Let’s talk about the $3.99 thing, because it’s fading out of our collective consciousness as an issue and that’s actually driving me nuts. Every time you go to the comic shop you should be disgusted by that price point. Unfortunately, part of the human condition is that eventually we acclimate to anything. It’s what they’re counting on, actually. They’re counting on the fact that if they just continually punch you in the face every Wednesday, by the 137th time it won’t seem like such a big deal. I’m here to remind you that they’re punching you in the face.
And by “they”, I mostly mean Marvel. But we’ll get to that in more depth later.
Before I get into that, I want to preamble in a manner that will suggest to you that I’m not surface-minded or knee-jerk about the issue. Yes, I recognize that comics are not printed on news pulp any more, and that the paper is glossy and filled with anti-oxidants and vitamins. Yes, I’m well aware that the creators are not working free, and that Grant Morrison charges a lot for his services. Mostly, I suppose, because he was given secret knowledge when that space craft took him out of India and into the 8th dimension. Yup, I know that comics fans have traditionally lost their minds every time the cover price goes up a nickel, and that these are luxury items for discretionary incomes, and blah blah blah blah. I know all of that stuff.
None of it really explains a $4 comic if you introduce logic to the equation, however. As tech advances, costs go down. Color printing is not in an evolutionary spot that would require a premium. Try again. Paper costs are up, but 33% in the last couple years? I don’t think so. Creator costs are real, but cover price hikes never seem to have a lick to do with that. Astonishing X-Men went from a $2.99 Warren Ellis/Phil Jimenez team with # 35 to a permanent $3.99 jump at # 36 with the blockbuster names of Daniel Way and Jason Pearson. It aint the creator costs.
I will now explain to you why far too many of your comic books cost $3.99:
You keep buying them.
That’s it. I keep hearing all this rubbish about the “inevitability” of the $4 pamphlet, or worse yet, silent resignation. Comics are not $3.99 because they “have to be”, it’s an experimental abuse made manifest by the fact that so many of you pleasantly lay down for it.
It’s a pretty simple math equation, really. Once upon a time some soulless bastard bean counter decided to see what would happen if they raised the price of a comic by a dollar. The rest of the marketing division gasped and said “Have you gone mad, Fred? They’ll never stand for it! The same content as last month or worse for 33% more? There will be rioting in the streets and a mass exodus. We’ll be ruined!” But Fred knew better. Fred was counting on the comic buyer’s lack of awareness and self-respect, and apparently he knew his audience. Since nobody else in marketing had a soul, either, they went ahead with it.
And it plays out the same every time – the title that jumps to $3.99 loses a percentage of its readership. 5%? 15%? That title also bleeds from attrition at a demonstrably faster rate than its $2.99 brethren, as DCs New 52 books show month in and month out when they maintain their sales. But if you’re a bean counter and only concerned with this month’s math, that’s a win. Jack up the price 33% and lose 15% of your constituency? Better margins. It doesn’t matter that you’re killing good will with your current loyal readership, or that you’ve now made it 50% more likely that a fan drops off the title at the slightest hint of a decline, or that new readers are 50% less likely to jump onto your book because it simply costs too much to experiment. None of that matters because at least at Marvel, nobody has their eyes on anything further than this quarter’s sales figures. It’s brazen thug behavior entirely dependent upon your capitulation. If a 33% cover hike resulted in a 75% exodus, which it should by rights, they would stop doing it immediately.
Listen, I’m not an unreasonable monster. If you’re a creator owned indie, I’ll look the other way. Terry Moore deserves $3.99 for Rachel Rising,
But Marvel? Marvel has no excuses. None. Marvel is a Disney monster that was charging you $3.99 for AvX and its 100,000+ print run monster, and then charging you $3.99 for the spin-off book containing the fights you’d actually like to see in the “real” AvX but they weren’t giving you. And they TELL YOU THIS TO YOUR FACE AND YOU STILL BUY THE BOOKS. I want you to absorb that, if you can. Marvel took the fights out of their fight book so it could charge a shockingly large group of enthusiastic half-wits double. That’s abuse. If your father did that to you, you would call child services.
If Marvel were wise, it would be headed in the opposite direction. It would recognize that it doesn’t even need publishing to be directly profitable now that the in-house movie studio and licensing is so successful. Wisdom would drop the price of the comics, particularly the popular flagship titles down to $2.00 per and push them into as many hands as possible. You’re an IP factory now, and the end product is movies and t-shirts, but human beings are wired story machines. You hook them with the stories! Get the next generation hooked on your stories, give them a reason to try your product and stick around by giving them value!
It’s short-sighted and ultimately destructive to shrink your base and squeeze the last drops of blood from your dwindling turnip field. But that’s the Marvel way. Short-sighted and destructive is their specialty. That being the case, the only way to salvage the situation is to refuse to lie down for it. This can be done, and it isn’t as hard as you think. Would I like to read Hickman’s Avengers? You bet your ass I would. I’m not spending $4 an issue, and certainly not on a double-shipped title. There’s no value there, and I like myself too much to let them do that to me.
And hey, there’s still some good material left at sane prices. Waid’s Daredevil is still $3 per, and I can’t wait to dive into Kieron Gillen’s Young Avengers. Find yourself a Jeff Parker book like Dark Avengers for three bucks and go to town. Try it for a couple of months. You may discover that the world continues to turn on its axis, and that you maintain a pulse. I know this because I’m doing it. Comics should not be $4. It’s not inevitable. It’s unnecessary sadism, and you deserve better. You’ll get better if you correct your behavior.
Remember this when you hit your shop on Wednesday.
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