You think DC comics are are to much money

[Uncanny Mutie]

$4.99 with a back up is better than twice a month, the double shipping did way more damage to my DC reading than anything ever has.

Exactly. This is my attitude about it.

[Kid Devil]

Yes and that's why I now pay for a DC Universe Infinite subscription instead of supporting my local comic shop.

[BatmanJones]

Yes and that's why I now pay for a DC Universe Infinite subscription instead of supporting my local comic shop.

It's really sad for LCS's just as it was sad when what we used to call record stores (music) went out of business. Bookstores will be next and the smaller ones have already closed. The digital age sucks for so many reasons.

If you can wait for 6 months to read something, DCUI is definitely the way to go. For the price of 2 comics per month, you get all of them.

[BatmanJones]

Pirating is huge where I come from but the only way to stop piracy is to provide a better service than the pirates. That's why I'm a huge proponent of streaming and initiatives like Shonen Jump and DCU Infinite and hope they become more available in other regions. I've seen even the most ardent supporters of pirating decide it's simply easier to pay a Netflix subscription than risk downloading a virus or squint at grainy cam footage of a movie.

There's no doubt that that's a huge problem. DC should have gotten out in front of international distribution a long time ago. Now the toothpaste is out of the tube and a lot of piraters are used to free comics and will never go back to paying for them.

[Kid Devil]

It's really sad for LCS's just as it was sad when what we used to call record stores (music) went out of business. Bookstores will be next and the smaller ones have already closed. The digital age sucks for so many reasons.

It's a sad reality. I remember being devastated when may local Borders closed down and as much as I would like for theses type of stores to stay open I have been cut tight on money myself. The last comic/graphic novel I purchased was Batman: Curse of the White Knight but that was only because it wan't on the streaming service.

[cranger]

I don't have kids (thank goodness), but if $10-15 used to buy 8 to 10 comic books and now it only buys 2, you parents out there are not keeping up with the high cost of inflation. Like, at all.

Seriously, the last time $10-15 bought 8-10 comics was decades ago. Are you telling me that children's allowances haven't grown at all in all that time?

I'm not arguing that kids can afford today's prices, btw. I know they can't. I'm only reacting to what I think is probably a bad metric by which to measure their buying power.

People have done analysis taking into account inflation and comics still went up faster than inflation.

https://www.diversetechgeek.com/comic-prices-inflation/

I probably started around 1985. I noticed the price increase slowly in the 90s. That 1.75 for 1990 is wrong, Marvel comics were $1.00, or $1.50 for the nicer paper. That was about the time I started to get burnt out on comics. It was also around the time they stopped marketing to kids. The full effect of that price hike was certainly in place by 1995, and I was out.

[BatmanJones]

People have done analysis taking into account inflation and comics still went up faster than inflation.

https://www.diversetechgeek.com/comic-prices-inflation/

I probably started around 1985. I noticed the price increase slowly in the 90s. That 1.75 for 1990 is wrong, Marvel comics were $1.00, or $1.50 for the nicer paper. That was about the time I started to get burnt out on comics. It was also around the time they stopped marketing to kids. The full effect of that price hike was certainly in place by 1995, and I was out.

There's a fascinating book about the ever-changing nature of the price wars between Marvel and DC in the 70s, that revolves around the DC Implosion. It's an oral history told by publishers, editors, and creators from both companies. Here's a link for anyone that's interested. (I am aware of the irony of linking to Amazon as we discuss local comic shops, bookstores, and music stores going out of business.)

https://smile.amazon.com/Comic-Book-...8181184&sr=8-1

I can't speak to how the prices have changed between DC and Marvel since then, or the factors that have played into that like page count or paper quality, each of which is covered in the book wrt the 70s. I'll take your word that DC's been worse. Even so, while DC is facing existential challenges now, they are not so different from Marvel almost going bankrupt not so terribly long ago. It would be interesting to see how that affected Marvel's pricing, and consequently DC's, back then.

The bottom line is that, yes, comics are way too expensive for kids. That means a dying industry. And, because buyers tend to be much older now, the content is not suitable for children either. The two major companies are writing to their audience. Hence, the YA graphic novels DC's been putting out.

Hopefully those books and, more importantly, other media will revive the industry somehow. We're in the midst of a soap opera that's been running for over 80 years. It would be such a shame for that to ever end.

[BatmanJones]

Also, WOW. That comics/inflation story is a terrible revelation. Still, thanks for the link. I had no idea.

[The Darknight Detective]

What about when they went from 15¢ to 25¢?

That was an increase in price of just over 66.5%!!!

My first comic was 15 cents, so I can definitely empathize.

[BatmanJones]

It's a sad reality. I remember being devastated when may local Borders closed down and as much as I would like for theses type of stores to stay open I have been cut tight on money myself. The last comic/graphic novel I purchased was Batman: Curse of the White Knight but that was only because it wan't on the streaming service.

I think the first issue of Batman: Curse of the White Knight is on the service now. It just took a while but it seems the whole series will be there eventually. When they made the changeover they added Black Label titles too, which they hadn't been doing before.

[kilderkin]

I'm dropping all my monthly titles

Mostly because of this

I'm not interested in paying for a backup I'm not interested in

Comics cost enough as is and I don't need padding

[Robanker]

My intro to Batman was primarily through Batman: The Animated Series which lead me to picking up his comics, starting with the tie in comics to the animated show which were appropriate for my age as well as the 90's Grant/Monech/Dixon runs which skewered older but I still enjoyed and when I got older I read TDK Returns and Year One. I feel that's how it should be, have comics for every age group. I got into Marvel through Spider-man. I picked up both Ultimate Spider-man which featured a younger, hipper Spider-man and 616 Spider-man who was a young adult and Spider-Girl which featured a much older Peter Parker with his daughter as the lead. I was never confused about them being set in different universe's and never got the excuse that an older hero was somehow unrelatable or the publisher's insistence on not using the multiverse to explore a universe where the heroes are older and their kids were now the lead.

Superman being older and married was one of the big draws for me as a teenager. I liked that no matter how shitty some heroes lives were, there was one dude who really got his life together and was making it work despite all the crazy **** around him. Ditto Wally and Linda getting through all the hurdles in their relationship like the miscarriage. Hearing all these middle aged dudes whine about how the heroes aren't young and hip and that marriage drags them down just reminded me a lot of my misogynist relatives or their friends who would refer to wives as "the old bitch and chain." Yeesh. It always sounded pathetic to me.

Piracy is another reason comics are dead in the water. With one google/bing search I can find an offshore website that allows me to read any comic I want. Unless they figure out how to shut then down, the comic industry will become the new music industry.

DC Universe and Marvel Unlimited are basically comics Spotify. We're already here, and frankly those models are great ways to keep casual fans engaged in the material and introduce them to stories they may love so much they'd want to own. It's also an excellent way to get kids something to read for cheap and keep them occupied for a very long time should they be interested.


The primary problem is it took them so long to pull the trigger. Fighting the future is a time-tested way to ensure you don't have one.

[Username taken]

Comics are too expensive now. Period. It’s not a Marvel or DC thing, it’s across the board as it pertains to American superhero comics.

A few years back, i tried to convince myself to manage the $3.99 price point but seeing as they are now inching higher than that....something’s gotta give. I am not $5-$6 comics from any publisher, at certain point it just doesn’t make economic sense.

American comic publishers really, really, really need to look at their business model. Prices seem to be rising because they can’t expand their readership so they have to maximize what they get from existing customers. This isn’t sustainable.

The publishers need to 1) re-assess the format and decide if a monthly title with 20 something pages makes business sense 2) expand distribution channels, not enough people are buying comics because they can’t find them to buy. I’m pretty sure that majority of people from my generation (children of the 80s) got into comics by getting from supermarkets and other stores. I didn’t step foot into a comic shop until I was an adult.

Comics are NOT premium entertainment and can’t be sold as such. Something needs to be done to completely overhaul the industry.

[krazijoe]

I bought DC Universe cause I can't afford to read all the titles I want to.

[iron chimp]

Also, WOW. That comics/inflation story is a terrible revelation. Still, thanks for the link. I had no idea.

if you compare to independent books only sold in comic shops though - all that happened is that DC and Marvel entered the shops and adjusted the price of their books to that of independent books which were always relatively expensive and the price of independent books has basically only risen with inflation since the 80s.

The argument was that if people were willing to pay say $x for cerebus or tmnt then DC and Marvel were vastly undervaluing Batman and Spiderman which they had been selling for substantially less than the black and white indie books in comic shops.

This always seemed a bit disengenious to me because Marvel and DC had massive economies of scale that independent books did not have so the costs of production and distribution were far less but... the market not only accepted but boomed as DC and Marvel moved their price point to mirror independent books and that was that.