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The Big Price Point Mass Debate Continues

Published Sun, 29 May 2011 14:30:30 -0500

In Tom Brevoort's most recent Question & Answer session at CBR, he stated that both Amazing Spider-Man and the Mighty and New Avengers would be returning to 22 pages of content, but keep their $3.99 price tags.

In the debate that followed, Amazing Spider-Man author Dan Slott posted;

And DC and (more importantly) retailers are taking a BATH on those books. Look at DC's dollar share in the market where those books are concerned. They are NOT making up in increased volume for what they're losing in revenue. And that is hurting retailers who could really use that revenue to pay for next months books, as well as rent, utilities, etc. I don't expect those price points to stay that way for too long.

Didn't he see the Smallville finale? In 2018, they're still holding the line.

But what Dan Slott is saying is true. Sales on DC books have not increased enough to counter the drop.

But they have increased. And are increasing. Slowly.

Detective Comics, Batgirl, Birds Of Prey, Adventure Comics, Secret Six, Power Girl, Booster Gold, Jonah Hex, all DC books that are putting on sales for no readily apparent reason aside from the price change. And across the board dropping sales have slowed or stalled. Nothing to compete with the dollars lost from the cover price of many of them. But a thirteen-times-a-year schedule may help slightly. And if the comics continue in this direction, they might start to make up ground again.

So… what will happen to Avengers and Amazing Spider-Man sales when the 22 pages a month for $3.99 goes official in August? Will they drop? If they do, Marvel will still make more with the reduced cost of production, probably.

If they don't, or if they rise, well, that's another lesson to learn. Marvel's bean counters have stated that Marvel raised prices to see what the market would bear. I guess we're going to find out soon.

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