Price increase on some DC titles as of June

[MajorHoy]

Has the company that moved to newspaper print have any comics in the top 300 sales? If not why would Marvrl it DC undercut profit margins?

If they cut their books to half price, you do realize they would have to at the bare minimum double their sales to even match profit margins. Is there a market left to do that for every single book they release?

As far as I'm aware, the company (Alterna) isn't yet a very big player when it comes to printed paper comic books, which has caused at least a few of us to question whether they're a legitimate model to compare with DC.

By the way, have you ever seen any printed comic books from Alterna Comics anywhere you go?

[MRP]

As far as I'm aware, the company (Alterna) isn't yet a very big player when it comes to printed paper comic books, which has caused at least a few of us to question whether they're a legitimate model to compare with DC.

By the way, have you ever seen any printed comic books from Alterna Comics anywhere you go?

There are about 15-20 comic shops within an hour's drive of me (I live halfway between two large cities Dayton and Columbus and each is a 45 minute drive so lots of shop in an hours radius). As far as I know there's only 1 that carries them, and his primary focus for the store is not comics but used video games and 80s toys/nostalgia products, comics are a sideline business in his shop. Others may carry it that I am unaware of, but if they do they are pull copies only as none of the others devote any shelf space to them. Based on what I saw of the books, $1.50 was too much to charge for them. It's essentially creators willing to work for free to get exposure published by a company run out of someone's home. Now, I know a lot of guy who do self-publishing, I regularly attend small press and alternate comics shows around here and usually scour artist alley for self-published comics that interest me and I usually willingly pay $5 a pop for self-published books that interest me, but I still wouldn't spend $1.50 on the Alterna stuff I saw. I regularly see many slef-published books that look and are put together better and even several mini-comics that present as a better product.

-M

[BaneBreaker]

Some people were curious, so I went looking to see if any of Alterna's publications were on Comichron. I did December, January and February and found the following:


January
368 Go West 1 $1.50 01/17/18 Alterna 2,707

458 Doppelganger 2 $1.50 01/17/18 Alterna 1,270

471 Mr Crypt 3 $1.50 01/17/18 Alterna 1,088

494 Amazing Age 5 $1.50 01/17/18 Alterna 940

December
438 Wicked Righteous 3 $1.50 12/20/17 Alterna 976

420 Trespasser 4 $1.50 12/20/17 Alterna 1,191

418 The Chair 4 $1.00 12/20/17 Alterna 1,221

[numberthirty]

Wait a minute...

I thought the whole pitch here was "Marvel and DC Can Produce A Comic For Under A Dollar With Newsprint!"?

From the looks of that, Alterna doesn't even do that.

[married guy]

Try living in Australia!
The Flash title alone costs me $22.00 a month. (Yes, I buy the variants too - at cover price)
Other fortnightly titles cost me $5.50 each with monthlies & Image stuff at $7.00 an issue.

I will not be picking up Snyder's JLA or Man of Steel when they want $3.99US an issue.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Try living in Australia!
The Flash title alone costs me $22.00 a month. (Yes, I buy the variants too - at cover price)
Other fortnightly titles cost me $5.50 each with monthlies & Image stuff at $7.00 an issue.

I will not be picking up Snyder's JLA or Man of Steel when they want $3.99US an issue.

Wow, that's even worse than here in South Africa. Actually quite a bit worse...

[MajorHoy]

Wow, that's even worse than here in South Africa. Actually quite a bit worse...

But don't you folks outside the U.S. also have to factor in exchange rates, costs for shipping, import duties/taxes, and who knows what else?

[Cat]

Try living in Australia!
The Flash title alone costs me $22.00 a month. (Yes, I buy the variants too - at cover price)
Other fortnightly titles cost me $5.50 each with monthlies & Image stuff at $7.00 an issue.

I will not be picking up Snyder's JLA or Man of Steel when they want $3.99US an issue.

Can confirm. Am also Australian. I actually pay a bit more than that, tbh.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

But don't you folks outside the U.S. also have to factor in exchange rates, costs for shipping, import duties/taxes, and who knows what else?

Yup, for sure. The South African Rand is also very volatile so the prices tend to be all over the place - and can vary significantly from one comic book store to the next. I think it depends on the deals they have with the suppliers and the individual comic companies so a $5 comic from DC or Marvel could cost the same as a $4 comic from Oni or Boom.

Interestingly, local online general book stores tend to sell graphic novels at pretty much exactly the same as the US when converted - we just don't get those amazing Amazon (or the like) discounts.

[Somecrazyaussie]

Try living in Australia!
The Flash title alone costs me $22.00 a month. (Yes, I buy the variants too - at cover price)
Other fortnightly titles cost me $5.50 each with monthlies & Image stuff at $7.00 an issue.

I will not be picking up Snyder's JLA or Man of Steel when they want $3.99US an issue.

My comic bill is around $75 - $100 a week here in Sydney. I pay $5.95 for each $2.99 comic and $7.50 - $8.00 for $3.99. So yeah, it isn't the cheapest hobby. Hence why I want the DC stuff to return to monthly. I'd gladly pay $7.50 instead of the $11.90 I do now for the bi-weekly titles.

[Nick Miller]

Are u
Telling me in all of Australia
There isnt a comics publisher?

How bout books or magazines?

[CaptCleghorn]

Are u
Telling me in all of Australia
There isnt a comics publisher?

How bout books or magazines?

No one said anything like that.

[Somecrazyaussie]

Are u
Telling me in all of Australia
There isnt a comics publisher?

How bout books or magazines?

We have a few independent publishers here in Australia. The biggest is probably Frew Publications who specialize in publishing Phantom comics (both the King Syndicate stuff and the Scandinavia stuff.) But the rest are smaller companies who print comic magazines such as Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie!

The reason we pay more for our comics (which every retailer gets from Diamond), is due to the exchange rate between our dollar and the USD. Then you have to factor in the cost of freight (which cost retailers hundreds to a thousand dollars a week) and the comic retailers profit. All that gets factored in to the overall price.

As you can see, I should be upset at any increase in price. Yet I am not. Yes, some bi-weekly titles will jump from $5.95 to $7.50 with the switch to monthly. But with that switch, I now have an extra $3.45 to play with from the second comic I was buying. Which is why I don't mind DC going to monthly. As for Justice League, it is a bit steep. So I can understand the anger over it.