I’ve talked about this with friends and on message boards, so I might as well blog a little about it as well.
Marvel Comics is set to raise the prices on several regular monthly titles they produce (calling them “Event Titles”) from $2.99 to $3.99 per issue.
Because, yeah, right now, in this economy, you absolutely want to raise the cost of your product by 33%.
Anyway, as it turns out, shock of shocks, this is my tipping point. This is the straw that breaks my camels back. This is… well, you get the idea.
Even with my discount from online ordering, I’m not willing to shell out for these books. Mind you, I don’t buy a huge number of comics anymore, and Marvel has kinda been pushing me out for a while due to event fatigue, editorial direction, and managing to cancel titles I was actually enjoying, but this price increase is going to get me to drop at least two monthly comics from them, and has convinced me to NOT pick up a couple of new comics that are starting.
Here is my big issue, I think: I’m pretty active on eBay. Every few months, I’ll go on there, and I’m able to get a bunch of trade paperbacks that collect between four and six issues of a comic for between $3.00 and $5.00. (It really isn’t that hard… a lot of fans sell their trades secondhand.)
So, I can shell out $3.99 for a single issue of a comic, or I can wait a little while for it to be packaged into a trade with three to five other issues, and pick it up for about the same cost.
Or, and this is another option I have, our public library has a HUGE trade collection. Shelves and shelves of material I haven’t read yet, and it is all for free!
I like picking up issues by the month, but with the costs jumping like this (and I bet we can assume that most titles will hit $3.99 before 2010), I can’t justify it.
What is the most I’m willing to pay for a monthly comic? I think it is about $2.00. Right now, with my discount from buying online, I’m paying about $1.80 an issue. If I get about the same discount on a $3.99 book, my cost will be about $2.40 an issue… and I just can’t bring myself to do it.
When I started buying comics, I paid 50 cents an issue. I can’t handle an 800% increase in cost since then.
And now I feel old.
See you all on Monday!
