What Did a Comic Book Cost When You Started Reading/Collecting?

[Bronkster]

The other thread about the possible price increase of comics to $3.99 got me thinking about just how much the cost of a comic book has gone up since I first started reading, and then collecting. Granted, I'm probably one of the older members of this forum, and comics were still 10 cents when I was born (old? that's fucking ancient, dude! :eek: ) but they went to 12 cents when I was still a wee tyke, and that was the price I "grew up" with. I vividly recall seeing an ad for Adventure Comics #381 (1969) that had the shocking price of 15 cents! I was pissed. 3 cents was a lot back then!

So, what did a comic book cost when you first bought one?

[Trevor]

20 cents.

[Graftenberg]

75 cents

[Dmacsg1]

Funny books were a quarter when I started! Annuals were 50 Cents.

Take care all!!

[davidh777]

20 cents.

+1

I also remember 60-cent supersize specials, and "Dollar Comics"

[dx23]

75 cents and some $1.

[logangrey]

I remember getting a few at 25 cents but I think they went up to 35 cents right about the time I really started getting into them.

[Trevor]

I loved those dollar comics and 60 cent super specials. Still have a bunch, and those tend to be the ones I seek out when I rummage thru the closet to reminisce.

[Ron G]

25 cents.

[boredsilly]

Right around a dollar.

[Meatwad's Ghost]

75¢ to $1 when i started.
I stopped when they hit $2.50.
Only collect heavy discounted trades.

[stingermck]

75 cents. And now $1-2 thanks to DCBS

[Patman]

I think they were either $0.25 or $0.30. I think my weekly allowance was $2, so I probably bought 15-20 titles/month at the time.

[movie diva]

Twelve cents then they went to Fifteen cents.

[movieguru]

50 cents for regular issues and 75 cents for annuals and giant size issues. Shortly after I started collecting they jumped up to 75 cents for the standard issue. Most were still $1 when I graduated high school.

It much easier to buy the trades or hardcovers now,. Or wait and go to the conventions where you can get most of them from the $1 bins.

[cousindave]

60 & 75 cents in the early 80s

[ytrez]

20 cents.

I miss those days :(

[rw2516]

12 cents. Still remember my very first batch in fall of '65.

Fantastic Four #44
Tales To Astonish #73
Journey Into Mystery #121
Mystery in Space #102

[Josh-da-man]

$0.75.

Started seriously reading comics around "The Fall of the Mutants" crossover in the X-Files.

[Bronkster]

12 cents. Still remember my very first batch in fall of '65.

Fantastic Four #44
Tales To Astonish #73
Journey Into Mystery #121
Mystery in Space #102

Nice! Did you save those??

[Trevor]

20 cents.

I miss those days :(

I can still visualize riding my bike to the local 7-11 and spending my $1 a week allowance on 5 comics.

[slop101]

mid-'70s ~ $0.25

Adjusted for inflation, that'd be a little less than a buck today, so WTF?

[rw2516]

Nice! Did you save those??

Nope. Gave up comics(the first time) in summer of '71 just as they went to 20 cents. Don't remember if that was the reason or my interests changed. I do remember the last comic I bought during my childhood collecting was Amazing Spider-Man #101 with Morbius on the cover and the "Still 15 cents" blurb on the cover. I have rebought each of those comics at least once in adulthood.
Every one of the comics I had as a kid(1965-71) I wrote a small RW on the first page under the legend and often wonder if they are in somebody's collection.

[Rocketdog2000]

I think they had just gone up to $0.25 or $0.35 when I started buying my own. This was in the early 70's.

[reverie]

On average- $1.00. I think there may have been a few at $1.25, and the Superman titles were $.75. I can't believe the constant hikes... another big reason I'm quitting monthlies soon (I'm down to one now).

[Bronkster]

I do remember the last comic I bought during my childhood collecting was Amazing Spider-Man #101 with Morbius on the cover and the "Still 15 cents" blurb on the cover.
Coincidentally, that issue of Spidey was the first I bought (after reading the annual that came out right before it). I was late getting into Marvel.

[MBoyd]

.35

And that gateway drug was Star Wars issue #11 . . .

[brianluvdvd]

.35

And that gateway drug was Star Wars issue #11 . . .

Mine was: http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y170/robbrism/starwars.jpg

I was Star Wars obsessed as any 7 year old in 1980 was and the art by Michael Golden in this issue is fantastic and really stuck with me. We didn't have much money in those days and I assume I never got any of the comics earlier because what little money they splurged on me went to Star Wars action figures. I do remember having a cover-less issue #8 but I believe that was given to me and wasn't bought.

If I remember correctly, my Dad bought this issue for me while in a 7-11. I loved it so much that he eventually bought me a subscription but it started to late to get Empire's adaptation to me in time. Empire's adaptation started right after this issue and the price jumped an astounding 10 cents!

Has anyone ever done an inflation comparison to comics to see if they are priced right or way over priced compared to the times?

[slop101]

Has anyone ever done an inflation comparison to comics to see if they are priced right or way over priced compared to the times?mid-'70s ~ $0.25

Adjusted for inflation, that'd be a little less than a buck today, so WTF?

[brianluvdvd]

Sorry slop. Overlooked your post.

I agree...what the fuck? No wonder the comic business is dying and not being replaced with new buyers. They went straight to the adults and collectors market and have forgotten their future. Retarded.

I wanted to buy my kid some comics a year ago (Legion of Super-heroes since he loved the show) but balked at the crazy price of $2.25 plus tax. You are out 10 bucks before you know it. He'd rather have a toy instead.

[madcougar]

I started buying books when they had hit $0.75. I remember people complaining about it at the comic book store.

[slop101]

I know that comic book writers and artists are making exponentially more these days than they did back in the '70s and '80s - and they're further compensated by all the trade reprints, which didn't really exist back then. So their revenue streams are bigger than ever, but to make up for the massive readership drop-off (along with the increased cost of paper) they have to pump up their prices - still a rip off though.

[MBoyd]

I was Star Wars obsessed as any 7 year old in 1980 was and the art by Michael Golden in this issue is fantastic and really stuck with me.

Cool! I remember that issue! I have to say though I wasn't as enamored with the art as you were. I thought the characters looked off from what I was used to in previous issues. Looks cool now though.

http://www.comicartcommunity.com/gallery/data/media/58/sw38_2_golden.jpg

[The Bus]

$1.25

I jumped in right around the Image / X-Force #1 era and collected comics semi-seriously for a few years. I switched to TPBs only sometime in high school and never looked back.

[hitman tommy]

The first comic I got(and still have it to this day) Batman #421 from 1988 which was $1.00.

[davidh777]

I loved those dollar comics and 60 cent super specials. Still have a bunch, and those tend to be the ones I seek out when I rummage thru the closet to reminisce.

That's why I like to pick up those Giant-Size Marvels. For $3.99 they have the same kind of feel, with a mix of new/old (mostly old, I think) stories. Last one I got was Giant-Size Avengers vs. Invaders, and I remember a Spider-Woman not too long ago. I scan the shelves for them when I hit my LCS but they seem pretty rare.

[Franchot]

12 cents. I'm old like you. I usually bought all the Marvel stuff and some DC, Sad Sack, and an occasional Archie.

(I still have those comics from the early '60s stored away in my garage though I'll probably never read them again. I picked up tons of Marvel comics on DVDs when they were available from Eagle One Media.)

[Preterite]

Right around 12 to 15 cents when I started reading them in 1967. Of course, at three years old, I wasn't doing the purchasing myself. One of my strongest earliest memories - I can't have been older than 5 given the neighborhood we were living in - was walking home from the bus stop with my mom, pleading with her to stop in the corner grocery to see if the new issue of Iron Man had come in.

Remember those coverless comics sold bagged at three for 50 cents or a buck? We loved those growing up. The trick was finding a pack that didn't have a Harvey title as the middle, hidden book - it was all right if you got stuck with a horror, war, Western, or even Archie title, but Caspar and Richie Rich were for babies!

[WillDLeeEsq]

Started reading & collecting comics in the late-80's when they were around 75 cents to a dollar.

[mrhan]

I remember it being 20 cents for DC and Marvel already jumped to 25 cents in 1973. I stopped collecting monthlies in 1998 and never looked back. I just collect silver age stuff now. I also got into Neal Adams stuff in 1975 when the older high school kid next door sold me every book he drew including Batman/Detective/X-Men/GLGA for 10 cents each. All mint. To a 10 year old that was a lot of cash to part with but have no regrets now. ;)

[Sonny Corinthos]

35 cents back in the late 70s. I stopped buying them in the early 90's because they kept jacking up the price. $3.99 for a comic book now? No way would I pay that much for one. These comic book companies are going to price themselves out of business soon with that load of bull.

[RockyMtnBri]

25 cents - I started in November of 1974, and the first comic I bought to start my collection (which I still have!) was Fantastic Four 155!

[calhoun07]

60¢

[Lastdaysofrain]

60 cents and I remember being annoyed when it went up to 75.

I don't even know how much new comics cost now.

[Randy Miller III]

mid-'70s ~ $0.25

Adjusted for inflation, that'd be a little less than a buck today, so WTF?
Not attempting to defend the high price tags now, but the paper stock and overall printing quality have dramatically improved during the last few decades.

[slop101]

Yeah, but have they improved four times? And the printing improvement is just incremental improvements in technology, which actually costs less than it used to. Furthermore, while paper prices did jump up all through the '90s, these days paper mill can't give the shit away due to stock overruns caused by dramatic slowdown of newspaper and magazine circulation.

[MinLShaw]

Really, the price jacking got out of hand in the 1990s. Bolstered by the success of the Batman movies and animated series, DC's licensing revenue was sky high. Marvel answered by buying up several other business, diversifying its own portfolio in the process. In about a year, Marvel took over at least controlling stock in, if not outright ownership of, Toy Biz (for action figures), Malibu Studios (for video games), Fleer (for trading cards) and even went so far as to remove all their products from Diamond Distribution's "Previews" catalog and forcing retailers to order exclusively from their own Marvel version.

This all happened right before the baseball strike, and Fleer's value tanked; comics shops refused to cooperate about the ordering practices, and soon Marvel had a mess on its hands. To compensate for the baseball card lost revenue, prices went up on comics. They got away with it for a while by blitzing readers with gala issues and special covers. DC elevated their output of such titles (and prices) accordingly, and by the time the 90s were over, the price of an issue had, in many cases, more than doubled.

Independent publishers can't lower their prices because their print runs are so much smaller that they can't order supplies in the bulk quantities of the mainstream publishers. Plus, their advertising budgets are smaller, so they really have to scratch and claw their way to the average reader's attention. Publications like "Wizard" help indies to a point, but it's still difficult to attract the attention of the 12 year old who just came in looking for something with Spider-Man or Wolverine.

I think, creatively, the comics industry should be better now than it has ever been. The success of such indie titles of the 90s as "Bone" and "Strangers in Paradise" have built a great foundation. Dark Horse titles have not only become mainstream publications, but have also spawned some major hit movies, which is always good for the business side of things (if not necessarily the creative side). The key is really going to be the same problem that the action figure industry has right now--its audience is getting older, not younger. How do you get kids into these things?

I have a 13 year old nephew and his entire world is video games. I got him some comics for Christmas two years ago, and he was so disinterested he never even looked through them, and insisted I keep them at our house. I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that the practice of stunt covers and massive crossovers that boomed 15 years ago isn't going to work on these kids.

[Ginwen]

I think around 15 cents when I started buying them in about 1969. Fantastic Four and Spider-Man is what I mostly liked then (and Mad Magazine which cost more).

[Shannon Nutt]

25 cents for me...I feel old. :(

http://66.113.217.85/GoldKey/Comic35_Big.jpg

[paradicelost]

I got into comics when i was 11 and the only thing i read was Archie stuff and i believe it was $.75

[consoleman]

Got into comics back when comics used to cost 25 cents. Quit when the prices rose to $1.25 and never looked back. Got too expensive for even a working joe like me just getting out of college.

Nowadays, comics are a whole other animal. Until the comic book industry realizes that it should be kids driving the industry and not late-teens and adults, comics will never regain the readership back in its hey-day. I guess with artist salaries being what it is nowadays and production costs, it just isn't possible anymore. And, yes, it's sad that a smaller start-up comic company have to scrape for every last cent to be profitable so even they can't lower prices by much.

[BullGooseLoony]

I think when I started reading comics, they were about $1.25, which was maybe '91-'93 or so. I distinctly remember it being shortly after they were $1.00, which was definitely in 1990.

[Adam Tyner]

Got into comics back when comics used to cost 25 cents. Quit when the prices rose to $1.25 and never looked back. Got too expensive for even a working joe like me just getting out of college.I think $0.60 was the going price when I really started reading comics in the early '80s. I remember paying $1.25 for an issue of "Quasar" back when Spidey had the Captain Universe powers and thinking I'd never, ever pay that much for a new comic again. Here I am almost twenty years later paying $3.99 pretty routinely...

[consoleman]

I think $0.60 was the going price when I really started reading comics in the early '80s. I remember paying $1.25 for an issue of "Quasar" back when Spidey had the Captain Universe powers and thinking I'd never, ever pay that much for a new comic again. Here I am almost twenty years later paying $3.99 pretty routinely...

I really considered getting back to collecting comics quite a number of times over the years especially as special events happened (ex. Death of Superman, Death of Captain America) so I always hit the stores whenever big issues like these came around. Never could get myself to collect on a consistent basis though because the prices got so high. That and the fact I got hooked on collecting DVDs instead.

[starseed1981]

$1.50 / Book (late 80's / early 90's).