fujishig

Funny, because Austen broke me of my addiction to X-Men. And I'm a big fan of Kia Asamiya and several of the characters he used too and I just couldn't do it.

The the revelation that Marvel collects everything into trades made me stop collecting Marvel monthly altogether.

Then DC rebooting with the new 52 disassociated the characters with my memories of the characters, providing a clean breaking point. Still get that nudge every once in a while, and I'm enjoying Multiversity every month, but beyond that the big two made it really easy to avoid monthly comics. And if something is just really spectacular, well, it'll be available in a nicer package eventually. I really want to read Superior Spidey but I'll wait for a comixology sale or an omnibus. Not like I don't have a backlog of digital comics and hardcovers as it is.

taffer

I agree. The vast majority of kids wouldn't read comics if they were given away for free. Kids would rather play video games. I don't think it is much coincidence that the comic industry nosedived in the mid 90s right when the video game industry started going mainstream with the Playstation. Kids would rather spend their limited time and money on video games rather than comic books.

Also, regarding tablets, my biggest concern about them is how they completely ruin double page spreads. A printed comic page is about 10" x 6.5". The 9.7" iPad's screen dimensions are about 7" x 5". That's not too bad shrinking one page down to the iPad dimensions, but shrinking down a double page spread just completely ruins it.

Josh-da-man

Oh, they probably do cost that much.

You have to pay the writer, the artists, the colorist, the letterer, the editors, and any other business overhead. And then they have to be printed and shipped. And the publisher wants to make a profit on top of all of that.

And out of the cover price, Diamond takes its cut, and the retailer gets a hefty discount.

$2.00 might be doable if comics sold in greater numbers, but many of them are struggling to sell over 20,000 copies.

Keep in mind that, out of the cover price, the retailer will get about half of that, and the publisher will sell to Diamond for, probably, about 40% of cover price.

So, for a $2 comic, the publisher might gross about $16,000 from it if it sells 20,000 copies. And out of that $16,000 they have to pay the creators and printers. Keep in mind that the lower the print run is, the higher the per unit cost is.

Xiroteus

If comics sold ten times what they do we could see a better price. However I'm curious about magazines. Their in store cover price is insane (NEVER touch them) yet if you subscribe they get insanely cheap. (All the ads!)

Spiderbite

I have a Samsung Galaxy Pro 12.2 and that thing is the shiznit for comic and magazine reading. Expandable memory and none of the hang-ups that come with Apple products.

I have seen them refurbished for as low as $350 recently. I paid full price for mine when they came out and haven't regretted it one bit.

taffer

A 12" tablet would match a single printed comic page almost perfectly since the printed page is also 12" diagonal. However, that's just a single page. With double page spreads you still run into the same problem as other tablets with two pages being shrunk down to fit one small screen. No tablet is ever going to be able to replicate the effect of a double page spread properly.

rocket1312

Sure the double page spreads are compromised, but in the end, the convenience and relative affordability of digital makes the compromise worth it to me. I'll still pick up hardcovers and trades for the really important stuff that means a lot to me, but worrying about the double page spreads on stuff that I'm going to read once and throw into a long box just isn't going to happen at this point.

mrhan

My wife has subscriptions for me through her work for car magazines. I get them for $4 per subscription for a whole year. I think their $5 each or more at the store for a single issue. She just brings them home when they arrive in the office.

It works for all hospitals; basically anywhere that has a waiting room.

fujishig

And yet if you look at the value proposition of most magazines, even filled with ads, they far exceed the average comic book (if you like reading articles), even at non subscription cover price. They have all kinds of rack space to tempt people to pick up an issue here or there because of the cover stories, and they're all returnable/pulpable, meaning the risk to the grocery store is minimal since they get a refund for any they don't sell at the end of the month. I know with the new 52 they put out racks of comics at, I think, B&N, and I've seen some tattered comics at TRU, but other than that (and the sweet grandfathered deal Archie still has) comics don't have much of a presence outside of comic book stores, which limits ad revenue and views. I mean, that last time I read a marvel comic more than half the ads were house ads, so I doubt ad revenue is super significant in the cost (one thing that this reminds me of, is that digital has no ads).

madcougar

The difference between newspapers and magazines and comics, is the advertising. The reason that newspapers and magazines are basically being given away these days if you buy a subscription is the fact that they need to have a strong circulation to charge what they do for advertising.

majorjoe23

Scott Snyder tweeted that Batman is going back to $3.99 (after 35, which was already off to the printer).

I'll continue to wait for 99 cent sales on Comixology.

The Valeyard

Yeah. Just saw that. Here's DC's official notice:

Xiroteus

Oh, I know, I figure they just want everyone to see the ads. Newsstand prices are still insane.

PhantomStranger

Magazines and paperbacks are a tough comparison for comic books, since both sell to much larger markets than the comic book audience. Many of the women's magazines have circulations in the millions, smashing any comic book figure of the past three decades except for a few bubble-era issues.

The unspoken truth is that Marvel and DC's prices would be far lower if each issue sold a million copies. Instead many struggle to break 30,000 copies per month.

Xiroteus

I wonder how much sales would really go up if prices dropped to a couple dollars (couple means TWO!) Those who already purchase comics would likely start buying a few extra series while those who do not read comics at all may never really notice since they are mostly just in comic shops and the whole only getting part of the story so trades do better for a general reader.

I'm sure what I would get would increase quite a bit, however having to sell twice as much just to make what they used to is not something they would do. Now if doing that allowed them to sell ten times as much.

Spiderbite

The price is not the only problem with comics. Not only did they price themselves out of the kid's market (kid's buying them with their own money) but you can barely find them anywhere but at a comic book store nowadays. When I was growing up, comics were mostly a cheap impulse buy that you could get anywhere.

My Dad would run into a 7-11 and come out with one or two 25 cent comics for me after getting gas and a drink. When I was sick, my Dad ALWAYS came home with several comics for me after picking up medicine at the local drug store. When at the grocery store, I could always beg my parents to grab me a comic or two when checking out. Also, I sat in the magazine aisle and read and looked at comics usually the entire time my parents were grocery shopping which lead to me discovering new titles and picking up some with my own money.

You generally can't find comics under any of the perfect kid's situations above. And that is what the comic industry has done to doom them...taken themselves out of kid's hands by both location and price.

Randy Miller III

Still cheap compared to Hallmark cards.

mrhan

Yeah, but people need (or think they do) to buy cards. Besides, there are the no name brands at Walmart and Target for 99 cents. No one and I mean no one needs to buy a comic book.

Trevor

Wow. You're right. I rarely buy cards outside of the dollar store, same cards that are $2.99 and up at the drugstore; but I'm amazed that people pay $5 or more for a greeting card that likely gets tossed in the trash within a day.

taffer

man. Comic books are one of the four necessities in life. Food, water, shelter, and comic books.

fujishig

I'll further add that price and availability are also not the only problems. Heck, some of us have kids and have a tough time getting them to read comics, and to them they're basically free!

If anything, the monthly issue is a tough starting point for anybody. If you want to start someone off in comics, you usually give them a trade, or a self contained story. I wonder how effective giving them a random issue of a monthly would be. Even with the new 52, which was restarted partially to give people an easy jumping on point, the continuity is already so muddled that I doubt it's easy to follow. And that's part of the catch of superhero comics; the fans want interconnected stories that "matter," but sometimes (not always) that means it's impenetrable to new readers.

taffer

Another thing that is daunting to new readers is just the sheer number of titles that are produced nowadays.

The Bat-family alone is like a dozen titles. Superman and Green Lantern families also have several titles. Over on the Marvel side, Avengers and X-Men have multiple titles. Also, don't forget many of these double-ship too (especially on the Marvel side).

Even for us "hardcore" readers, that can get to be a bit much. For someone new, they just take one look and say forget about it.

Trevor

^ and ^^

I guess several companies have tried to combat those problems by creating smaller and more cohesive superhero universes. Heck, even Marvel and DC have tried with some of their sub-labels.

Guess they are sometimes victims of their own success, growing bigger and more convoluted to try to meet demand; then imploding.

PhantomStranger

That industry has an even worse problem than the comic book industry. Sales have been slashed in the past decade as younger women abandon print cards for social media and email. Many inside Hallmark believe the industry will be virtually extinct within a decade as the Baby Boomers start dying off. If people aren't paying attention, stores like Walmart now carry greeting cards as cheaply as 47 cents.

Xiroteus

They are WAY too expensive. However, not everyone tosses them nor do they within a day. I only have a small amount of people I get cards from so I keep them. It's really only a small stack a few inches high. I would have to rethink it a bit if I had dozens coming in each year.