLS with comics. Now it's all DVDs, toys, video games, and a very few long boxes in the back of the store.

Same THING with TWO outta three comicshops in my area! It really is a sad site! most of the time I have to special order books from the comic shops because they refuse to order anything that is not well known or popular! which is a real shame!

 

[firehawk12]

Well, to be fair, the stores have to make money and the majority of their audience only wants the DC/Marvel stuff.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Between inflation and the current collapse of advertising revenue because of the recession (check your average comic from now and compare it with a comic from 2 years ago, and you'll see that there are basically no outside ads anymore (in most comics, maybe 3-4 tops, whereas you sometimes got as many ads as story pages)), not a whole lot that can be done.

More broadly, I get the sense that comics are just sort of ticking down the clock until web-distribution becomes the standard some time in the next five years.

 

[V]

are we on the verge of another Comics Bubble Burst the way there was in 1993?

 

[Skywalker]

I trade-wait, though I don't really follow mainstream comics like Batman, X-Men, etc. nowadays.

 

[miraclefan]

are we on the verge of another Comics Bubble Burst the way there was in 1993?

ALL SIGNS POINT TO YES!

 

[miraclefan]

And from what I'm told, it WILL be much WORSE!

 

[firehawk12]

Maybe the death of floppies, but certainly not the death of comics as a whole.

I'm still not sure if web-distribution will hit mainstream. I'm not against the idea, and the Crossgen and Marvel 'enhanced' were/are neat. But the one fundamental problem is that nearly all monitors are widescreen, which inevitably means that they can't really fit a full page on the screen vertically without making it hard to read or forcing the reader to scroll.
If there was ever a colour Kindle (and the damn thing was actually cheap to buy), then I could see books being sold through Amazon (although, not for anyone outside of the US I suppose).

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Well, to be fair, the stores have to make money and the majority of their audience only wants the DC/Marvel stuff.

It's worse than that...my FLCS would keep entire RUNS of comics on hand, and not just the A-list books either. Now, they only keep 6 months or so on hand, and only A list titles.

are we on the verge of another Comics Bubble Burst the way there was in 1993?

ALL SIGNS POINT TO YES!

1993? More like 96-97 when the bottom fell out.

But I don't see another "bubble burst" simply because there was never a new bubble since the last one popped. Comics just kind'a drifted along until the "Jemas Age" started in the early 00s. Since then, Marvel Entertainment and WB have treated the comic divisions more or less as "holding companies" for the rights to characters they'd like to make movies, cartoons, etc off of.

The EICs also decided to pull a Moore/Abrams and "reimagine" the content, beleiving that only by "new schooling" the books could they attract new readers. They drew in a few, but nowhere near as many as the "old school" fans they LOST, and now the monthlies are circling the drain.

 

[miraclefan]

The EICs also decided to pull a Moore/Abrams and "reimagine" the content, beleiving that only by "new schooling" the books could they attract new readers. They drew in a few, but nowhere near as many as the "old school" fans they LOST, and now the monthlies are circling the drain.

Did you know that MARVEL comics ENTIRE ULTIMATE lineup was cancelled? I find it VERY funny that the comics line that was suposed to bring in a new generation of readers didn't do the job! I mean the ''ULTIMATEVERSE'' didn't even last a decade!

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Did you know that MARVEL comics ENTIRE ULTIMATE lineup was cancelled? I find it VERY funny that the comics line that was suposed to bring in a new generation of readers didn't do the job! I mean the ''ULTIMATEVERSE'' didn't even last a decade!

You're frakking with me, right? I knew Ult X-men was canned, but the WHOLE line?

Wow.

I also knew that Joey Q took down his message board about 6-7months ago and hasn't put it back up yet...

 

[CaptainCanada]

Did you know that MARVEL comics ENTIRE ULTIMATE lineup was cancelled? I find it VERY funny that the comics line that was suposed to bring in a new generation of readers didn't do the job! I mean the ''ULTIMATEVERSE'' didn't even last a decade!

I was never much of a fan of the Ultimate Universe, but it isn't cancelled, it's being (heavily) revamped (if anything, it was a victim of its own success early on; its most popular ideas and creators all migrated into the 616 universe).

They drew in a few, but nowhere near as many as the "old school" fans they LOST, and now the monthlies are circling the drain.

That isn't true; after the nadir of the market in the late 90s, sales have climbed considerably (in fact, even with the losses incurred as a result of the recession, DC's still marginally higher than it was when Dan Didio took over, though, recession, so we're doubtless going to go a bit lower).

 

[Captain Craig]

I lose track of how many on which boards kept saying, "Oh, no this will not happen wide spread for some time", but those of us who see the trends and don't blindly listen to corporate knew this time would come.

Me, I've been doing the TPB wait for some time.
The product is not worth $4, regardless of character, for 22pgs.
Four bucks can feed me on a dollar menu at several food chains.
Four bucks puts enough gas in my mower to get 3 lawn jobs done.
Four bucks can park my car downtown on a non-event day.
Four bucks can buy some some monthly newsstand magazines.

Comics as a printed periodical may not survive the next decade.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Did you know that MARVEL comics ENTIRE ULTIMATE lineup was cancelled? I find it VERY funny that the comics line that was suposed to bring in a new generation of readers didn't do the job! I mean the ''ULTIMATEVERSE'' didn't even last a decade!

I was never much of a fan of the Ultimate Universe, but it isn't cancelled, it's being (heavily) revamped (if anything, it was a victim of its own success early on; its most popular ideas and creators all migrated into the 616 universe).

Not to mention that the 616 universe has been turned into a caborn copy of the Ultimateverse in tone.

I lose track of how many on which boards kept saying, "Oh, no this will not happen wide spread for some time", but those of us who see the trends and don't blindly listen to corporate knew this time would come.

Me, I've been doing the TPB wait for some time.
The product is not worth $4, regardless of character, for 22pgs.
Four bucks can feed me on a dollar menu at several food chains.
Four bucks puts enough gas in my mower to get 3 lawn jobs done.
Four bucks can park my car downtown on a non-event day.
Four bucks can buy some some monthly newsstand magazines.

Comics as a printed periodical may not survive the next decade.

The sad thing (as I said earlier) is that this move spells the deaths of 80-90% of the character line ups. Back when $20 dollars could get you the monthly adventures of 10 different teams/characters, people were more willing to support the B and C lists, and so were the companies.

 

[miraclefan]

Did you know that MARVEL comics ENTIRE ULTIMATE lineup was cancelled? I find it VERY funny that the comics line that was suposed to bring in a new generation of readers didn't do the job! I mean the ''ULTIMATEVERSE'' didn't even last a decade!

I was never much of a fan of the Ultimate Universe, but it isn't cancelled, it's being (heavily) revamped (if anything, it was a victim of its own success early on; its most popular ideas and creators all migrated into the 616 universe).

Oh! well please forgive me, I was given the impression thet the ULTIMATEVERSE was scraped compleatly, my mistake!

 

[TheBrew]

I had my fill long ago back in the mid-90s. I came close to resuming my old buying habit a couple of years ago. Then Marvel OMD'd Spider-Man and put a halt to that. I get by fine with the previews the companies release, the discussion threads and my local library thank you.

I've actually been enjoying OMD a lot and I feel I am getting a lot of bang for my buck. Hell the last two issues had a lot of story:

SPOILERS!!! (cause I hate the tags)


Spidey went on an extra-dimension adventure with the FF, Harry hit rock bottom and went to rehab, Aunt May is dating JJJ's father, they touched upon the whole "Everyone has forgotten who Spidey is Issue" culminating with Spidey re-unmasking to the FF.

Oh yeah, and JJJ is now Mayor of NYC.

All of that in two issues.

I've started picking up Daredevil since the Kingpin is back, but my pull list consists of Spidey (including Ultimate), Captain America, The Walking Dead, Green Lantern, Invincible and Fables. If any of those titles jumps up $1, out it goes.

 

[Tomato]

I think Marvel now makes more money off its movies than its comic books.

 

[Demonland]

I've always thought comics were overpriced considering it takes about 10 to 20 minutes to read them.

Now a lot of comics are being made available on the iPhone through the App Store for 99 cents.

 

[Zachary Smith]

I started buying comics in the early 1970's when they were "STILL ONLY .20 CENTS!!"

I STOPPED buying comics in 1996 when they were around $2.00--$2.25. Let's put it this way--when comics were an average of around .75 Cents, I was buying nearly $40.00 a month (yes, nearly every title both DC and Marvel put out plus some Indies). They got greedy. I stopped buying. And WHEN they first started getting greedy, I looked for places to cut back, maybe drop some titles that I didn't enjoy quite so much. That was when some wise-ass decided that EVERYTHING had to cross over with nearly everything else almost constantly. Five years earlier, cross-overs had been a treat. Suddenly they were a gimmick designed to try to force the buyer into getting as many titles as possible, just to follow the damn storyline.

I honestly blame John Byrne's X-Man. Yes, I LOVED it. It was GREAT. But it also caused a spike in comic sales that tantalized the market so much there was NO going back to what kind of sales numbers they'd done before. They started jacking prices and doing gimmick (Spider-Man has FOUR different covers this month!! COLLECT THEM ALL!!) nonsense that basically ruined the whole process for me. If comics were still under even $2.00 I'd probably pick some up once in a while. No WAY at the prices they want now. The last comic I ever bought was the second-to-last issue of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman". I purposefully did not buy the final issue because, at least for me, those adventures never ended.

Comic book BUSINESS totally ruined comic books for me.

 

[Mr Light]

Actually the sales of comic books have been increasing for the past five or so years, surprisingly. Newsarama has monthly financial reports on the state of comics. Not that I don't see the end of the singles coming in a few years! Man when I started getting comics in the mid90s they were only $1.25!