1st March 2017 releases.

[Hurricane D]

"America's my sis from another miss"

"America is hope"

[omegafix]

Why is the free digital copy such a big deal? (I really do not get it.)

Some of us either sold or traded the codes, I sold them for $1.50 a piece, it justified the $3.99 price tag for me

Pulled
Clone Conspiracy Omega
Deadpool #28 (Only because it crosses over with Spider-Man/Deadpool)
Silk #18
Spider-Man 2099 #21


Culled
Avengers #5
Champions #6
Monsters Unleashed #4
Totally Awesome Hulk #1.MU

[Dreaded Porcupine]

Nothing for me.

[ian0delond]

• Champions #6 (Maybe drop the book after this issue)
• Hawkeye #4
• Moon Knight #12 (three issues left)
• Silk #18 (if I didn't know there were only two issues left I would have dropped this book after CC)
• Spider-man 2099 #21 (I am amazed that this book is still running after three years considering the current market)
• The Clone Conspiracy: Omega #1 (The ride never ends, or it does right here)

That's probably be my biggest week for Marvel this month and it looks like the twilight of my pulls.

[Mary Jay]

Found it. Looks like Marvel changed the solicitation.

Product Changes (01/10)

• The Unstoppable Wasp #3 (JAN171022 / JAN171023D) will be $3.99 and 32 pages, not $4.99 and 40 pages.

That's more reasonable. Although I still think those books that are aimed more specifically at children or younger teens should be priced cheaper.

I suppose y'all going to tell me that Marvel doesn't do $2.99 anymore

[Diammandis]

Not too much for me this week
Hawkeye # 4
America #1

[KC]

Clone Conspiracy: Omega- I don't know why this event needs both an ending in Amazing Spider-Man and an omega one-shot.
Star Wars- This is still the best comic Marvel is bringing out IMO.

[cc008]

Deadpool #28 aaaaaanndddddddddd that's it.

[rui no onna]

That's more reasonable. Although I still think those books that are aimed more specifically at children or younger teens should be priced cheaper.

I suppose y'all going to tell me that Marvel doesn't do $2.99 anymore

Hearsay, but yeah, kinda.

Marvel Comics Blame Retailer Woes On Returnable $2.99 DC Comics – Do They Have A Point?

There are many issues that are causing comic book retailers problems today. Increasing cost prices, a static market, increasing rents, reducing store sales, moves online, discount competition, everyone is feeling the pinch.

Marvel Comics has been criticised by some for overpriced comics, with $3.99 across the line with $4.99 and $5.99 issues, becoming more and more common, while the comics have become less recognisable to the base comic book buyer, leading to customer fatigue.

But at ComicsPRO, retailers knew exactly who Marvel were blaming. The distinguished competition.

We mentioned a snippet of this over the weekend. But I have received a number of missives from retailers stating that Marvel Senior Vice President — Print, Sales & Marketing David Gabriel told them, through a number of conversations, that competitors’ move to $2.99 across their line (and still being kept for the twice-monthly titles from April) has taken money off the table. That other companies’ sales may be up, but not by enough to combat the reduced income, and the extra expense of printing, distributing, and selling the extra copies.

Added to that, the introduction of three months of returnable comics, has seen retailers order high, sell fewer than anyone expected, while delaying repayments to retailers who return stripped covers, effectively causing a cashflow crisis, and reducing retailers ability to order enough comics across the board, affecting everyone. And Marvel’s overprint was there to help retailers have enough comics in stock to get them through this difficult time.

The thing is the $2.99 print cover price works as long as you're selling enough volume to make up for the low price point (so probably ~30K, higher for big-name talent). That said, DC was in a really bad place before Rebirth. Their January 2016 comic sales was ~1.6 million units versus January 2017 at ~2.9 million. I'd say reducing cover price by 25% was a pretty good move for them as sales increased by ~81% and that's without returnability.

[Mike_Murdock]

I think it was the right move for DC - particularly if the goodwill stays with them as they slowly transition back into pricier comics (as they're doing). It doesn't mean it's necessarily good for the industry as a whole, though, although I think a healthy DC is necessary to have. However, if they did delay repayment for returns, that's a pretty shady thing to do overall.

[rui no onna]

I think it was the right move for DC - particularly if the goodwill stays with them as they slowly transition back into pricier comics (as they're doing). It doesn't mean it's necessarily good for the industry as a whole, though, although I think a healthy DC is necessary to have. However, if they did delay repayment for returns, that's a pretty shady thing to do overall.

From retailer comments at Bleeding Cool, credits for returns were issued quite promptly. There also seem to be a number of retailers who didn't "take advantage" of returnability and instead sold older Rebirth issues such as Batman #1 for $8-10 in-store or on ebay for those who got into Rebirth later.

As for the price decrease not being good for the industry as a whole, I think this is one change that has probably been quite helpful to comic shops as it brought in new and lapsed customers. Besides, Marvel Unlimited is a perfect example of something that's good for customers but can be a major threat to Diamond and local comic shops.

Personally, I'm fine with $3.99 indie or small pub comics. They have lower circulation therefore much higher per unit costs compared to DC/Marvel. Not quite as enamored of the price point for Big2 without additional incentives such as a digital copy.

“Fewer Books, Better Books, Cheaper Books!” – Florida Retailer Talks Marvel Comics

To give you a point of reference for my store, as much as I like DC, Image has my top 3 bestsellers, which all sell 100 copies per month in my store (when they aren’t taking a break). Saga, Walking Dead and then Paper Girls are our three bestsellers, and the same goes for TPBs on those titles as well. We sold over 100 copies of Saga Volume 1 in our store last year and close to 500 total copies of Saga Volume 1 since it came out 4 years ago. In what’s probably not a coincidence, all three of these titles and most of our other bestsellers are also $2.99. We’ve never seen price resistance like we’re seeing right now and people refuse to try a new comic or event if it’s $4.99 or $5.99 for the first issue and I can’t blame them. I’ve even got a handful of customers that won’t even touch $3.99 books! The $9.99 issues of Deadpool have helped bring Deadpool to a six year sales low, after doing so incredibly well with last year’s Deadpool movie being the first comic movie in a while to really bring in a whole new crowd. Imagine that, people don’t want to pay $9.99 for a comic, even if it does have 100 pages.

[John Ossie]

LOL How did a thread about comic releases turn into a sales conversation?

[skyvolt2000]

Why is the free digital copy such a big deal? (I really do not get it.)
.

Some sold or traded codes.

Others split the price on the book-one would get the book and the other would get the code.

One would buy the book (to help the comic book store) and use the code and then sell the book to a used book store. I have seen more of this done with many Marvel books.

One would buy the book for the code and give the book away to try to help get new readers.

[Tycon]

America 1 - I’ve been waiting for this ever since they announced teasers for Marvel Now 2.0. Plus the preview looks extra promising.

Avengers 5 - Waid’s Avengers are fun to read and Mundo’s art really helps keep the “time travel” vibe of the story. Still refuse to read Champions until Waid leaves.

Hawkeye 4 - Thompson’s Kate is the best Kate since Fraction. And every single character introduced has been so likeable.

Unstoppable Wasp 3 - More Moon GIrl! More Red Room! More Jarvis!

Monsters Unleashed 4 - Criminally underrated event. Plus, Larocca’s art is always pleasant

Looks like I finally got a breather week. There’s no delayed IVX tie-ins or anything this week so all the X-Books are ready to have their post-IVX issues. At least there are some books to tide me over until next week.

[UltimateTy]

No Marvel for me next week