Its interesting to me that numerous people just on this thread are saying "we love comic, we've stopped or drastically slowed our purchases because of the prices" and yet there are others who insist there is no market for a lower price.
I don't think anyone is saying there is no market for a lower price. Of course there is a market for lower prices. But is there ENOUGH market for a lower price-- a substantial enough increase in readers-- to make the lower price sustainable? That is what is being questioned, and that is the unknown you are expecting them to risk on. And, again the numbers Solitaire quotes should speak to this, if lowering the price would definitely add to the size of the readership, then shouldn't there be some $2.99 books breaking into the Top 10? There are $2.99 books out there with top creators on them, starring big characters. And they are not charting consistently enough to suggest that- on the large scale- people are making choices based on price. Because if that were the case, shouldn't there be more price conscious readers gravitating toward the $2.99 books and making them bigger hits?
The numbers that Solitaire is quoting are not proving that there is no market for a lower price. Rather, the consistent, ongoing demand for the $3.99 price proves that there is a market for that price. Now, it is not that the $3.99 price point is what is making people buy these books. But rather that price does not seem to be a predominant factor in the majority of readers when it comes to what they pick.
And, sure, there are clearly readers we hear from, including in this conversation, who do not take part at that price. But hearing from some individuals is only anecdotal evidence. The ongoing chart topping $3.99 speak to the macro. In conversations like this, we can hear from individuals, sure, and that is something. But in the numbers, especially spread out over the years of data we now have for $3.99 monthly books, we can see the actual trends. And the market continues to show us that the readership will keep supporting $3.99 books. Which, I would guess, hurts the motivation for publishers to drop the prices in the hopes that it will attract new readers to the fold. Heck, even when DC loudly declared they would "Hold the Line at $2.99" I don't think it had a sales effect. DItto for when Top Cow made that stand. It was the New 52 that got DC back up on the Top 10 list again... and even then largely with books that cost $3.99.
The existence of a "market" for cheaper books can't be tested as long as the distribution system is monopolistic.
Digital could have broken Diamond's stranglehold, but instead, Comixology has been allowed to establish a similar edge in digital distribution.
And though we like to look at DC and Marvel as competitors, at this point they really aren't. DC has a monopoly on Batman and Superman. Marvel has a monopoly on Spider-Man and The Avengers. The readers who are sustaining the industry don't want the best-priced comics or the best-written comics--they want THEIR comics. And they'll pay whatever they have to for them.
Besides, if they were reasonably-priced, we'd just bleat about the art or the writing instead.
I have to sheepishly admit at this point that since i have been buying my comics at DCBS with the deep discount i forget to pay attention to the single issue price and really just look at my order and budget on the total. I then cull titles according to how much i am enjoying the titles and which stories i can live without. i rarely if ever pay attention to single issue price. :-\"
So it's been YOU all this time! Curse you to a thousa...wait, that's what I do, too... 8-|
I have to sheepishly admit at this point that since i have been buying my comics at DCBS with the deep discount i forget to pay attention to the single issue price and really just look at my order and budget on the total. I then cull titles according to how much i am enjoying the titles and which stories i can live without. i rarely if ever pay attention to single issue price. :-\"
So it's been YOU all this time! Curse you to a thousa...wait, that's what I do, too... 8-|
Its interesting to me that numerous people just on this thread are saying "we love comic, we've stopped or drastically slowed our purchases because of the prices" and yet there are others who insist there is no market for a lower price.
I don't think anyone is saying there is no market for a lower price. Of course there is a market for lower prices. But is there ENOUGH market for a lower price-- a substantial enough increase in readers-- to make the lower price sustainable? That is what is being questioned, and that is the unknown you are expecting them to risk on. And, again the numbers Solitaire quotes should speak to this, if lowering the price would definitely add to the size of the readership, then shouldn't there be some $2.99 books breaking into the Top 10? There are $2.99 books out there with top creators on them, starring big characters. And they are not charting consistently enough to suggest that- on the large scale- people are making choices based on price. Because if that were the case, shouldn't there be more price conscious readers gravitating toward the $2.99 books and making them bigger hits?
The numbers that Solitaire is quoting are not proving that there is no market for a lower price. Rather, the consistent, ongoing demand for the $3.99 price proves that there is a market for that price. Now, it is not that the $3.99 price point is what is making people buy these books. But rather that price does not seem to be a predominant factor in the majority of readers when it comes to what they pick.
And, sure, there are clearly readers we hear from, including in this conversation, who do not take part at that price. But hearing from some individuals is only anecdotal evidence. The ongoing chart topping $3.99 speak to the macro. In conversations like this, we can hear from individuals, sure, and that is something. But in the numbers, especially spread out over the years of data we now have for $3.99 monthly books, we can see the actual trends. And the market continues to show us that the readership will keep supporting $3.99 books. Which, I would guess, hurts the motivation for publishers to drop the prices in the hopes that it will attract new readers to the fold. Heck, even when DC loudly declared they would "Hold the Line at $2.99" I don't think it had a sales effect. DItto for when Top Cow made that stand. It was the New 52 that got DC back up on the Top 10 list again... and even then largely with books that cost $3.99.
The existence of a "market" for cheaper books can't be tested as long as the distribution system is monopolistic.
Digital could have broken Diamond's stranglehold, but instead, Comixology has been allowed to establish a similar edge in digital distribution.
And though we like to look at DC and Marvel as competitors, at this point they really aren't. DC has a monopoly on Batman and Superman. Marvel has a monopoly on Spider-Man and The Avengers. The readers who are sustaining the industry don't want the best-priced comics or the best-written comics--they want THEIR comics. And they'll pay whatever they have to for them.
Besides, if they were reasonably-priced, we'd just bleat about the art or the writing instead.
That is definitely an interesting way to look at it. And certainly I agree that is a part of the thinking behind them charging a price that they know they can get.
Though even putting aside the concerns about lower day and date digital prices setting up competition (and, likely, outrage) from the local shops by undercutting the price of a new comic and therefore setting up digital as the discounted buy for their existing consumers... I would imagine they also considered that, if their day and date digital push were to educate their potential new customers that a new comic book should cost, say, $2, then they might get stuck with that price. Because they have just taught, say, a tablet or mobile phone Comixology using person new to comics that a comic should only cost that. It is a risky thing to educate new consumers that they should be able to pay less than you have already observed them paying. It is like when certain newspapers and magazines educated their consumers that the online version of their content should be free. The New York TImes, and many other newspapers and magazines, have had a hard time clawing back from that expectation since. Especially when it turned out that just supporting it with ads would not be sustainable. That is a very apple and oranges comparison, to be fair, but it comes to mind as far as publishers transitioning to digital, and setting an expectation, and a price.
And I don't have a guess what the real price of getting these comics made is. But as much as we might want, or understand the appeal of, the lower price, especially when it comes to digital, I wonder how low it could really go and be sustainable? Is the fact that all the other publishers, even when they want to call attention to having a lower price than the Big 2, haven't gone lower than $2.99 (that i can remember) suggests maybe that is because it is a fair price given how much it costs to hire people to do all this. (And, of course, many publishers outside of the Big 2, and outside of the monopoly on the most popular superhero genre IP, have been doing the $3.99 price for a long time, too. And that might be because they, too, know they can get it from a select audience. Or maybe because that is what they have to charge to be able to do it in the first place.)
Digital is a no go for me. I do not like reading comics on a computer. For me, trades are the way to go and it will not be long before that is all I buy. It is unrealistic to think that all comic readers will stop buying monthly issues altogether, especially those individuals with more of a collector mindset who have been gathering issues for years and years. I actually am somewhat glad that there are people who continue to get monthly issues whatever the price point. To me, it means that material for the trades is getting published. At least at this point, the publishers and the market seem big enough and willingly enough to satisfy different consumer levels for costs. I am not sure, however, how long that will last.
The problem with going all trades is that the trades need the monthlies to survive. Brian Hibbs wrote a column on this once and made several good points about this; I'll have to see if I can find a link to it. Basically, if the publishers don't see reasonably good sales for the monthlies, they don't think it's going to be worth the cost of doing a trade, and won't issue one. And I don't think either of the publishers are willing to drop all of their monthlies to focus solely on putting out trades only -- and I wouldn't go trades only for any title unless it were the best of the best. (I currently get Fables only in the trade format; but, though I've been getting Resurrection Man in the monthlies, I wouldn't buy it as a trade.) And I'd probably buy a lot less trades than monthly series: if I get twenty series on a monthly basis, I probably wouldn't get more than four, maybe five trades each month.
"Consider, for example, "waiting for the trade," a topic which has again recently come to the forefront over the potential danger James Robinson's new (and wonderful) twelve-issue "Shade" miniseries appears to have found itself. A great deal of consumer comments were generated (too many of which were, "Huh, I didn't even know that was out"), but one common thread was that a, perhaps, disproportionate number of people were waiting for the final collection, instead of buying the serialization. Many people even went so far as to say they were waiting to buy it in hardcover, so as to match the "Starman Omnibuses" already upon their shelves.
That's a reasonable and sane desire, of course -- but what I was struck by was the expectation there was going to be a collection, no matter what.
This problem is essentially one that Marvel and DC have created on their own: the expectation of the audience that everything they want will be collected in TP -- because they often make it appear that way -- but the problem is both that it's kind of not true (lots of stuff doesn't ever get reprinted, or, more importantly, stay in print for very long), and it works against the publisher's best long-term interests.
As a retailer, it is overwhelmingly true that virtually every book sells much much better in serialization than in book format. There are exceptions, of course, and some of those exceptions are so awesomely slanted the other direction (your "Bones" or "Walking Deads") that that is the standard by which too many people assume that's How Things Work.
It isn't, however. Most collections of work are only going to sell a percentage of their serialized sales -- and if Comic X is a poor seller, the odds are overwhelmingly high that it is going to continue on to be a poor seller as a collection."
Why the hell are comics not in every Wal-Mart in the country?
They tried that in the early ’90s. It didn't work then at a time when comics were selling like crazy. It didn’t work five or six years ago when they made a push to sell single issues in Borders and Barnes & Noble, either, even with special fixtures to display them. The only reason Archie stayed prominently displayed in grocery stores for so long was because of the digest format, which allowed them to be more easily displayed and were more profitable per sale. Disney Adventures did really well with the format for a few years too. But even Disney failed eventually. It’s all about the revenue per square foot.
Here's how it works. Tiny comics don't make money. Big ones like X-Men and JLA do. So the tiny ones are most likely in the red (money losers) at a $2.99 or $3.99 price point. But they get published because comics they might be linked to like Avengers or X-Men are big time money makers.
If you want to support a small comic, fine. Do so. Other people are being punished by helping to pay for your comic. And the higher overall prices that go towards the bottoms line, that again, help to pay for the tiny comics are also driving other people completely out of the market.
Sorry, but you’re wrong. Let’s say Marvel dropped all their titles except for their top 20 sellers. They’re losing, what, about 30-40 titles each month including mini-series and one-shots and such. They're also losing half of their print volume. This means they lose a lot of negotiating power with their printer. Their printer is going to charge them much more per unit. And all the people buying Hawkeye or SHIELD, me for instance, aren’t necessarily buying Avengers, and just because Hawkeye gets cancelled it doesn’t mean they’re going to start buying Avengers. Instead, they’ll likely go spend their money on something else with the tone and feel of Hawkeye, and Marvel will lose a few thousand readers. And so you’re still getting charged $2.99 or $3.99 per book.
And, as David mentioned, Marvel and DC are no longer in the comic book business. They are in the IP business. They make far more money from licensing their characters (the more the merrier) than they do from comic book sales, and that’s been the case for decades.
Why the hell are comics not in every Wal-Mart in the country?
They tried that in the early ’90s. It didn't work then at a time when comics were selling like crazy. It didn’t work five or six years ago when they made a push to sell single issues in Borders and Barnes & Noble, either, even with special fixtures to display them. The only reason Archie stayed prominently displayed in grocery stores for so long was because of the digest format, which allowed them to be more easily displayed and were more profitable per sale. Disney Adventures did really well with the format for a few years too. But even Disney failed eventually. It’s all about the revenue per square foot.
The didn't fail, they just discovered a way that didn't work at that time. I'm standing by my premise. People like comics. Comic need to get into the hands of more people. hiding them away in specialty shops is not a good business model. When i say comics should be in every wal-mart in the country in mean they should be ubiquitous, common as air, not something you have to work to find. I spend a year teaching school in the West african desert and do you know what i saw every day? A giant billboard for Coca Cola and in the market next to barefoot ladies frying dough balls in a tin pan on the side of the street. i could get a Coca Cola any time I wanted. do you get what i'm saying? Buying comics should be easier than it currently is. thats all.
Why the hell are comics not in every Wal-Mart in the country?
They tried that in the early ’90s. It didn't work then at a time when comics were selling like crazy. It didn’t work five or six years ago when they made a push to sell single issues in Borders and Barnes & Noble, either, even with special fixtures to display them. The only reason Archie stayed prominently displayed in grocery stores for so long was because of the digest format, which allowed them to be more easily displayed and were more profitable per sale. Disney Adventures did really well with the format for a few years too. But even Disney failed eventually. It’s all about the revenue per square foot.
The didn't fail, they just discovered a way that didn't work at that time. I'm standing by my premise. People like comics. Comic need to get into the hands of more people. hiding them away in specialty shops is not a good business model. When i say comics should be in every wal-mart in the country in mean they should be ubiquitous, common as air, not something you have to work to find. I spend a year teaching school in the West african desert and do you know what i saw every day? A giant billboard for Coca Cola and in the market next to barefoot ladies frying dough balls in a tin pan on the side of the street. i could get a Coca Cola any time I wanted. do you get what i'm saying? Buying comics should be easier than it currently is. thats all.
You know, you've really got the wrong idea if you think comics are 'hiding away in the specialty shops'. The comic shops are what saved the comic books from extinction. The original outlets for comics, the Mom & Pop shops and the newsstands, were already vanishing as a source for comics throughout the 60's and it was only the rise of comic shops and direct distribution in the 70's that kept the comic book from becoming a thing of the past. And the reason the comic was losing its foothold in its original arena of newsstands and shops was because the profit the dealers got for each comic was so negligible that it wasn't worth their time or shelf space to continue selling them.
A big part of the reason why comics were considered a pointless enterprise by the dealers at that time was because, unlike magazines, comics didn't adjust their prices accordingly with the times. When comics began in the 30's, they were priced the same as any other magazine on the rack: a dime. Over the years, the magazines adjusted their price according to annual inflation, climbing to 35 cents. to 50 cents, until hitting the price point of about two bucks or so in the sixties, whereas comics tried to maintain the ten cent price line by reducing the number of pages from 64 to 32, before making tepid steps upwards to 12 cents in the early 60's and then to 15 cents by the end of the decade. And that was still too little, too late.
Realistically, for a comic book to compete in the magazine racks of bookstores like Barnes & Noble -- and there's no real reason to expect that bookstores have all that solid a grip on survival either in the day of the e-reader -- the comic has to return to 64 pages and raise it's price to about ten bucks, or whatever it is that a contemporary magazine costs on the rack. Then the stands and the shops will make space for it.
Otherwise, the shops are the only things keeping comics from extinction. (Well, except maybe for the digital comic...)
Why the hell are comics not in every Wal-Mart in the country?
They tried that in the early ’90s. It didn't work then at a time when comics were selling like crazy. It didn’t work five or six years ago when they made a push to sell single issues in Borders and Barnes & Noble, either, even with special fixtures to display them. The only reason Archie stayed prominently displayed in grocery stores for so long was because of the digest format, which allowed them to be more easily displayed and were more profitable per sale. Disney Adventures did really well with the format for a few years too. But even Disney failed eventually. It’s all about the revenue per square foot.
The didn't fail, they just discovered a way that didn't work at that time. I'm standing by my premise. People like comics. Comic need to get into the hands of more people. hiding them away in specialty shops is not a good business model. When i say comics should be in every wal-mart in the country in mean they should be ubiquitous, common as air, not something you have to work to find. I spend a year teaching school in the West african desert and do you know what i saw every day? A giant billboard for Coca Cola and in the market next to barefoot ladies frying dough balls in a tin pan on the side of the street. i could get a Coca Cola any time I wanted. do you get what i'm saying? Buying comics should be easier than it currently is. thats all.
And while no one is going to argue that comics should be LESS available, I will say there is one reason I am glad that, as a consumer of the Big 2, I have selfishly been glad that they never did a big deal with Walmart: Because given Walmart's reputation for strong arming their supplies, they might have tried to influence the content in ways I do not want to affect my reading. So while seeing singles or trades in big box stores would be great (and we do see them there, don't we? I've seen singles in Toys R Us, trades in Target, and I thought I heard that Walmart had some, at least collections? I don't know from Walmarts) there are potential, to me Faustian, bargains to be made with doing a big deal with one of those retailers.
And while I get what you are saying with the Coca Cola comparison, it is hard to make any comparison between junk food and comics, because again we are up against the realities of leisure reading as a rarefied choice. Put another way, in your travels did you ever see a billboard advertising something to be read?
But, on the flip side, when you remember that (and here I am talking not about comics as a medium, but about the character entertainment business of being The Big Two) a lot of the brands the Big 2 own are nearly as recognizable as Coca Cola. People recognize Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, and now The Avengers worldwide. Heck, my not yet two year old daughter recognizes Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman when she sees images of them out in the world. That is pretty powerful brand awareness. And that sort of brand awareness leads to selling things. Just a few minutes ago my daughter was telling us that she wants a "Spider-Man shirt". And if we get one, Marvel benefits. And such a thing is available all over.
So if their brands are that strong, they may not be sweating it so much to get more people reading comic books. Because, shrewdly from a business sense, their publishing division is and only needs to be little slice of the pie.
So, while we love COMICS, and want to see them thrive and spread, we have to understand that there is only so much money the Big Two (which, again, are character companies, not comic companies) are going to invest in such outreach and evangelism.
Why the hell are comics not in every Wal-Mart in the country?
They tried that in the early ’90s. It didn't work then at a time when comics were selling like crazy. It didn’t work five or six years ago when they made a push to sell single issues in Borders and Barnes & Noble, either, even with special fixtures to display them. The only reason Archie stayed prominently displayed in grocery stores for so long was because of the digest format, which allowed them to be more easily displayed and were more profitable per sale. Disney Adventures did really well with the format for a few years too. But even Disney failed eventually. It’s all about the revenue per square foot.
The didn't fail, they just discovered a way that didn't work at that time. I'm standing by my premise. People like comics. Comic need to get into the hands of more people. hiding them away in specialty shops is not a good business model. When i say comics should be in every wal-mart in the country in mean they should be ubiquitous, common as air, not something you have to work to find. I spend a year teaching school in the West african desert and do you know what i saw every day? A giant billboard for Coca Cola and in the market next to barefoot ladies frying dough balls in a tin pan on the side of the street. i could get a Coca Cola any time I wanted. do you get what i'm saying? Buying comics should be easier than it currently is. thats all.
I agree with you in principle, however, the math just doesn’t add up. Marvel and DC can’t force retail centers to carry their books. Wal*Mart wants to make a certain amount of money per square foot (as of 2011, about $430/square foot, according to Forbes). If comics can’t do that for them, they won’t carry them.
As of last year, there were about 2,900 Wal*Mart Supercenters—that’s not counting the Discount Centers, the Neighborhood Markets, or the Sam’s Clubs. Obviously, Wal*Mart is not going to give up 30 feet of space to display every DC and Marvel title, so let’s say they only carry the top 10 from each company. They’d probably want at least ten copies of each title to justify the display space. That means Marvel and DC would each send Wal*Mart 290,000 units each month. Who’s going to distribute them? Diamond? Does Diamond want to take a risk in hiring the people to handle that much material when it’s a returnable product? Maybe. They don’t have much more to lose at this point.
Now, back in the ’30s on up through the ’70s, a 40% sell-through was considered a success, and a 60% sell-through was nearly unheard of. So, let’s say Wal*Mart sells half of their stock each month. The other 145,000 copies (which will be too beaten and battered to send to a direct market store) get returned to Diamond, where they will likely pulp them.
In this scenario, Marvel and DC have more than doubled their sales on their top 10 titles, but they have also more than tripled their print-run. Will they be able drop their cover price? Maybe, but not significantly. And if they drop it too much, they become that much less profitable for Wal*Mart. I’m not sure exactly what percentage Wal*Mart gets for magazines, but let’s assume 50%. Ten copies of twenty comic book titles would take up about two square feet of space (being displayed vertically). If all the titles are $2.99, Wal*Mart is only getting $300 if they sell every copy of every title. Even at $3.99 they fall a bit short at $400. Each store would have to sell 574 $2.99 comics, or 430 $3.99 comics, each month in order to get their $430/square foot. I suppose it’s possible they could sell that many, but not very likely at those price points.
So, let’s say Marvel and DC dropped the price point to $2, meaning Wal*Mart takes in $1 per sale. Each Wal*Mart would have to sell 860 comics to make their $430/square foot. Again, possible, but I don’t see it happening, especially in areas, like where I am, where there are two Wal*Mart Supercenters less than five miles apart. And that would also mean DC and Marvel would each be printing up and distributing 623,500 copies (not counting overages and the direct market) rather than 290,000. That’s a serious financial risk for them and for Diamond, well outside their safety net.
And comparing comics to Coca Cola is like comparing my bank statement to Donald Trump’s. Just because Marvel and DC are owned by two large corporations doesn’t mean those corporations are giving their marketing departments that kind of money.
Nope, digital is the only feasible way to pull in a bigger audience and get comics into more hands.
Why the hell are comics not in every Wal-Mart in the country?
They tried that in the early ’90s. It didn't work then at a time when comics were selling like crazy. It didn’t work five or six years ago when they made a push to sell single issues in Borders and Barnes & Noble, either, even with special fixtures to display them. The only reason Archie stayed prominently displayed in grocery stores for so long was because of the digest format, which allowed them to be more easily displayed and were more profitable per sale. Disney Adventures did really well with the format for a few years too. But even Disney failed eventually. It’s all about the revenue per square foot.
The didn't fail, they just discovered a way that didn't work at that time. I'm standing by my premise. People like comics. Comic need to get into the hands of more people. hiding them away in specialty shops is not a good business model. When i say comics should be in every wal-mart in the country in mean they should be ubiquitous, common as air, not something you have to work to find. I spend a year teaching school in the West african desert and do you know what i saw every day? A giant billboard for Coca Cola and in the market next to barefoot ladies frying dough balls in a tin pan on the side of the street. i could get a Coca Cola any time I wanted. do you get what i'm saying? Buying comics should be easier than it currently is. thats all.
You know, you've really got the wrong idea if you think comics are 'hiding away in the specialty shops'. The comic shops are what saved the comic books from extinction. The original outlets for comics, the Mom & Pop shops and the newsstands, were already vanishing as a source for comics throughout the 60's and it was only the rise of comic shops and direct distribution in the 70's that kept the comic book from becoming a thing of the past. And the reason the comic was losing its foothold in its original arena of newsstands and shops was because the profit the dealers got for each comic was so negligible that it wasn't worth their time or shelf space to continue selling them.
A big part of the reason why comics were considered a pointless enterprise by the dealers at that time was because, unlike magazines, comics didn't adjust their prices accordingly with the times. When comics began in the 30's, they were priced the same as any other magazine on the rack: a dime. Over the years, the magazines adjusted their price according to annual inflation, climbing to 35 cents. to 50 cents, until hitting the price point of about two bucks or so in the sixties, whereas comics tried to maintain the ten cent price line by reducing the number of pages from 64 to 32, before making tepid steps upwards to 12 cents in the early 60's and then to 15 cents by the end of the decade. And that was still too little, too late.
Realistically, for a comic book to compete in the magazine racks of bookstores like Barnes & Noble -- and there's no real reason to expect that bookstores have all that solid a grip on survival either in the day of the e-reader -- the comic has to return to 64 pages and raise it's price to about ten bucks, or whatever it is that a contemporary magazine costs on the rack. Then the stands and the shops will make space for it.
Otherwise, the shops are the only things keeping comics from extinction. (Well, except maybe for the digital comic...)
Many magazines cost much less than $10 and have ten times the content of a comic book
Why the hell are comics not in every Wal-Mart in the country?
They tried that in the early ’90s. It didn't work then at a time when comics were selling like crazy. It didn’t work five or six years ago when they made a push to sell single issues in Borders and Barnes & Noble, either, even with special fixtures to display them. The only reason Archie stayed prominently displayed in grocery stores for so long was because of the digest format, which allowed them to be more easily displayed and were more profitable per sale. Disney Adventures did really well with the format for a few years too. But even Disney failed eventually. It’s all about the revenue per square foot.
The didn't fail, they just discovered a way that didn't work at that time. I'm standing by my premise. People like comics. Comic need to get into the hands of more people. hiding them away in specialty shops is not a good business model. When i say comics should be in every wal-mart in the country in mean they should be ubiquitous, common as air, not something you have to work to find. I spend a year teaching school in the West african desert and do you know what i saw every day? A giant billboard for Coca Cola and in the market next to barefoot ladies frying dough balls in a tin pan on the side of the street. i could get a Coca Cola any time I wanted. do you get what i'm saying? Buying comics should be easier than it currently is. thats all.
I agree with you in principle, however, the math just doesn’t add up. Marvel and DC can’t force retail centers to carry their books. Wal*Mart wants to make a certain amount of money per square foot (as of 2011, about $430/square foot, according to Forbes). If comics can’t do that for them, they won’t carry them.
As of last year, there were about 2,900 Wal*Mart Supercenters—that’s not counting the Discount Centers, the Neighborhood Markets, or the Sam’s Clubs. Obviously, Wal*Mart is not going to give up 30 feet of space to display every DC and Marvel title, so let’s say they only carry the top 10 from each company. They’d probably want at least ten copies of each title to justify the display space. That means Marvel and DC would each send Wal*Mart 290,000 units each month. Who’s going to distribute them? Diamond? Does Diamond want to take a risk in hiring the people to handle that much material when it’s a returnable product? Maybe. They don’t have much more to lose at this point.
Now, back in the ’30s on up through the ’70s, a 40% sell-through was considered a success, and a 60% sell-through was nearly unheard of. So, let’s say Wal*Mart sells half of their stock each month. The other 145,000 copies (which will be too beaten and battered to send to a direct market store) get returned to Diamond, where they will likely pulp them.
In this scenario, Marvel and DC have more than doubled their sales on their top 10 titles, but they have also more than tripled their print-run. Will they be able drop their cover price? Maybe, but not significantly. And if they drop it too much, they become that much less profitable for Wal*Mart. I’m not sure exactly what percentage Wal*Mart gets for magazines, but let’s assume 50%. Ten copies of twenty comic book titles would take up about two square feet of space (being displayed vertically). If all the titles are $2.99, Wal*Mart is only getting $300 if they sell every copy of every title. Even at $3.99 they fall a bit short at $400. Each store would have to sell 574 $2.99 comics, or 430 $3.99 comics, each month in order to get their $430/square foot. I suppose it’s possible they could sell that many, but not very likely at those price points.
So, let’s say Marvel and DC dropped the price point to $2, meaning Wal*Mart takes in $1 per sale. Each Wal*Mart would have to sell 860 comics to make their $430/square foot. Again, possible, but I don’t see it happening, especially in areas, like where I am, where there are two Wal*Mart Supercenters less than five miles apart. And that would also mean DC and Marvel would each be printing up and distributing 623,500 copies (not counting overages and the direct market) rather than 290,000. That’s a serious financial risk for them and for Diamond, well outside their safety net.
And comparing comics to Coca Cola is like comparing my bank statement to Donald Trump’s. Just because Marvel and DC are owned by two large corporations doesn’t mean those corporations are giving their marketing departments that kind of money.
Nope, digital is the only feasible way to pull in a bigger audience and get comics into more hands.
I assure you no store makes a 50% margin on magazines.
Maybe like the video game industry is starting to realize (EA recently) that what they've been charging isn't working, and adjusting down accordingly, the comics industry will too, soon hopefully.
Not if it's a Brian Michael Bendis book who insists that people want to pay $3.99 for a book because guess what? People pay $3.99 for a book and it's not going to change unless people start voting with their wallet and don't buy that book.
I keep pointing this out, so forgive me if you've heard it before. Here are the ten best selling comics last month:
1) Walking Dead 100 - $3.99 2) Avengers vs X-Men 7 - $3.99 3) Avengers vs X-Men 8 - $3.99 4) Batman 11 - $3.99 5) JLA 11 - $3.99 6) Before Watchmen Ozy 1 - $3.99 7) AVX VS 4 - $3.99 8) Detective Comics 11 - $3.99 9) Green Lantern 11 - $2.99 10) Action Comics 11 - $3.99
The books I got from the list
1. Walking Dead #100 (digital) 4. Batman #11 (DCBS) 5. JL #11 (DCBS) 10. Action Comics #11 (DCBS)
Following WD #102, I will be back to the 12 issue HCs sorry Kirkman. Batman & Action Comics are solid & have extra pages. Justice League I will drop w/ issue #13 Tony Daniel I will read another book instead.
Many magazines cost much less than $10 and have ten times the content of a comic book
That’s because those magazines have more advertisers who pay more for ad space. Those 300-page magazines generally have 70 pages of advertising.
I assure you no store makes a 50% margin on magazines.
Given Wal*Mart’s negotiating power, I reason they could possibly get that much. The publishers wouldn't make money off the sales of the magazine, but sales at Wal*Mart mean a lot to what they can charge advertisers. And if they don’t get that much, it just makes my point that much stronger because they would have to sell even more copies to make their $430/square foot.
Many magazines cost much less than $10 and have ten times the content of a comic book
That’s because those magazines have more advertisers who pay more for ad space. Those 300-page magazines generally have 70 pages of advertising.
I assure you no store makes a 50% margin on magazines.
Given Wal*Mart’s negotiating power, I reason they could possibly get that much. The publishers wouldn't make money off the sales of the magazine, but sales at Wal*Mart mean a lot to what they can charge advertisers. And if they don’t get that much, it just makes my point that much stronger because they would have to sell even more copies to make their $430/square foot.
Sir, assure your reasoning is completely wrong. Wal-Mart makes money with very tiny profit margins. They make a lot of money by selling a lot of merchandise.
Many magazines cost much less than $10 and have ten times the content of a comic book
That’s because those magazines have more advertisers who pay more for ad space. Those 300-page magazines generally have 70 pages of advertising.
I assure you no store makes a 50% margin on magazines.
Given Wal*Mart’s negotiating power, I reason they could possibly get that much. The publishers wouldn't make money off the sales of the magazine, but sales at Wal*Mart mean a lot to what they can charge advertisers. And if they don’t get that much, it just makes my point that much stronger because they would have to sell even more copies to make their $430/square foot.
Sir, assure your reasoning is completely wrong. Wal-Mart makes money with very tiny profit margins. They make a lot of money by selling a lot of merchandise.
I think you'll see their profit margin for July 2012 was 3.5% on average. I see, you're talking net profit margin. I was talking about the percentage of the sale price they get—the gross. The publisher gets 30-40%, the distributor 10-20%, etc.
I will also point out that Wal*Mart no longer gives a discount on magazines, where they used to sell them at 10% off cover price. They sell them at the same price every other retailer does, and I would be very surprised if they are not paying less for them than other retailers.
But none of this changes the fact that Wal*Mart will not generate enough income per square foot by selling comic books to make it worth their while, which is the point I was trying to make.
I agree that digital is far and away the best option for getting comics into more peoples hands. and i fear that beacuse of that single issues as we know them may be nearing their end shortly.
Why the hell are comics not in every Wal-Mart in the country?
They tried that in the early ’90s. It didn't work then at a time when comics were selling like crazy. It didn’t work five or six years ago when they made a push to sell single issues in Borders and Barnes & Noble, either, even with special fixtures to display them. The only reason Archie stayed prominently displayed in grocery stores for so long was because of the digest format, which allowed them to be more easily displayed and were more profitable per sale. Disney Adventures did really well with the format for a few years too. But even Disney failed eventually. It’s all about the revenue per square foot.
The didn't fail, they just discovered a way that didn't work at that time. I'm standing by my premise. People like comics. Comic need to get into the hands of more people. hiding them away in specialty shops is not a good business model. When i say comics should be in every wal-mart in the country in mean they should be ubiquitous, common as air, not something you have to work to find. I spend a year teaching school in the West african desert and do you know what i saw every day? A giant billboard for Coca Cola and in the market next to barefoot ladies frying dough balls in a tin pan on the side of the street. i could get a Coca Cola any time I wanted. do you get what i'm saying? Buying comics should be easier than it currently is. thats all.
You know, you've really got the wrong idea if you think comics are 'hiding away in the specialty shops'. The comic shops are what saved the comic books from extinction. The original outlets for comics, the Mom & Pop shops and the newsstands, were already vanishing as a source for comics throughout the 60's and it was only the rise of comic shops and direct distribution in the 70's that kept the comic book from becoming a thing of the past. And the reason the comic was losing its foothold in its original arena of newsstands and shops was because the profit the dealers got for each comic was so negligible that it wasn't worth their time or shelf space to continue selling them.
Comic ARE hiding away in specialty shops. I don't have the wrong idea at all. and while i understand why and how the direct market and Diamond's monopoly developed. the situation in 2012 is vastly different than it was in 1960. Evaluating the situation with a 50 year old set of presuppositions is probably not the most productive way of adressing it. I appreciate you doing the math on the wal-mart stuff but as i said when i say wal-mart i mean "common". I'm arguing that they should be more accessible. and @David_D gets it i think when he says, "nobody is arguing that comics should be less available".
I'm really asking a cultural question. What about the culture in Japan makes Manga socially acceptable in a way that comics are not in the US? I'm not interested so much in marketing comics to the environment as it exists today (much less 1960) as trying to think of a way to transform the cultural perception of what a comic is and as a result of that make comic buying (and reading) as common as buying a coca cola. The I-Pad may be the key to this. this may be the technology that has businessmen reading digital copies on the subway or the el-train. My initial premise is that people like comics and if they were more accessible more people would read them. So, how do we establish that comics are a medium in which any genre of story can be told rather than a childish thing of the past?
but maybe that isn't true. maybe people don't like comics and i'm merely projecting my own thoughts and feeling onto the cultures at large. I hope not.
@random73 Well, our culture will likely never support comics as a medium the way the Japanese do as I believe there are a lot of factors to control for there- and I say this next bit with the caveat that this is hearsay, I am quoting things I've heard about Japan, I have not checked these statistics- but I believe that the Japanese are more of a reading culture in general, and that is before you even get into reading Manga. Also more of their overall population is urban and use mass transit, which allows for reading (heck, living in NYC, I do most of my comics reading on the train, but my reliance on mass transit puts me in a minority in America), and I think their education system might be better, and higher education more common, and there are definitely correlations between education level and choosing to read for pleasure.
So we will likely always be disappointed if we hope for comics on America to have the place in our culture that Manga is said to have in Japan. I can't imagine that happening.
But, lest we get too down about it, I have to say that in my own 30 years of comic reading, I have seen huge strides in the variety, acceptability, accessibility, diversity, and reach of comics. Sure, overall circulation of periodicals may be down, but we have to balance those numbers against the rise and spread of the collected edition and graphic novel. Of comics also becoming BOOKS and being in bookstores and libraries all over.
We may lament the loss of the old spin rack in the grocery store, but think of the narrow range of product that would be found on those spin racks. Think of how disposable a lot of that material was treated. Think of how hard it was to have a conversation about that work. To find media about it. To have a cultural or critical conversation, or find that sort of study.
I don't know, it may be Pollyannaish of me, but in my reading lifetime I think comics have gained more than they have lost. Especially where their place in our culture is concerned.
I know when Season 2 of Walking Dead Started Wal-Mart had an endcap with Walking Dead trades on it. I never checked it though to see if they were edited in any way. I was hoping this move might get them carrying SOME other comics, but my local Wally World still doesn't carry any comics. :((
I know when Season 2 of Walking Dead Started Wal-Mart had an endcap with Walking Dead trades on it. I never checked it though to see if they were edited in any way. I was hoping this move might get them carrying SOME other comics, but my local Wally World still doesn't carry any comics. :((
See when season 2 of TWD started I hear about various Walmarts getting in the trades. I looked in the book section of mine and the trades had been put in with the kids books. I saw a lady stocking shelves and asked her why they were in with the kids books. "Manager said any comics get racked the kids books." So I pointed out the mature reader's warning on the cover then opened it up to show her how these were not comics you would want a kid reading. She told me she had to do whatever the manager said. So after I got done shopping I tracked down the manager told him that TWD comic was not for kids. "Well that is absurd all comics are for kids." About 2 weeks later I was in the store and saw a mother complaining at the service desk that they had sold "Violent pornography to her 8 year old!"
One of the things that distinguishes manga from "Western" books (outside of the reading format being reversed, is that there's a manga out there for everyone. No exaggeration. If you're a young boy, young girl, old man, old woman, pervert, religious devotee (pick your faith), homosexual, heterosexual, pet lover (get your head out of the sewer folks!), hell I'm reading a manga ABOUT a store that sells manga right now! :) And it's been that way for decades.
Compare that to the US market where the majority of it is and has been super-hero stories for a very long time. Granted we're getting great stories in other genres now, including slice of life, biographies, you name it. But it's almost like we've had to play "catch-up" to what the Japanese have created outside of a few areas (horror comics and fantasy tales were around when I was a kid as well, for example...but stuff like Box Office Poison? Strangers in Paradise? Transmetropolitan? There wasn't a place for such things when I started reading.)
And as was mentioned - when a part of your daily life is a bus or train commute - as mine is - reading a comic, or manga, is pretty much the perfect thing to do, outside of sleep. :)
I know when Season 2 of Walking Dead Started Wal-Mart had an endcap with Walking Dead trades on it. I never checked it though to see if they were edited in any way. I was hoping this move might get them carrying SOME other comics, but my local Wally World still doesn't carry any comics. :((
See when season 2 of TWD started I hear about various Walmarts getting in the trades. I looked in the book section of mine and the trades had been put in with the kids books. I saw a lady stocking shelves and asked her why they were in with the kids books. "Manager said any comics get racked the kids books." So I pointed out the mature reader's warning on the cover then opened it up to show her how these were not comics you would want a kid reading. She told me she had to do whatever the manager said. So after I got done shopping I tracked down the manager told him that TWD comic was not for kids. "Well that is absurd all comics are for kids." About 2 weeks later I was in the store and saw a mother complaining at the service desk that they had sold "Violent pornography to her 8 year old!"
Yeah, it blew me away when I saw WD in the kids section of my Walmart. It wasn't long before they were moved to the endcap.
To answer @Nick 's question, no, they were not edited at all.
Comments
Digital could have broken Diamond's stranglehold, but instead, Comixology has been allowed to establish a similar edge in digital distribution.
And though we like to look at DC and Marvel as competitors, at this point they really aren't. DC has a monopoly on Batman and Superman. Marvel has a monopoly on Spider-Man and The Avengers. The readers who are sustaining the industry don't want the best-priced comics or the best-written comics--they want THEIR comics. And they'll pay whatever they have to for them.
Besides, if they were reasonably-priced, we'd just bleat about the art or the writing instead.
Though even putting aside the concerns about lower day and date digital prices setting up competition (and, likely, outrage) from the local shops by undercutting the price of a new comic and therefore setting up digital as the discounted buy for their existing consumers... I would imagine they also considered that, if their day and date digital push were to educate their potential new customers that a new comic book should cost, say, $2, then they might get stuck with that price. Because they have just taught, say, a tablet or mobile phone Comixology using person new to comics that a comic should only cost that. It is a risky thing to educate new consumers that they should be able to pay less than you have already observed them paying. It is like when certain newspapers and magazines educated their consumers that the online version of their content should be free. The New York TImes, and many other newspapers and magazines, have had a hard time clawing back from that expectation since. Especially when it turned out that just supporting it with ads would not be sustainable. That is a very apple and oranges comparison, to be fair, but it comes to mind as far as publishers transitioning to digital, and setting an expectation, and a price.
And I don't have a guess what the real price of getting these comics made is. But as much as we might want, or understand the appeal of, the lower price, especially when it comes to digital, I wonder how low it could really go and be sustainable? Is the fact that all the other publishers, even when they want to call attention to having a lower price than the Big 2, haven't gone lower than $2.99 (that i can remember) suggests maybe that is because it is a fair price given how much it costs to hire people to do all this. (And, of course, many publishers outside of the Big 2, and outside of the monopoly on the most popular superhero genre IP, have been doing the $3.99 price for a long time, too. And that might be because they, too, know they can get it from a select audience. Or maybe because that is what they have to charge to be able to do it in the first place.)
i found this interesting. DCBS gives me a better discount even with bagging and boarding the comics for me.
"Consider, for example, "waiting for the trade," a topic which has again recently come to the forefront over the potential danger James Robinson's new (and wonderful) twelve-issue "Shade" miniseries appears to have found itself. A great deal of consumer comments were generated (too many of which were, "Huh, I didn't even know that was out"), but one common thread was that a, perhaps, disproportionate number of people were waiting for the final collection, instead of buying the serialization. Many people even went so far as to say they were waiting to buy it in hardcover, so as to match the "Starman Omnibuses" already upon their shelves.
That's a reasonable and sane desire, of course -- but what I was struck by was the expectation there was going to be a collection, no matter what.
This problem is essentially one that Marvel and DC have created on their own: the expectation of the audience that everything they want will be collected in TP -- because they often make it appear that way -- but the problem is both that it's kind of not true (lots of stuff doesn't ever get reprinted, or, more importantly, stay in print for very long), and it works against the publisher's best long-term interests.
As a retailer, it is overwhelmingly true that virtually every book sells much much better in serialization than in book format. There are exceptions, of course, and some of those exceptions are so awesomely slanted the other direction (your "Bones" or "Walking Deads") that that is the standard by which too many people assume that's How Things Work.
It isn't, however. Most collections of work are only going to sell a percentage of their serialized sales -- and if Comic X is a poor seller, the odds are overwhelmingly high that it is going to continue on to be a poor seller as a collection."
And, as David mentioned, Marvel and DC are no longer in the comic book business. They are in the IP business. They make far more money from licensing their characters (the more the merrier) than they do from comic book sales, and that’s been the case for decades.
Buuuut considering how behind I am on my books, I may just have to consider DCBS, as I never seem to read them on time.
A big part of the reason why comics were considered a pointless enterprise by the dealers at that time was because, unlike magazines, comics didn't adjust their prices accordingly with the times. When comics began in the 30's, they were priced the same as any other magazine on the rack: a dime. Over the years, the magazines adjusted their price according to annual inflation, climbing to 35 cents. to 50 cents, until hitting the price point of about two bucks or so in the sixties, whereas comics tried to maintain the ten cent price line by reducing the number of pages from 64 to 32, before making tepid steps upwards to 12 cents in the early 60's and then to 15 cents by the end of the decade. And that was still too little, too late.
Realistically, for a comic book to compete in the magazine racks of bookstores like Barnes & Noble -- and there's no real reason to expect that bookstores have all that solid a grip on survival either in the day of the e-reader -- the comic has to return to 64 pages and raise it's price to about ten bucks, or whatever it is that a contemporary magazine costs on the rack. Then the stands and the shops will make space for it.
Otherwise, the shops are the only things keeping comics from extinction. (Well, except maybe for the digital comic...)
And while I get what you are saying with the Coca Cola comparison, it is hard to make any comparison between junk food and comics, because again we are up against the realities of leisure reading as a rarefied choice. Put another way, in your travels did you ever see a billboard advertising something to be read?
But, on the flip side, when you remember that (and here I am talking not about comics as a medium, but about the character entertainment business of being The Big Two) a lot of the brands the Big 2 own are nearly as recognizable as Coca Cola. People recognize Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, and now The Avengers worldwide. Heck, my not yet two year old daughter recognizes Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman when she sees images of them out in the world. That is pretty powerful brand awareness. And that sort of brand awareness leads to selling things. Just a few minutes ago my daughter was telling us that she wants a "Spider-Man shirt". And if we get one, Marvel benefits. And such a thing is available all over.
So if their brands are that strong, they may not be sweating it so much to get more people reading comic books. Because, shrewdly from a business sense, their publishing division is and only needs to be little slice of the pie.
So, while we love COMICS, and want to see them thrive and spread, we have to understand that there is only so much money the Big Two (which, again, are character companies, not comic companies) are going to invest in such outreach and evangelism.
As of last year, there were about 2,900 Wal*Mart Supercenters—that’s not counting the Discount Centers, the Neighborhood Markets, or the Sam’s Clubs. Obviously, Wal*Mart is not going to give up 30 feet of space to display every DC and Marvel title, so let’s say they only carry the top 10 from each company. They’d probably want at least ten copies of each title to justify the display space. That means Marvel and DC would each send Wal*Mart 290,000 units each month. Who’s going to distribute them? Diamond? Does Diamond want to take a risk in hiring the people to handle that much material when it’s a returnable product? Maybe. They don’t have much more to lose at this point.
Now, back in the ’30s on up through the ’70s, a 40% sell-through was considered a success, and a 60% sell-through was nearly unheard of. So, let’s say Wal*Mart sells half of their stock each month. The other 145,000 copies (which will be too beaten and battered to send to a direct market store) get returned to Diamond, where they will likely pulp them.
In this scenario, Marvel and DC have more than doubled their sales on their top 10 titles, but they have also more than tripled their print-run. Will they be able drop their cover price? Maybe, but not significantly. And if they drop it too much, they become that much less profitable for Wal*Mart. I’m not sure exactly what percentage Wal*Mart gets for magazines, but let’s assume 50%. Ten copies of twenty comic book titles would take up about two square feet of space (being displayed vertically). If all the titles are $2.99, Wal*Mart is only getting $300 if they sell every copy of every title. Even at $3.99 they fall a bit short at $400. Each store would have to sell 574 $2.99 comics, or 430 $3.99 comics, each month in order to get their $430/square foot. I suppose it’s possible they could sell that many, but not very likely at those price points.
So, let’s say Marvel and DC dropped the price point to $2, meaning Wal*Mart takes in $1 per sale. Each Wal*Mart would have to sell 860 comics to make their $430/square foot. Again, possible, but I don’t see it happening, especially in areas, like where I am, where there are two Wal*Mart Supercenters less than five miles apart. And that would also mean DC and Marvel would each be printing up and distributing 623,500 copies (not counting overages and the direct market) rather than 290,000. That’s a serious financial risk for them and for Diamond, well outside their safety net.
And comparing comics to Coca Cola is like comparing my bank statement to Donald Trump’s. Just because Marvel and DC are owned by two large corporations doesn’t mean those corporations are giving their marketing departments that kind of money.
Nope, digital is the only feasible way to pull in a bigger audience and get comics into more hands.
1. Walking Dead #100 (digital)
4. Batman #11 (DCBS)
5. JL #11 (DCBS)
10. Action Comics #11 (DCBS)
Following WD #102, I will be back to the 12 issue HCs sorry Kirkman. Batman & Action Comics are solid & have extra pages. Justice League I will drop w/ issue #13 Tony Daniel I will read another book instead.
Matthew
Sir, assure your reasoning is completely wrong. Wal-Mart makes money with very tiny profit margins. They make a lot of money by selling a lot of merchandise.
http://ycharts.com/companies/WMT/profit_margin
I think you'll see their profit margin for July 2012 was 3.5% on average.
Sir, assure your reasoning is completely wrong. Wal-Mart makes money with very tiny profit margins. They make a lot of money by selling a lot of merchandise.
http://ycharts.com/companies/WMT/profit_margin
I think you'll see their profit margin for July 2012 was 3.5% on average.
I see, you're talking net profit margin. I was talking about the percentage of the sale price they get—the gross. The publisher gets 30-40%, the distributor 10-20%, etc.
I will also point out that Wal*Mart no longer gives a discount on magazines, where they used to sell them at 10% off cover price. They sell them at the same price every other retailer does, and I would be very surprised if they are not paying less for them than other retailers.
But none of this changes the fact that Wal*Mart will not generate enough income per square foot by selling comic books to make it worth their while, which is the point I was trying to make.
but maybe that isn't true. maybe people don't like comics and i'm merely projecting my own thoughts and feeling onto the cultures at large. I hope not.
So we will likely always be disappointed if we hope for comics on America to have the place in our culture that Manga is said to have in Japan. I can't imagine that happening.
But, lest we get too down about it, I have to say that in my own 30 years of comic reading, I have seen huge strides in the variety, acceptability, accessibility, diversity, and reach of comics. Sure, overall circulation of periodicals may be down, but we have to balance those numbers against the rise and spread of the collected edition and graphic novel. Of comics also becoming BOOKS and being in bookstores and libraries all over.
We may lament the loss of the old spin rack in the grocery store, but think of the narrow range of product that would be found on those spin racks. Think of how disposable a lot of that material was treated. Think of how hard it was to have a conversation about that work. To find media about it. To have a cultural or critical conversation, or find that sort of study.
I don't know, it may be Pollyannaish of me, but in my reading lifetime I think comics have gained more than they have lost. Especially where their place in our culture is concerned.
Compare that to the US market where the majority of it is and has been super-hero stories for a very long time. Granted we're getting great stories in other genres now, including slice of life, biographies, you name it. But it's almost like we've had to play "catch-up" to what the Japanese have created outside of a few areas (horror comics and fantasy tales were around when I was a kid as well, for example...but stuff like Box Office Poison? Strangers in Paradise? Transmetropolitan? There wasn't a place for such things when I started reading.)
And as was mentioned - when a part of your daily life is a bus or train commute - as mine is - reading a comic, or manga, is pretty much the perfect thing to do, outside of sleep. :)
e
L nny
To answer @Nick 's question, no, they were not edited at all.