Is comics a dying trade?

[Spike-X]

Comics sales have "seemed" to be dropping for twenty-odd years now, but they're still around.

[kjn]

The direct market rose to fill certain needs and realities of the marketplace. Those needs and realities have changed, but the direct market has not, which is why is it not growing and other sectors of the comic marketplace (such as the book trade) are.

To add to what MRP said above, when I look at the classic comic book market I get a sense that it has evolved so that its market practice is the opposite of the common market model.

For books (the market which I've followed the closest), the model has for a long time been to publish hardcover trade editions first, followed a short while later by a mass-market paperback at substantially lower cost (note: "trade" and "mass-market" here refers to different distribution models, not the format, hence the existance of "trade paperbacks"). The trade editions sold earlier and at premium, for higher profits for everyone involved, including a higher royalty percentage for the author. Music used to follow a similar model, with LPs released first followed by low-cost cassettes.

But from what I can tell, the US comics industry was built on the mass-market distribution model from the beginning. that suffered a huge upheaval during the 1990-2000 period, including the amalgamation of several large regional distributors of magazines (which included comics and mass-market books), changes in the retail space, and so on.

For book publishers, that's meant a higher focus on the trade editions and the later rise of ebooks. Generally, it seems that publishers who choose to treat ebooks as massmarket commodities rather than trade editions has done better at the ebook market, with Baen Books as an interesting case study. (They got into economic trouble for a while, but that was because they suddenly sold too much and didn't keep track of their increased cash flow; the opposite of everyone else during the 2000-2005 era).

Comics was however built primarily on the mass-market (newsstand) model, and with the upheaval of the distribution chains I believe the publishers reacted by increasing prices, greater dependance on the direct market (which functions similarly to the trade editions for books, despite largely selling the same product), and thus also a diminished market presence on the newsstand market. But unlike book publishing, this change had a much larger impact on the publishers' bottom line. It was harder to build up digital channels of comics distribution, and the market segmentation and pricing between floppies, trade editions, and digital editions doesn't really seem conducive for growth and reaching new customers. The direct market also seems to have been quite volatile during this period, per the Wikipedia entry.

[Powerboy]

One of many reasons why people don't buy comics is because of the prices. Comics used to cost 10 cents in the 1940's. Then prices soar eventually through later years. Now the usual price is $3.99

Would any newcomers want to spend $3.99 dollars on 24 pages of artwork? Manga are cheaper than US comics. An average manga with about 200 pages costs $13 dollars. Manga has about eight US comic books for only three times the price of a US comic book.

This is the biggest factor. If comic books were 10 or 15 cents plus inflation, they wouldn't be a niche market. But distribution has changed. Just to add to the "old market", someone referred to the "classic comic book stores" but those are themselves something that are new in my mind having not come in until the 1980s to my memory. There was an NPR review of comics where the guy concluded that it comes down to spending about eight bucks for two comics that won't even give you an hour's worth of entertainment or that same money on a novel that will be good for two weeks.

[MRP]

This is the biggest factor. If comic books were 10 or 15 cents plus inflation, they wouldn't be a niche market. But distribution has changed. Just to add to the "old market", someone referred to the "classic comic book stores" but those are themselves something that are new in my mind having not come in until the 1980s to my memory. There was an NPR review of comics where the guy concluded that it comes down to spending about eight bucks for two comics that won't even give you an hour's worth of entertainment or that same money on a novel that will be good for two weeks.

When you are only sold in niche shops that are destination only and not available in the mass market, you are a niche product regardless of price. The low cost of comics is what made newsstand retailers NOT want to carry them, they did not have a large enough revenue potential to make it worth the space they took up ont he newsstands most of the time. Many newsstand dealers left them bundled and just returned them for credit rather than opening up the bundles, putting out the books to make a few pennies and then having to take the rest off, strip them and then return them. They did not provide enough return on investment for a lot of the newsstand vendors at those price points which is why DC kept experimenting with formats (80 page giants, the 60 cent and dollar giants, etc.) and Marvel experimented with the Giant Sized quarterly books, during the 70s, trying to find a format that news vendors wanted and was profitable for them. You can't sell a product at a price point that none of the retailers will carry. Ultimately, you are selling your product to vendors not customers and if the vendors won't buy them from you to resell, you cannot reach the customers.That means having a price point that makes it worthwhile for the vendor to carry the product. Basic retail theory is that a product has to generate enough revenue to pay for the square footage in your store it occupies plus the % of operating costs that square footage represents to the whole in labor, utilities, etc. plus a profit margin otherwise you lose money carrying the product. Unless you are deliberately choosing the product as a loss leader, you are not going to carry a product that loses you money even if it sells. Comics disappeared from the newsstands and became a niche product in large part because the low price point wasn't worth it to the vendors and they could sell other more profitable items in the space comics occupied.

Remember, at the $4 price point, retailers are buying it at about $2 an issue, Diamond is buying it at a bout a $1 per issue so Marvel/DC are only getting $1 per copy sold on average, Diamond $2 and retailers $4 minus whatever discount they offer to pull customers. That's not a very big margin and cutting the prices back shrinks the margin even more, and without access to mass markets outside the niche market of the direct market, there's not enough volume of sale sot make it workable. Comics are niche products because the direct market is a niche market, not because their price point is too high, and niche products always have a higher price point than equivalent products in the mass market. So you can't compare the price point of comics when they were a mass market item to comics now which are a niche market product just by adjusting for inflation. It's an invalid comparison, like comparing apples to oranges. If you want to compare today comics to comics of that period, look at things like what undergrounds and other niche products of the time were priced at and suddenly, they are not overpriced for the time/inflation adjustment. And lowering prices now won't suddenly make comics a mass market product again because there is no infrastructure in place to sell them on the mass market (in floppy/periodical format at least).

-M

[Jackmando7]

One of many reasons why people don't buy comics is because of the prices. Comics used to cost 10 cents in the 1940's. Then prices soar eventually through later years. Now the usual price is $3.99

Yup, 3.99 plus tax. If I am buying a comic and hand the guy a 5 dollar bill and I know all I get back is change, it's sometimes pretty hard to justify it.

[Trey Strain]

Yup, 3.99 plus tax. If I am buying a comic and hand the guy a 5 dollar bill and I know all I get back is change, it's sometimes pretty hard to justify it.

The only sensible things for the comics companies to do are to kill decompression and to start printing floppies on newsprint.

If you haven't seen my poll over in the Marvel forum, here it is.

http://community.comicbookresources....s-on-newsprint

[My Two Cents]

I remember back in the sixties being able to go to many stores around my small town
and there would be comics mixed in with the magazines and than in the seventies I
had to walk across town to the one store carrying comics and than the eighties
and only my local small book store carried comics and only Marvel and than the nineties
and only comic book specialty shops carried comics and than they raised the prices and
I had to travel across the Hudson River into New York to get my comics at a discount with
out having to pre-order in advance on line for a discount and than Marvel and D C
started to unravel and I was able to abandon all seeking and purchasing of comics
on a weekly schedule

[Chocolate Starmie]

Comics are changing, not dying. Same as music, television, internet etc. Comics are a medium, not necessarily a format and will need to adapt to continue

[Kusanagi]

I feel the format, buy an individual issue at your local comic shop, is dying. I feel comics will transition into a combination of digital subscriptions and graphic novels sometime in the future though the transition may be ugly.

[Carabas]

I feel the format, buy an individual issue at your local comic shop, is dying. I feel comics will transition into a combination of digital subscriptions and graphic novels sometime in the future though the transition may be ugly.

It is a format that is practically unique to America, and it is pretty much the reason why comics became a niche medium in America in the early 90's.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Well Comics folks are now going into the new frontier of newsstand....Gamestop has agreed to pick up comics now. Marvel , DC and some Oni titles were shown and will be rolled out slowly in stores across the country. Gamestop seems to be going into selling comics monthly. (Also price point wise...will match regular direct mark issues from what is shown)

[Buried Alien]

This question has been asked almost biweekly since CBR was founded nearly 22 years ago, and guess what: comics are still around.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[numberthirty]

Well Comics folks are now going into the new frontier of newsstand....Gamestop has agreed to pick up comics now. Marvel , DC and some Oni titles were shown and will be rolled out slowly in stores across the country. Gamestop seems to be going into selling comics monthly. (Also price point wise...will match regular direct mark issues from what is shown)

Interesting.

[Trey Strain]

This question has been asked almost biweekly since CBR was founded nearly 22 years ago, and guess what: comics are still around.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

True. Like newspapers, they're hanging on. But that's about all you can say. Warren Buffett said newspapers are the one business he would never invest in.

[Spike-X]

The only sensible things for the comics companies to do are to kill decompression and to start printing floppies on newsprint.

If you haven't seen my poll over in the Marvel forum, here it is.

http://community.comicbookresources....s-on-newsprint

Yeah, making them look like **** again is definitely what's needed.

If they can even find any presses left that can still handle newsprint.