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Post by Mark Caringer on Oct 14, 2010 0:25:18 GMT -5
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Post by Mark Caringer on Oct 14, 2010 0:35:38 GMT -5
DC has reduced there comics to 2.99 but have also reduced how many pages u get in a comic.
what do u guys think is best way to handle comic prices/page count/extra features in this economy?
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Post by Megalictis on Oct 14, 2010 9:41:53 GMT -5
Joe Q. doesn't really say much in the interview except that Marvel isn't planning to reduce the page-count per issue - for which I'm glad!
A standard comic book is 8 sheets of paper (the cover makes 9) printed on both sides (making 16 printing impressions) and folded in half (making 32 pages). So a standard comic book is 32 pages long - which breaks down into a typical 20-21 pages of story and 11-12 pages of advertisement (about 3/8 of every comic book is ads). Any page reduction would come in multiples of 4 (i.e. from 32 to 28 to 24) because you can't staple half of a folded sheet of paper but how much of that reduction comes from story, and how much from ads? Would a 28 page comic book have just 16 pages of story and still have 12 pages of ads? Would a 24 page comic book be half ads?
Here's my question: in the last 40 years I've seen comic books increase in price about 1000% (more actually, I remember 20¢ comics).
What protion of that increase is:
a) the wages of the creators (writer, penciler, inker, colourist, letterer, editor);
b) the price of paper;
c) printing cost (including the dramatic improvements in colouring over the decades);
d) the price of shipping the printed books;
e) miscellaneous overhead (electricity, heat and phones for the office, internet, rent, the wages of all employees not involved in the production of the comic book, and taxes);
f) wholesale profit margin; and
g) retail mark-up?
... And how have these seven contributors to the price of a comic book changed in relative proportion to one another over the last 40 years?
And then there's e-comics... which I'm against! Proponents of the e-comic point to the savings - no paper, no printing cost and no distribution
cost (also no retailer). An issue of a comic book could download to your computer for a lower cost than printing and shipping it to a comic book store. And that's true - but I also find it elitist. The "price of admission" into the world of comic books is 3 bucks - any kid with 3 bucks can buy any comic book he can find. The price of an e-comic might be only 99¢ per issue but the "price of admission" is a working computer and an internet connection (hundreds of dollars). So a switch to exclusively e-comics would be a decision to exclude everyone who can't afford a computer or an internet connection from being able to "join the club."
In a country that has only become more rigidly stratified into "haves" (those who will be able to afford to retire) and "have-nots" (those who will work 'til they die and die when they can't work any longer) over the last 30 years (as the middle class continues to shrink, the richest 20% of Americans control 85% of the wealth and corporations now own more of the country's wealth than private citizens for the first time) - is the last thing I want to see happen is to have the comic book become a status symbol! I have been saying for the last 3 decades that the "globalization of the economy" means that the average poverty level on earth will gradually become the average poverty level in the United States.
I just never thought I'd live to see the day when I'd say "comic books are getting too expensive!"
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Post by Mark Caringer on Oct 14, 2010 18:50:35 GMT -5
I quickly went thru a few comics i have here and it seems the story pages count is about 22 and there is a Previously summary page and a upcoming comics page in the back, so 24 pages total dedicated to the book the rest being advertisment.
Joe Q said Marvel WILL LOWER prices on some books
MARVEL WILL KEEP the same page counts.
Jim Lee and Dan DIDio said DC WILL LOWER ALL books to $2.99
DC WILL LOWER page count down to 20(2 less)
IF Marvel can keep page count the same and lower the price a bit(at least .50 cents) im all for that. Marvel already has many books at 2.99, I am curious how they decide which ones are 2.99 and which are 3.99 when they have the same amount of story pages in them. Do they mark up popular titles?
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