[Stu]

Word is Marvel's planning on going with a price rise on their 22-page comics, and they seem to already be testing it out with Secret Invasion being $3.99 despite not having the usual 32 pages of story in it, as well as other stuff like Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes having 16 pages of story, and the rest being script. Deadpool relaunched with a $3.99 issue that was 22 pages of story, and supplemental material on the history of the character. So if they do go up to 3.99 for all their titles, how likely are the other companies to follow? DC are expected to in order to "keep up", but surely if they stayed the same, they'd get more sales, or at least Marvel would likely get less?

[Batman]

Dunno. I've grown pretty accustomed to the $0.00 monthlies delivered directly to my computer screen.

But then, I'm a bastard.

[OpTard]

i've heard about this. it's been happening on alot of books. all the marvel knights books (spiderman reign, silver surfer requiem, sub-mariner depths) have all been $3.99 for 22 pages of story. i've heard people mention it in my store but i haven't been able to find any official word on it. the january solicits still have regular books at $2.99 (though all mini series and specials are priced at $3.99, at page counts ranging from 32 pages (22 pages of story) to 48 page (not sure the story page count of 48 page books). so it looks like $3.99 is already the official price for all mini series and one-shots. ongoing monthlies are probably set to follow, but they're not pulling the trigger yet.

i think this is an ungodly price-hike. but the writing was on the wall. in their last quarterly financial report marvel blamed a drop in publishing profit margin on rising costs and high creator contracts. right there you knew the were gonna try to find a way to get a price-hike in there. they can't do anything about the cost of printing and i'm sure the creators aren't gonna take a pay cut while they're under contract. the only option is to have the consumer make up the difference.

i have a hard time believing this wont cause a drop in sales. i don't see how you can ask people to pay $40 for 10 books instead of $30 and expect them to still buy 10 books. it's just a HUGE jump.

we'll see what happens. but the comics industry could be pricing itself into extinction.

[OpTard]

Nov 4, 2008 11:41:08 GMT -5 Batman said:

Dunno. I've grown pretty accustomed to the $0.00 monthlies delivered directly to my computer screen.

But then, I'm a bastard.

i've got nothing against the stealing. i do it with music all the time.

i just get no enjoyment out of reading a comic on a computer screen though.

[bdbdbd]

I've read much more than my fair share digitally. I'm waiting for someone to come up with a kindle style thing to read comics or an app to let you read CBRs on the kindle. I've got the complete runs of Detective and Batman on USB drives up to like 3 months ago when I got too lazy to update.

[Stu]

Downloads help sales too sometimes. I've bought trades of stuff after downloading it, or started buying it monthly after doing so.

[OpTard]

that's another point. the price-hike could send more readers to trades.

[bdbdbd]

I've bought trades after theft. At least with DC, Marvel seems to drag their feet collecting new stuff sometimes.

[Stu]

You mean they just don't collect certain titles at all? Or they take longer than the usual month-later for some?
I wish DC would amend their trades policy. "Between half a year and a year between Starman Omnibuses" my arse.
Though am I right in thinking DC do better than Marvel in re-releasing older stuff though? I'm always seeing "Finally collected" or "Collected in a new edition" older comics from them, like lately the O'Neil Question, The Harley Quinn series, JLI, the Omnibuses (Omnibii?) etc.

[OpTard]

marvel's actually alot better than DC at getting trades out timely.

the only reason is may seem that marvel takes longer is cuz marvel puts more things out in hardcover than DC does, and for both companies if there's a hardcover the softcover takes forever.

here's a funny situation: as of volume 3 of DC's the spirit series they will stop producing hardcovers. as a result, the volume 3 trade will be available before the volume 2 trade (for the record, the vol. 2 HC is out now, but the SC hasn't been solicited yet).

but if you're speaking of collections in any form, marvel's much better then DC. they've already released the hercules secret invasion HC and secret invasion isn't even done yet. and this is a book collecting up to issue 120, and the latest issue of herc is 122. while on the DC side, brave and the bold is on #19 already and i still don't have the hardcover collecting up to issue 12.

[OpTard]

Nov 4, 2008 17:09:54 GMT -5 Stu said:

Or they take longer than the usual month-later for some?

neither release trades just a month later. that would be my dream. 2 months is the MINIMUM, and even that's rare, and as i mentioned last post, only by marvel.

[Stu]

Oh, I was under the impression Marvel released trades pretty much right after the last issue comes out of the collection.
Oh well, good news is that mentioning the Question reminded me to look up when vol. 3 comes out...and it's this week! HURRAY!

[OpTard]

the only one i know who puts trades out that fast is robert kirkman. invincible, wolf-man and the walking dead trade come out like 2 weeks after the last issue. i love robert kirkman.

[bdbdbd]

Question 3 comes out this this week? Hooray! But it's unlikely my LCS will have it on shelf, the bastards.

Anyway, it could just be my esoteric tastes but whenever a storyline I've been stealing finishes from Marvel and I look for a trade it usually takes a while for it. On the spot, of course, I totally can't think of an example.

[Stu]

Nov 4, 2008 17:33:44 GMT -5 OpTard said:

i love robert kirkman.

I'll tkae your word on it that he's good on other stuff, but his Ultimate X-Men run was pretty underwhelming for me.

[Stu]

It's worse than we feared!!
www.dccomics.com/dcu/comics/?cm=10540