IDW charges $8 for annuals when others charge $5

Throughout my life I have been off and on into bodybuilding. In the last year and a half, I got into it rather heavily. In doing so. I started picking up copies of the Magazine Muscular Development. This MAGAZINE consists monthly of about 350 pages in high quality magazine photo quality pages. Sure, about 1/3rd of it is advertising. Maybe even close to 1/2, but even if it is 1/2, that still leaves about 175 pages of legitimate info for get this....$6.95!!!!

Now Im sure that advertising space has a lot to do with how much they can give and sell the magazine for. But if they can do it 350 pages for $6.95, I feel certain that a comic can come up with a 48 page comic for a much more reasonable price than $8. This is one reason I think comics are failing so miserably these days as I expressed in my what's wrong with comics thread. The cost is no longer a bargain for entertainment. Not for kids and not even for adults. Hell, it used to be a no brainer to spend a little bit of money for comics because to be honest, it really wasn't making a dent in my wallet at the time. It yielding a high return of entertainment for just a tiny bit of money invested. Now that equation has flipped. Now people have to spend a good amount of money for a tiny bit of entertainment. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see this formula doesn't work. And ultimately, this is going to fail.

Therefore, it looks like the leaders of comic companies have engaged in desperate sensationalism acts such as changing Spidey into a black man or lets have gay heroes getting married. Or, lets let a known mega icon hero turn out to be gay. Its for a short term grab and generates headlines but once the initial impact is heard by everyone and the copy sells, no one cares what happens next. It's shortsightedness from the leaders that be in these companies.

The need to give a higher entertainment value with better stories and cliffhangers that make people want to come back for the next issue and combine that with a much cheaper price that doesn't hurt the average consumer to buy it.

Until the leaders at the top figure that out, I just see failure. And to be honest, all it takes is watching Twitter for awhile to realize these creators just don't get it. Their egos are just way too bloated to feel they are part of the problem.

It is a lot of money. I wouldn't pay $5 for it. I refused to pay $3.50 for a normal comic. What I'm telling you is that they are at best making only a VERY small profit.

Let's say a car cost $12,000. Would your share of that be cheaper if 2,000 people helped you buy it or 10,000 people? If 2000 people help you buy it, your share is $6. If 10,000 people help you buy it, your share is $1.20. Printing a comic is like paying for a car. If they can only sell 3,000 copies, It'll cost you a lot more than if they can sell 10,000 copies. The cost of the paper has very little to do with why comics are so expensive. The production costs (art, story, prepress, building rent, etc. ) are the same. If Dynamite is selling the same for $5, they are probably losing money, or selling more copies. Dark Horse is experimenting with Dark Horse Presents hoping that the mix of creators and characters will boost sale enough to pay for it. I think it would need to be their best selling title to pay for itself.

When Crossgen shut down, they owed the printer MILLIONS of dollars. Not thousands... MILLIONS. Comic publishers are at a crossroads. They aren't making a huge profit if any. The cost to shut down would probably cost a 100 thousand dollars. They have books in process, they have rent obligation to fulfill. These companies are hoping that a title will take off and turn a huge profit to counteract their losses. This isn't a situation of them gouging you. They are just trying to pay their bills. They know the price has a huge risk to lose readers, but they don't have any alternative. Mark Waid said Boom had about 30 cents per book to pay all the production costs after the book was printed on a $4 comic. On low print runs, the print costs are much greater. That means if they sell 10,000 copies, they only have $3000 to pay they creators. Paying an artist $100 a page for the original art eats up $2200 of that. They are probably paying less and going under the standard page rate, but my point is that the profit margin on a $4 comic is shit. Doubling the size and price only makes it worse. They aren't making more money. If anything, they are making less.

df1