Raising Prices in Comics
shaneb
Posts: 109
Though we all know the prices have been skyrocketing, Vertigo has just announced that they will be upping all of their $2.99 books to $3.99 in July.
https://vertigology.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/american-vampire-jumps-to-3-99-is-vertigo-ups-prices-for-most-books/
This was the last hold-out at DC, and a bad sign for alt-themed books, which have been keeping the prices a little lower. Are we heading to $5 monthly books? Is this going to cause you to reduce your monthly books on the pull list?
It certainly is going to make me rethink what I am committing to.
https://vertigology.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/american-vampire-jumps-to-3-99-is-vertigo-ups-prices-for-most-books/
This was the last hold-out at DC, and a bad sign for alt-themed books, which have been keeping the prices a little lower. Are we heading to $5 monthly books? Is this going to cause you to reduce your monthly books on the pull list?
It certainly is going to make me rethink what I am committing to.
Comments
Too bad I hate reading comics on my iPad.
With the digital copies, it's made me much more selective when it comes to the collectibility side of comics. I'm okay with donating some of my recent books to places like The Children's Hospital because I've got digital versions that I can read 20 years from now (or so I hope...).
Marvel gives a code with a purchase - TPBs as well.
Image makes purchasing and taking a risk on an unknown product easier by have a lower price and putting all he adds in the back. I haven't done any book binding b/c of the add placement in most comics.
Digital should be much cheaper. Besides the paper and staples and ink, there is no shipping or boxes or trucks or fuel or well you get the point. How much does their ISP and uploading the file cost?
One of my shops (I am a man about town) limited free books to 1 per person. Then they gave 4 free from their $0.25 bins and 25% off everything in store. I came home with a 10 inch pile of books for like 12 bucks. My wife asked, "I thought you were trying to get rid of books?" Me, "But honey, Lone Wolf and Cub come in 6 inch digest versions now. Look at this artwork in full size"
My wife, smiles and nods while crickets chirp in the background.
Lets look at an example.
Example : Since Infinity Gauntlet has been/is a recent topic of discussion lets use that event comic against a current event comic AXIS. In 1991, Infinity Gauntlet was $2.50 (US). If the price of that comic had paced with inflation it would cost $4.33 in 2015 (based on CPI Gov data). AXIS issues were priced at $4.99 in 2015. The difference against inflation is ONLY 14% higher or .66 cents.
Emotional time displacement (ha ha ha) is what is making us think we are paying too much. i.e. We look at a comic from the 90's and think "Wow! Comics were sooooo much cheaper back then." When the problem is we are thinking of $2.50 (or whatever the price was) against 2015 dollars and NOT 90's dollars. I am not going to say that this example works against all time periods because it doesnt. Comic price made a sharp left turn in the 90's but have remained relatively stable since.
The real question is; Do comics have a mental price ceiling? I think they do and we are right at that point. Anything north of $4.50/$5 really makes you question your buying decision.
I've decided to give up on new floppies at the end of Secret Wars. I think it's ridiculous. I still might buy the occasional #1 I'm interested in, but I don't need the burden of buying issues every week anymore.
Though of course now podcasts have me buying occasional back issues... I don't see myself collecting whole runs, but I can deal with a story arc here, a one-shot story there. There's a lot of stuff that might never be reliably collected, so I don't mind hitting the bins, which I never did before.