$3.99 for floppies on fancy paper, or $1.99 for floppies on newsprint?

[Jody Garland]

No, not at all. With Alterna, the TOTAL PRODUCTION COSTS of the floppies dropped by two-thirds with a switch to newsprint. Not just the cost of the paper. You use a different ink with newsprint, but it's less expensive, not more.

As for the expense of the collections, who cares? The people who buy those things are the ones who tend to be blase about the costs.

The problem is, you're not factoring in how much money would have to be expended in changing in the first place. They can't just magically conjure up new printers.

[Carabas]

He's also forgetting that Alterna didn't make any kind of switch, except that they went from not doing floppies to doing newsprint floppies.

[Osiris-Rex]

And why Marvel, DC, Image, and the rest of them stopped using newsprint in the first place. I don't think it was just an excuse to charge more for a comic book.

[Brandon Hanvey]

He's also forgetting that Alterna didn't make any kind of switch, except that they went from not doing floppies to doing newsprint floppies.

Alterna has been around since 2006. They've published various indie comics over the years.

Though in 2011, they did start an Indiegogo campaign to help them from going out of business. Which raised over $1000 to keep them going.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/h...ing-bankrupt#/


They've held about 15 Kickstarter campaigns including a recent one to fund the newsprint switch.
https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/petersimeti/created

[Carabas]

Alterna has been around since 2006. They've published various indie comics over the years.

Yeah, they've been around for a bit. They're still new at doing floppies.

I actually linked to their newsprint Kickstarter earlier.

Alterna's only published a handful of single issue titles in our eleven years and that we've mostly published graphic novels and digital comics

[warzon]

I personally don't mind paying $1.99 per book the lesser the price the more books you could purchase.

[MajorHoy]

I personally don't mind paying $1.99 per book the lesser the price the more books you could purchase.

But, how many more DC titles would you want to purchase on a regular basis?
And are you assuming the only change to get to $1.99 would be the paper quality?

[Trey Strain]

Cutting the prices with newsprint, far from being the "bad idea" that a minority of posters are claiming, is proving quite popular.

DC can no longer afford the status quo that some older readers will tend to support. Older readers can be the most vocal people but they're not the future. The company has to be open to new ideas.

While DC and Marvel were sitting on their hands with regard to distribution, Alterna got deals to sell its comics at Barnes & Noble and Toys R Us. You couldn't sell any comics at Toys R Us if you were charging $3.99 for them. Alterna's publisher thought of that because he's not wedded to the past and doesn't have any longtime readers who are urging him not to change anything.

DC needs to keep an eye on Alterna and every other small company, and embrace their innovations.

[Bor]

Cutting the prices with newsprint, far from being the "bad idea" that a minority of posters are claiming, is proving quite popular.

DC can no longer afford the status quo that some older readers will tend to support. Older readers can be the most vocal people but they're not the future. The company has to be open to new ideas.

While DC and Marvel were sitting on their hands with regard to distribution, Alterna got deals to sell its comics at Barnes & Noble and Toys R Us. You couldn't sell any comics at Toys R Us if you were charging $3.99 for them. Alterna's publisher thought of that because he's not wedded to the past and doesn't have any longtime readers who are urging him not to change anything.

DC needs to keep an eye on Alterna and every other small company, and embrace their innovations.

Its like you just ignore all the points in this thread. Its not just that people are claiming its a bad idea but that is not practical. Also comparing a very minor publisher that is trying something that has actually not even proven to work yet is not the evidence that the big two should follow that model that you think it is. Also the idea that new readers would suddenly start to read comics at 1,99 on newsprint is doubtful at best.

[numberthirty]

DC needs to keep an eye on Alterna and every other small company, and embrace their innovations.

This is easily the funniest thing I have heard all day.

If DC were printing on newsprint when I was a kid(really long time ago), a company doing it now is not an innovation.

[numberthirty]

Its like you just ignore all the points in this thread. Its not just that people are claiming its a bad idea but that is not practical. Also comparing a very minor publisher that is trying something that has actually not even proven to work yet is not the evidence that the big two should follow that model that you think it is. Also the idea that new readers would suddenly start to read comics at 1,99 on newsprint is doubtful at best.

Yep.

There is quite a bit of "I am just going to ignore that these two things are not really comparable." that you have to do just to entertain the idea.

If DC actually went to something like Alterna(not really paying a page rate), they would probably lose a decent sized chunk of their creative roster to other companies with that move alone.

[numberthirty]

It's also worth noting that there is this little wrinkle in the "Alterna Comics manages to do it!" aspect of the bigger picture -

Printing

Single issues print on newsprint with a glossy cover. The printing quality is almost identical to the comic books of the late 80's/early 90's. For printed issue distribution, Alterna will be funding print runs through advertisements and will recoup print and shipping costs on each sale. Creators can also choose to only have digital distribution for their books and in some cases, that may be recommended by Alterna.

[Carabas]

While DC and Marvel were sitting on their hands with regard to distribution, Alterna got deals to sell its comics at Barnes & Noble and Toys R Us. You couldn't sell any comics at Toys R Us if you were charging $3.99 for them. Alterna's publisher thought of that because he's not wedded to the past and doesn't have any longtime readers who are urging him not to change anything.

You know who they're NOT selling them to? Comic book shops.

[Osiris-Rex]

You seem to ignore any contrary views, but here goes:

Cutting the prices with newsprint, far from being the "bad idea" that a minority of posters are claiming, is proving quite popular.

Seems like the majority of posters are saying it isn't practical for the big 5 to switch to newsprint. Just because people want something doesn't mean they can have it. I want a free pony with my
Amazon purchase. Doesn't mean Amazon is going to give me a free pony.

DC can no longer afford the status quo that some older readers will tend to support. Older readers can be the most vocal people but they're not the future. The company has to be open to new ideas.

Older people are the main market. Kids are into video games. It's just like model trains. Hardly any kids play with model trains anymore. It's mostly a hobby of older adults. Cheaper model trains aren't going
to get kids into model trains either.

While DC and Marvel were sitting on their hands with regard to distribution, Alterna got deals to sell its comics at Barnes & Noble and Toys R Us. You couldn't sell any comics at Toys R Us if you were charging $3.99 for them. Alterna's publisher thought of that because he's not wedded to the past and doesn't have any longtime readers who are urging him not to change anything.

But how many people are buying them from Barnes & Noble and Toys R Us? Do you have any sales figures?

DC needs to keep an eye on Alterna and every other small company, and embrace their innovations.

What is innovative about going back to poor quality paper that was abandoned years ago. You probably don't know this but a few decades back there was a shortage of newsprint paper. So DC went to glossy paper.
Then when newsprint paper was available again DC went back to newsprint paper. But nobody liked it, they preferred glossy paper. I know I preferred glossy paper and was annoyed when the went back to newsprint
paper. So DC bowed to customer demand and went back to glossy paper. What makes you think people who buy DC comics would be any happier if DC went back to newsprint paper again?

[MajorHoy]

. . . While DC and Marvel were sitting on their hands with regard to distribution, Alterna got deals to sell its comics at Barnes & Noble and Toys R Us. You couldn't sell any comics at Toys R Us if you were charging $3.99 for them. Alterna's publisher thought of that because he's not wedded to the past and doesn't have any longtime readers who are urging him not to change anything.

Do you know why Marvel (and maybe DC now?) stopped selling individual issues of comic books at places like Barnes & Noble/ newsstand distribution here in much of the U.S.?
There wasn't enough $'s in it to make it worthwhile to them.
Comic book issues sold to places through newsstand distribution (vs. direct sales through Diamond) are returnable. So if the stores that get those issues can't/don't sell them, they can be returned to the publisher and the publisher doesn't get any $'s for those printed but unsold issues. And when I say "returned", the publisher doesn't get back the entire issue. It's just the cover that's sent back to show the copy was not sold. (It would be too expensive to send back the entire issue for every copy that didn't sell.)

But how many people are buying them from Barnes & Noble and Toys R Us? Do you have any sales figures?

I'm not sure anybody keeps track of how many copies of particular issues are sold through newsstand distribution, especially since unsold issues aren't always returned right away and I don't know how many companies handle newsstand distribution here in the U.S. The numbers we get for comic book shop "sales" from Diamond are based strictly on what the comic book shops order; there's no detailed breakdown on how many of those copies are then sold to actual readers by the stores.