Been reading the ongoing digital comics piracy debate, and a thought popped into my mind.
Is $2.99 (or, most often, more) too much to pay for a print single-issue comic book?
It certainly isn't if the material is good.
But I've come to the conclusion that if the material is sub-par -- or merely mediocre -- it's too much money to expect the public to pay.
Let me reiterate:
In the "good old days," I used to wait on baited breath for the next issue of Morrison's "Doom Patrol" or "Love and Rockets." I mean, I would literally count down the thirty days for my fave comics to come out.
But If I buy, say, 6 comics @ $2.99 today at my comic shop, and 4 of them are mediocre reads, that means I just spent around $12.00 on mediocrity that won't even look nice on my bookshelf.
I think this is the real issue that drives the comic book pirates.
Hey, I realize not every book is gonna hit them out of the park. But I classify comics in three catagories:
1. REALLY GOOD BOOKS. Ellis's Thunderbolts, Morrison's All-Star Superman, etc.
2. "Okay" books I have a sentimental attachment to. For me that would include Iron Man & Ms. Marvel, of which I do not miss an issue.
3. Mediocre comics. They're efficient enough time-wasters, but eminently forgettable.
4. Crap.
$2.99 is too much for mediocre & crap. It's just too much money. For $9 I can go buy any number of classic movies on DVD. For $14 I can get a trade paperback that, worst-case scenario, at least can sit nice on my bookshelf or make a viable product to resell on eBay.
But what can I do with a $2.99 floppy that has sucky quality? Nobody wants to buy it from me. I usually won't give it to my friends, because I'm not in the habit of giving friends crap. Besides, they all have too many comics, anyway.
Such "filler" comics are best offered for free or a small subscription fee online. They are good comics to host ads on. They are good product to tout "exclusive comics free on this site!"
Of course, one person's crap is another person's gold. But if we had to analyze it, if we put it to a survey, certain books are going to be pointed out by the majority as either "mediocre" or "crap."
Now the whole "direct to video/DVD" movie phenomenon comes to mind. These films are not good enough to be in the movie theaters, but find a home in affordably-priced copies or Netflix.
Maybe the same principle should apply to comics. Maybe publishers should have a high bar as to the quality of all their print "floppy" books, and then just publish the rest online.
As for the argument made by many digital comics pirates that "sampling" comics for free online will actually lead to more purchases -- we all know this is not the case for mediocre & crap books. The glaring crapocity of a book becomes all the more noticeable when you downloaded an entire week's worth of books and are flipping through files.
Think about it -- you just got 30+ comics for free in one download. The choice is already overwhelming. A title that you might have, one-upon-a-time, actually purchased to "sample" is now ignored by you after glancing at a couple of digital pages.
Do you know how many comics I have purchased that I've regretted? How is this an efficient use of my time? Can I afford to keep "sampling?" Can I afford to buy 4 books a week that are just "okay?"
This is not meant to be a knock on the comics industry. I'm just literally looking at my wallet in preparation for the day's purchases and asking some questions.
$2.99 is fine for... an event comic, an extra-sized comic, something like that.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, not for the run of the mill funnybook.
How much price-point would be saved by going back to awesome cheap paper and awesome non-realistic four-colour processes again?
That's what comic books are supposed to look like, y'know.
I'm sick of all this glossiness these days anyhow.
"How much price-point would be saved by going back to awesome cheap paper and awesome non-realistic four-colour processes again?"
ReplyDeleteYes! Please!
I wonder how much of the departure of kids from comics is the shift to realistic coloring. Comics also look 'darker'.
I agree that crap comics are one thing driving downloads (hard to find back issues are another). I don't know if it's even the specific cover price, though; it's probably just the general feeling at having gotten ripped off when you read a bad comic you paid for (although the feeling might have been different when they were 25 cents).
ReplyDeleteA lot of the downloads are probably the sort of people who used to wander into the comic shop and go "I know this crossover is going to suck, but I need to see what happens." So from that POV, I can see why downloading would annoy the companies. But I don't think there are very many people who read a comic they downloaded, and say "Wow, that was great. But I'm not gonna start buying it." Because if you're into comics enough to seek them out to download and read on a screen, you're probably already a collector, and thus you want comics you like in your collection.
What about staggered online releases? What about including things like, & this is my DnD geekery talking but, maps & three-d glasses & other side benefits in issues? & so forth.
ReplyDelete"How much price-point would be saved by going back to awesome cheap paper and awesome non-realistic four-colour processes again?"
ReplyDeleteI second (third?) that! I haven't bought a comic since 1989. At $1.95 each it became time to find a new hobby.
I just recently found out about digital comic pirating, and I think it's great! I officially feel the same about the comics industry as I do about the record industry. They've screwed me so much that I don't feel wrong about screwing them.
I would say that $2.99 is probably an acceptible price for the average regular fan, but it is a terrible entry level cost, especially considering the high-risk quality-to-crap ratio you mention. How many new fans would be willing to risk $15 for 5 new comics, with the strong possibility that 3/5 will be mediocre or crap? Or how many would risk that amount on an unfamiliar medium?
ReplyDeleteAnd does the product look like it's worth $3 to the average consumer? Glossy covers and slick paper aside, comics don't really look like a good deal. And they especially don't look good when compared to manga, where, for around $10, you at least get something that looks like it's worth the price just in terms of quantity of pages. The manga industry seems to be weathering the competition from free online bootleg scans just fine, and that network is much more extensive and accessible than comic scans.
I think that this comparison is a bigger issue than the quality/crap ratio. For the crappiness of a comic to become a factor, someone actually has to purchase and read it, so, in that case, the price point is moot. The reader may say, "Wow, that wasn't worth $3!" but the $3 has already been spent. And that reader may say that no matter how much was spent. But a likely scenario is the potential reader who holds up a slim, 32-page comic and says, "This is not worth $3."
(Archie Digests would also be a good comparison: $2.50-$3.80 for a nice load of comics.)
So, $3 could be a fine price for certain titles once you're in as a reader. I was fine paying that for Love and Rockets when most of my other comic purchases were around $1, or paying the extra 75 cents for the early Vertigo and mature reader books from DC around the same time.
Hear hear on getting rid of the fancy paper and color and dropping the price of the comic. $2.99 is a HUGE barrier to entry for new comics fans. Back when I was a kid, you purchased a comic for 15 or 25 cents, read it, and then chucked it or hung on to it until it was so tattered and torn that your mom threw it away.
ReplyDeleteThe glossy paper/fancy coloring process stuff came about because of the rise of collecting (also responsible for the 6 alternate covers crap). At that time there seemed to be a never-ending audience and jillions of comics stores.
But now comic stores are becoming more and more scarce (and more and more devoted to games), and convenience stores etc. no longer carry comic books (too damn expensive). So the only place to get kids hooked on comics any more is online.
OK. Enough rambling from me.
History of prices here. This is totally a soap box for me. There was a big spike in the 90s. It's ridiculous. If there is one way I have diverged from creators it's this. They cried and cried in the pages of TCJ and elsewhere for higher quality paper to show respect for their work. You know what? Save it for the trades. Let it stand a little test of time first. Seriously. We can always reprint if it's that great.
ReplyDeleteIf comics only adjusted with inflation since I started collecting at the very start of the $0.75 cover price, they would now cost... $1.33
Can you imagine? Hell, I'd be happy with $1.75!!!
It's infuriating. I could buy six comics a week on my allowance when I was in like the 3rd grade at that price. Now, a kid would have to get a $20/week allowance to buy that many. Seems like a lot.
Lower. The. Prices. Now.
Bring back newsprint. It's fine.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI used to pirate comics before getting the job I have now, where I can afford to blow upwards of $20/week on mediocre and crap books. When I was pirating, there were soooo many books I was reading that I barely enjoyed. I would never dare dream of paying for those books because they read like they're only being published for the sake of filling up a publishing slot. So, I can understand why people pirate, even if I don't anymore, the average price per good read is just way too high to be affordable.
ReplyDeleteMike asked:
ReplyDeleteHow much price-point would be saved by going back to awesome cheap paper and awesome non-realistic four-colour processes again?
Not a lot, I think. I have a feeling that most of the cost isn't the grade of paper or printing -- with computers, production costs are likely down from the gold old days, not up (in adjusted dollars). Most of the production cost goes to paying writers and artists (and letterers and colorists) a decent--and in some cases exceptional--page rate, and royalties. Jack Kirby wasn't drawing three-four books a month for the fun of it.
I should add that I've got no problems with comics aesthetically looking like they used to. I *love* the Kirby Omnibi, for example, paper and all! I'm just saying I don't think it'd save a lot of money.
ReplyDeleteNone of us seem to have any data, but I think that's a bold statement, Rob. Normally I'd be inclined to think rockstar payments to big creators explains it, but here I'm not so sure.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I think the biggest force for raising the prices has probably been decreasing demand. The old supply-demand thing...
...but expensive colorist services (which look like CRAP) and excessively nice paper must be a big factor. Look at how horribly over-priced IDW is? And they use paper that's like cardboard. I won't touch their books on principal.
Like I said, this was a big issue for the creators in the late 90s and that's when a lot of the price-spikeagery occurred. So... connect-the-dots.
That said, when the supply drops the company has to charge more to cover costs...
but with the prices so far out of whack with the value of the product, they are killing themselves. The point about MANGA was dead on. I don't read that stuff, but the price per page their is way better.
TCJ had a great article on this at one point, arguing that a comic takes you like 15 or 20 min to read but costs the same as half a paperback, which can take hours and hours, or a 1/3 of a movie, which can be anywhere from 2 to 4 hours.
I am very, very grumpy about price, if you can't tell.
I'm not talking about rockstar payments. They're the exception. I'm talking about rock-bottom payments in the 70s, when the cover prices were low. I'm not complaining about today's payments at all; I'm just saying they're a factor. I'm glad comic creators can finally afford to put the time into only one comic a month to make their money, rather than scrambling to do three to make ends meet.
ReplyDeleteAnother factor is that there's no real incentive to keep the prices low. Low-priced books don't sell better, and in many cases, sell worse.
And computers are the way EVERYTHING is colored these days. They are the tools we have available; I doubt the old way of coloring (old ladies in Sparta cutting cellophane into shapes) is even possible any more. You may not like the style of computer coloring, but it's not the tool that's the problem (or the expense)--it's the user.
As for IDW -- I think they choose the paper they choose so they can get away with charging $3.99, not the other way around. They need to charge $3.99 to make money on their print runs, so they throw in a little extra for the better paper to give the reader the impression that he's getting better value for the money.
ReplyDeleteIf they could sell books at $2.99 and make money, I bet they would, since their price turns off a lot of potential customers (including me). I'd bet the their business plan is predicated on being more expensive than other comics, with the better stock as part of the justification for the difference.
But neither of us know which is really the cart and which is the horse.
"But neither of us know which is really the cart and which is the horse."
ReplyDeleteThis is true.
BUT WE ARE UNHAPPY CART-HORSES!!!
(((don't mind me, I haven't made sense all day)))
Well, it does cost a bit more to color a comic book these days...if it's a comic that has all the "special effects" and whatnot it's going to cost quite a bit. The paper stock is another factor. Glossy paper is much more expensive -- and paper in general gets more and more costly each year.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of "rockstar" payments to certain comic creators...well, it does happen. There is the standard tier of payment and then the super-top-secret tiers for a select few.
I think they are all factors -- as well as inflation.
The problem is that comics are being outpriced by the natural increase in the cost of living and production.
It was fine to pay 10 or 25 or even 75 cents on a "blah" book.
But $4.00 is some cases?
We've had to cut down some our purchases at Casa Del Superheroine.
That said, I will happily pay $25 for a hardcover of good material.
'Do you know how many comics I have purchased that I've regretted? How is this an efficient use of my time? Can I afford to keep "sampling?" Can I afford to buy 4 books a week that are just "okay?"'
ReplyDeleteThis is just it, I've run out of steam. I cannot keep flushing money down the toilet to read garbage. I can buy a lot of trade paperbacks that I know are really good in comparison to what I used to buy for my "samples". Heck, I can get a month of any MMOG on the market for that cost.
Sorry comics, you've done it to yourselves. There have been lots of different distribution options you could have tried, but you were worried about losing the secondary market or the merchandising from brick and mortar stores. You are the dinosaur, the indy publisher revolution is coming, you will regret it.
Actually, I'm not done ...
ReplyDeletePublishers have to start putting out more of their back catalog on the web for permanent download. how many people would pay for a digital download of the Hitman series? I know I would. And the time and energy is paltry compared to what you can make.
Same goes for a LOT of different titles that if i could buy them on DVD I would.
Also ... put out small digest volumes. They take up less space, and most comics don't need the full page to be worth reading.
Ok, now I think I'm done.
When I was in Japan, I got a good view of the way they packaged their manga - 100 or so paged volumes on cheap paper, and the books were usually anthologies so that even if one story was *meh*, there were three or four others to make up for it.
ReplyDeleteI also think that if they're going to go the glossy, high-quality paper route, just make the books magazine size. The average magazine gives me over three times more pages than a typical comic, for only two bucks more. Again, an anthology format would probably work best here. Sure, there'd be more ads, but I think the trade-off would be worth it.
Of course, everyone hates anthologies, so there you go.
I also think packaging books a la the Archie Digest is a good way to go, especially if the idea is to attract new readers. But then, new readers won't understand jokes about Silver Age Jimmy Olsen, and that's really what quality comics are all about.
I should mention that I work at a magazine, though in editorial, not production. So I gave a friend of mine (and fellow comic fan) in production a call to see if I'm full of crap. He'll probably post here later tonight.
ReplyDeleteBut in a nutshell, newsprint is physically a lot cheaper. But it can't take advantage of any of the benefits of offset printing, and the costs involved of coloring the book would be a lot higher to reproduce the old way of doing things. It would be a giant leap backward, production-wise, for little economic benefit.
He'll have a lot more to say if he logs on tonight.
I'm actually in favor of scrapping the monthly all together, for a lot of reasons I've yakked about at length... including economic.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't see why they can't go to some cheaper, less glossy paper. The paper in the "Fourth World Omnibus" looks and feels great. I'm sure THAT stuff is mega-expensive, but there must be some alternate choices. They don't have to go back to newsprint, but I don't see any reason for the median monthly to be printed as it it were some sort of archival museum piece.
And the computer coloring? There are a very few colorists who get it right, but all-too frequently it's overly modeled and just muddies up the art, completely obscuring the linework. There are also a few artists where this is a plus, but I don't see that a lot of Photoshop airbrushing automatically means better looking product.
All I really know is, that at $2.99 a pop, you better be a writer the caliber of Koike Kazuo and an artist like Steve Rude or Brent Anderson to make it a justifiable expense as far as I'm concerned.
Otherwise, I'm going to the trades.
I really hope that the Powers that Be aren't harvesting our IPs in relation to our comments on this thread. ^_^
ReplyDeleteSeriously though: In New Zealand, the $2.99 price point translates into $7.00 NZ, or at least at my LCS (which is half wargames now, but thats cool, 'cos I can get all my geekery out in one stop). For context: $7.00 is more than half of the minimum wage.
So: I really, really can't afford the 3-4 books I buy a week. So the decision making process often boils down a political decision: Which creators and concepts do I want to send the message that I'm supportive of?
So: I buy Countdown to Mystery 'cos I really want to see a new Dr Fate ongoing. I buy Blue Beetle 'cos its a damn good fun book with a teenage cast written well and that kind of thing ought to continue. Godland 'cos... 'cos there's always room for huge cosmic nonsense. ^_^ Things like that.
I've never downloaded a book I would've bought, and there are books I wouldnt've bought if I hadn't been able to catch up on the back issues online. I know that I'm denying creators much needed royalties, and I do feel a little guilty about this, but if I'm only D/Ling stuff I never could have afforded, its not as if there was a sale there to be lost, if you catch my drift.
Anyways, there's my confession: I'm a horrible person, and technology has only enabled me to be worse. But, honestly: I probably wouldn't be buying any comics if the illegal downloads hadn't been there to whet my appetite and get me caught up on the backstory.
I have a unique viewpoint on this debate on price and how it affects consumer purchasing. I make comics and other printed entertainment under the Lone Star Press banner. One comic book I wrote and inked in 1997 did not sell a copy in the last year. And then I opened a wowio account and started posting free downloadable .pdf files there. That same book was downloaded 30 times in the past two weeks and from that I get a share of the advertising revenue.
ReplyDeleteThere are projects that people will not pay money for, but as the price is lowered (to free in this case) the amount of readers goes up.
Bill
Lone Star Press
http://www.wowio.com
Interesting point about mimimum wage, Owsome. $2.99 is over half of the current US Federal minimum of $5.85. (It's going up to $6.55 in mid-08, and $7.25 in mid-09. No telling what the average comic will cost then, though.)
ReplyDeleteI just spent around $12.00 on mediocrity that won't even look nice on my bookshelf.
ReplyDeleteI think this is the real issue that drives the comic book pirates.
They're free, readily available and completely disposable. That's your real issue.
Well, comic book prices just went down in Canada to $3.05 for a Marvel book. It might not seem that impressive to you Americans out there, but a Marvel book cost $4.25 a year ago. And with that extra cast in my pocket, I've been able to buy an extra book or two in the last couple of weeks since the price went down. For me, comics are back to costing as much as they did in the 1990s and I couldn't be happier. And when it comes to the nicer paper and coloring, I guess I just expect that when I spend three bucks on a comic it's going to look as good as it can. I sympathize with fans who feel otherwise. I find the flat coloring and newspapery stock used in the Johnny DC Justice League comic a nice throwback in that respect and I gladly read that title monthly. But it's not going to get someone who's seen a Spider-Man movie or played the latest HD video game that interested.
ReplyDeleteIs it a bad thing that comics cost three bucks? Not for me -- three bucks for twenty-two pages and some 'Bullpen Bits' type stuff is fine. It does limit the number of comics I can buy in a week though, so I usually stick with the titles I like or am sure will be half decent. The biggest downside I can see is that the price-point limits sampling in other titles, both for fanboys and new readers, and you're running the risk of a comic industry that turns into the literary equivalent of a Hollywood movie studio. But by that same token I can't see how a comic publisher would be able to profit from a book for anything less than three bucks even if was bare-bones and by a mid-level creative team.
But what do I know. I just read the damn things.
Have a good day.
G Morrow
Oh yeah... the online/pay thing seems like an avenue to explore.
ReplyDeleteAnd I forgot to mention that because I live in Japan, I've actually paid 2 or 2.5 times the MSRP for comics here. Add in the cost of travelling to Tokyo via shinkansen. Although to be honest, I only buy comics there when I'm in Tokyo to do other things.
Still, that is REALLY a terrible deal when the comic is subpar.
Oh, and imagine a world where you pay 20 bucks for an issue of Wizard!
I can imagine a world where I could, but I can't imagine a world where I would.
ReplyDeleteDamn straight, Rob!
ReplyDeleteThings I'm excited about:
ReplyDelete1) That the power of Internet action against the comic book industry might actually do something about this situation.
2) The idea of anthologizing collections of books that obviously could hang well together (See, Dectective, Robin, Nightwing and Batman).
3) Telling comic book companies how much we hate the look of their stupid high paid colorists and their stupid expensive special effects (remember when Cap had that awful see-through shield? Damn.)
4) Downloadable HITMAN backissues. You know what, let's just name a reasonable price now? They aren't doing ANYTHING with these books. I say $0.50 is a legitimate price for a downloadable comic. They aren't printing or distributing or anything, and we're sacrificing some portability, any chance of appreciation and convenience reading. $0.50? Takers?
5) How many people got as pumped about this injustice as I did. Let's SPREAD it folks! Write about it on your own blogs! Post on Newsarama!
Fight The Man!!!
"Telling comic book companies how much we hate the look of their stupid high paid colorists and their stupid expensive special effects."
ReplyDeleteReally? Because I can't even stand to look at a lot of the comics Marvel published from 1999 through early 2001 because of how shoddy the coloring looks, especially after they were really starting to get good with the digital process. Guess it has to do with when you started reading comics, I suppose. For me, if a series I read regularly when back to the flat, four-color style of coloring, I'd probably drop it. Just my personal preference.
Have a good day.
G Morrow
Well, I remember as a kid comics being 35 cents. I got enough allowance to but two comics, a can of soda and a pack of gum. Riding down to the corner store, money in hand, made for some wonderful summer days.
ReplyDeleteNow I have a son who is 7 years old, about the age I was when I bought my first comic, and there's no way in heck he would have enough allowance to buy two comics at todays prices.
Adjusted for inflation, the 35 cents I paid for comics is about 1.25 today. At a little over a buck, comics are just about at the right price point. Anything more and it just doesn't work unless you're a twenty something with disposable income (sadly, todays demographic)
Between the direct market and the inflated price, it's no wonder kids are avoiding comics. If not for free comic book day, and a dad who found a stash of his old comics in his moms basement, I doubt my son would be reading comics.
For me, I download and red and read comics for the same reasons I would read a comic collection in a library or read a trade while sitting in borders drinking coffee. In both of those cases I'm not paying for the book. It's not worth the price. Downloading comics has led me to get back into buying 2-3 comics a week after a spell of about 6 years. In an age where readers are dropping like flies, it seems foolish to attack your customers. If downloading vanished tomorrow, I doubt I would be buying comics a year from now.
"3) Telling comic book companies how much we hate the look of their stupid high paid colorists and their stupid expensive special effects (remember when Cap had that awful see-through shield? Damn.)"
ReplyDeleteI kind of want to dispell this one as a former colorist. Page rates for colorists are significantly less than pencilers and are steadily decreasing. Pencilers can command $150-$300 per page while colorists are lucky to get $75. Just because a page has a fancy photoshop filter thrown on it doesn't mean the colorist gets any more money.
Also, while pencilers generally get at least a month to finish their pages, colorists will sometimes only get a week to turn around 22 pages of full colored art. As one of the last people in the chain, your friendly neighborhood colorists often get shafted.
My feeling is that, as one person has already said, the prices aren't so high because of the high production values, the production values are high to justify the high prices. Let's face it, comics sell about a tenth of the numbers they used to, and they sell it to a hardcore audience that is, frankly, obsessed with the product and has plenty of disposable income. That means their best strategy is to jack up the price to make up for the small print runs.
ReplyDeleteAs for what I, a consumer, do to not feel ripped off: Showcase Presents and Essentials. $11.55 on Amazon.com, over 500 pages of comics per volume. Heck, the X-Men book that came out today (Essential X-Men volume 8) is actually less than it would have cost to buy those comics when they came out on the stands.
I read absolutely no single issues any more. (And I once dropped thirty to forty bucks a week on comics.)
the biggest blow i'd feel if the monthly got scrapped would be the death knell of the comic shop.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, the blow I'd feel is the death knell of continuity. I love continuity. A lot. It inspires a different sort of creativity and it is unique, in narrative, to comics. Well, comics and the myths of Greek, Roman, Eqypt and Norway.
ReplyDeleteI know there are pros and cons to continuity, but I really like that lots and lots of creators are doing work that either directly or indirectly impacts the future landscape of other creators.
Rob S. is correct.
ReplyDeleteAs production manager for a major magazine, I can say that
while newsprint is substantially cheaper, at this point, reverting isn't even an option.
Nothing in publishing prints on newsprint anymore except newspapers, circulars and other disposable periodicals.
As a respected form of art, newsprint no longer serves an industry which has greater needs and demands for quality printing. At the very least, if comics are to be respected, you can't print on something disposable, like newsprint or toilet paper.
It's an oxymoron statement: you want respect for the industry then you can't print on cheap crap. Why would an artist want their work displayed on anything short of the best reproduction available?
Moreover, comics today employ a much higher class of advertisers than those of yesteryear.
These advertisers pay a large portion of the associated costs and they want the best reproduction for their ads otherwise how do you justify ad costs?
You honestly don't believe the cover price pays for publishing comics anymore, do you?
Those days are LONG gone.
At the very least, forget your paper stock. Printing costs for comics are astronomical. It costs a heckava lot of money to run a press -- the greater the circulation, the cheaper the cost..
Remember years ago, comics with circs figure of under 100k were usually on the radar for cancellation. That was mostly because running a press for such a small print run was not cost effective. They would have published at a loss.
Today, comic books have EXTREMELY low circ figures. Most are under 100k and the average is anywhere between 50k-25k. That plays a big part in the need for the higher paying advertisers who, like the artists, want the best reproduction for the hard work they put into creating their ads.
Those advertisers, subsidizing the high costs of your low circulation comic books are what permit them to publish at all.
Like Rob said, then factor in your creator payments, costs for prepress / color seps... you're getting into some expensive stuff here, and that doesn't even touch on the cost to ship the comics from the printer to the distributors then to the shops. Anyone who has shipped anything via UPS or USPS knows, they ain't cheap.
So yeah, idealistically, it would be neat to go back to newsprint. But newsprint does not serve a medium that wants to maintain any sense of quality as a respected form of art.
PS... Though it could be argued that the stories and art published today are doing more damage to the medium's level of respect than newsprint ever could.
An addendum to my earlier post about my criminality:
ReplyDeleteThe only Borders in my town sells monthlies for $10.99 NZ. It has a tiny little yellow sticker claiming that they are air freighted, whatever that means- they're still selling last week's books.
And the minimum wage here is $11.25 NZD- so, in theory, a kid's gotta be flipping burgers for 1.2 hours (after tax- 19.5% income tax = 9.11 in the pocket) to be able to pick up a book from a mainstream retailer.
Which will suck for them if they read something like, I dunno, Titans East #1 or something.
I believe the original post hit the nail on the head. $2.99 is a bit pricey but I don't think people would mind if publishers were printing quality material.
ReplyDeletePeople claim comic books are selling now better than ever but that's an illusion. Better now than when?
If you went by the standards of yesteryear, when comics were actually fun, there would probably be a handful of comics from today's market that would publish. As stated before, most comics with circ figures below 100k were on dangerous ground.
Publishers instituted royalties as an incentive for creators to up circulation and even then, few if any received them. I believe New Teen Titans was one of DC's only books back then that did.
Today, the audience is much more sophisticated. Prices are high, only adults can afford them so the demand for quality is greater.
But the material littering the market is doing great damage to the industry resulting in declining circ figures. Comics are selling better because of the higher price point and the sheer volume of titles available.
DC has dozens upon dozens of worthless Countdown tie ins that few if any are buying. But if ten of those $2.99 titles sell 25k each, that's an aggregate figure of 250,000. It's yields the same result, the same dollar figure as if one title sold 250,000.
So essentially, what publishers are doing is bait and switching the readers: Okay, Comic-man sales are down? Wow. What can we do to up sales? Raise the quality? Difficult to do given the talent pool we're fishing from. These creators think they're regular Piccasso's but if that were so, why are less than 100k people buying your work?
There's billions of people in the world, everyone's aware of comic books. Cds, books, dvds, video games are priced much higher and people buy them. People would buy comics too if they were good. It can't be that people just aren't buying these brilliant works of art because comic readers are dumb. If it was good, word would spread.
Word spread when DC hyped All Star Batman and Robin. Book began with figures of almost 300k. Those figures dropped when one of two things happened a) It wasn't as good as most thought or 1/2 of those 300k people wouldn't have walked away. Sales increase if its good and word spreads unless...
b) The next issue wasn't there to buy when it was supposed to be and people forgot about it. Then again, if it was good, wouldn't people have remembered?
When sales of comic-man declines, publishers put out other drivel to compensate for the lost revenue. Ten Coundown drippy books make up for the terrible circulation loss on a X character's one book.
But publishers wouldn't need 10 useless crossover books if they focused on publishing quality material on the one regular book.
So publisher's have become their own worst enemies. Publishing amateur fan fiction under the guise of printed work with the stamp of a 2.99 price isn't going to fool readers into buying it.
It only results in lower circ figures and with higher printing costs, you have to raise the price and churn out a whole bunch of drivel to compensate for the lost revenue and readership.
Readers are adults and most of the material published today insults their intelligence. Consumers are slow on the uptake but they're not as dumb as publisher's think. Everyone has different tolerence levels but feed anyone enough crap and eventually, they throw up... for $2.99 or .99
BTW, I am the one who posted under 'jericho'. I went back and changed my screen name to my real name but it didn't retroactivate the post.
ReplyDeleteAnd I apologize for getting on the soap box. I'm prety passionate about the industry and feel terrible about its current state and direction.
"wait on baited breath"
ReplyDeleteBated!
As for the issue at hand, the problem isn't just the $2.99 for a floppy. I bought the first Powers collection and would like to read the others, but I'll be damned if I'll pay for them. Powers is like a pretty good TV series. The experience is not worth a hundred or so dollars. Buying is certainly easier than downloading, and reading a comic is more convenient than reading on screen. But I'd rather forget the whole thing than make a major outlay for such a minor pleasure.
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ReplyDeleteI once was a huge collector of comics (in the sense kept what I bought and read) and the result is 10000 comics, dozens of long and short boxes, more statues, cards, and toys that at my current age is embarassing to own.
ReplyDeleteI one day put all that stuff together, did a list (for insurance reasons) and realized the shear volume of money I spent. I could have had a new car (actually more then one), bought lots of stock in things like Apple or Google, or even had a nice hefty down payment on a house.
It wasn't so bad when the books where only a dollar, but now that they cost three and up, adding to that annoying pile of crap that is mostly worthless (unless you own a comic store) is simply no longer justafiable.
If I had a kid, I would attempt to steer him to spend his money on things with better rate of return (not save it, hes a kid) such as an actual book, music, movies, and games. Something where the return in entertainment is simply better and of more value.
I love the hobby (so hard to get off the crack but I have cut way way way back) but really my advice to any kids and parents nowadays is the cost simply isn't worth it. Digital downloads could change that perception but as of right now, its better to simply not start the hobby at all. Avoid the comic drug, the hit isn't worth it anymore.
Even with the new paper/color/etc, there is no reason comics should cost $2.99 and more. Let's give them inflation plus a little and call it $1.99 and stop... for the love of all that's holy... doing multiple covers.
ReplyDeleteWhat's worse is comic companies are killing themselves by pricepointing NEW readers out of the market. But right now they just don't care. They're willing to squeeze the few readers they have left as hard as they can with mighty marvel crossovers collect all 100!!
I think the only thing that would reach them would be a one month boycott on comics... the bad part of that would be the damage to the end selling comic dealers :(