Trevor

Yeah, I know. I'm a hoarder and probably have at least 500 greeting cards in various boxes. I throw away most generic birthday or Christmas cards after a week or so; but anything handmade or with special significance to my nostalgia addicted brain gets saved.

But I imagine most people throw most away.

Xiroteus

This is one reason why I even like really nice cards because I will keep them. Not much of a hoarder yet have a weakness for items with personal meaning. Everything I care about can still fit in a really small room.

Even if someone does toss them it's cool to at least have them up for a few days. No wonder some just want to get a dollar card if they are going to toss it before the ink is dry.

If it ever got really bad one could always scan them to their computer. Not quite the same yet a good space saving method if needed.

PhantomStranger

500 greeting cards? How old are you, that is a lot of birthdays and Christmases?

kodave

This isn't necessarily the industry's fault. I feel like I already went through this here in another thread.

Wasn't it just in this thread people were marveling (pun not intended) that subscriptions cost the same as a single issue off the newsstand? Or am I thinking of another thread? Either way, it's costly to put your stuff on the shelf. Space in stores is equivalent to money. Print is dying. The news stands in stores are being reduced in size. Competition for space on those shelves is fierce. Spinner racks don't exist for comics because that space could literally be used to sell 100 more profitable things than comic books. Comics aren't in grocery stores because Marvel and DC are idiots and decided to say "F these retail establishments." They're not there because the business model doesn't work anymore.

The other issue is comics aren't written for kids and haven't been for some time. Trying to hook kids on your run of the mill superhero title seems like a pretty dumb idea. There have been posts here and posts across the internet about people looking for age appropriate titles for kids and the suggestions are never your standard big two capes and tights books.

If you want to hook kids on superhero comics you've got to reach them either with loss leader trades with all ages non-continuity dependent content in an improved version of that Walmart experiment, or you've got to make it easier for them to get appropriate comics on their tablets and phones. Welcome to the 2010s. I mean heck, maybe Marvel and DC should just give away all ages books in hopes that it'll pay off years down the line.

That's pretty much how any resurgence in readership in the industry has worked today. I think very few readers in their mid 20s and beyond are complete comic book virgins. Most everyone read a little something while kids, dropped off, and then comic book TV shows and movies inspired them to go back to the source material. So usually they go back to the trades and if they really get hooked again, start setting up pull lists.

By giving away certain comics for free to kids, you'll either get them asking their parents to buy more for them down the line, or you'll get them coming back in the future when they get nostalgic or are of an appropriate age to buy the regular titles. I think this is what Free Comic Book Day is doing at a certain level, but it's got to be more than one day a year. Surely Marvel and DC can afford to put a selection of 100 or so all ages titles or just generally appropriate titles out there for free on their apps that parents can become aware of and pull that up on a tablet to keep kids occupied. And it would earn immense goodwill from parents too.

But forget the kids (well don't forget the kids - do what I suggest above) - I think there is a whole market of 20 and 30 year olds that would easily get hooked on NON superhero comics that don't carry the same old stigmas big two superhero comics carry. While everyone loves comic book movies, comics are still seen as a "geeky" thing to be into and there's still a negative stigma attached to it. The other problem is that quality wise, big two superhero books often leave a whole lot to be desired. There is often very little to bite into from literary or even basic story telling standards. But creator owned works are knocking it out of the park these days in terms of quality. There's probably two or three dozen titles Image currently publishes that people could get hooked on (outside of Walking Dead) that also read easy in trade form. But no one out there knows they exist unless they get licensed for a movie or TV show. Dynamite and BOOM! and even IDW have some creator owned stuff that the mid-20s+ crowd could get into and not feel ashamed about because those books don't feature Catwoman's tits falling out of her costume. But those companies don't have advertising or ambassadors out there making people aware of that stuff short of word of mouth. People can walk into any B&N and find the independent section just as big as the Marvel and DC sections, but people are going to be more reluctant to blind buy something they know nothing about when compared with Batman and Spider-Man.

The only way comics are ever going to become cheap impulse buys for anyone again is if they get CHEAPER than they are now in digital form. The only thing print needs is cheap starter volumes like Image provides, and high end collectors volumes for those who are willing to pony up that kind of cash. But for everyone else, I think the answer is going to be digital.

Single issue comics aren't coming down in price and they're not coming back to the grocery store. The Comixology sale pricing has to become the new standard pricing. A person with a passing interest in comics isn't going to impulse buy a $2.99 or $3.99 single issue they'll be done with in 10 minutes and quite probably never re-read. You've got to get them down to at least $0.99 cents. And then when you have complete story arcs / digital trade equivalents, you've got to provide a further discount on that package. Then you'll get non-regular readers dropping that impulse money. And you'll probably get the hobby addicted current readers buying even more than they already buy.

But the industry doesn't have to change to something like that because current readership is going to keep things afloat by buying $4.99 single issue Batmans even as some of their peers stop buying the book.

Trevor

48, but many aren't birthday or Christmas cards, but cards from girlfriends over the years. I guess I'll throw them away if I ever get to those boxes.

And 500 might be an exaggeration, unless you count the box of blank cards. When shopping for greeting cards I'd often find multiple funny or otherwise cool cards, and buy them all instead of the one I needed. So I have a cache of cards of all types (Christmas, birthday, graduation, get well, etc) in my closet ready for any life event; mostly Christmas cards found on huge sales. Have I mentioned that I tend to hoard?

fujishig

I will say that at least the big two are keeping the IPs alive. Even if kids aren't reading comic books, they're being introduced to the characters in media, through the cinematic universe, books, cartoons, and video games, and I'm sometimes surprised at how deep into the universes they can go (criticize Ultimate Spiderman all you want, but I never thought I'd be watching a show where Nova, Power Man, Iron Fist and White Tiger are regulars).

Unfortunately, there is often speculation that the big companies (Disney and WB) see the comic companies as basically low profit centers but sources of very profitable IPs, but it can be easy to overlook that a lot of the reason these cartoons and movies are popular is because it has a basis in a story that came out of a comic book.

Brian Hibbs goes over the Bookscan numbers every year in his Tilting at Windmills column:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=50992

It's always an interesting read (IMHO), but of note is that kids are buying books like Dork Diaries, which don't carry the stigma of comic books but are sequential art/comic-book like.

PhantomStranger

I think many kids see the superheroes on television in the form of cartoons and movies. I vaguely knew who Superman was before I ever picked up a comic, I had seen his famous I Love Lucy episode in syndication. That did get me interested in leafing through comics at the newsstands. Kids want big brands they are familiar with, I'm not sure creator-owned comics have that kind of cache with them. It is true the industry woefully underserves that potential market, though as you mentioned they aren't coming back to magazine racks at grocery stores.