SPINNING THE RACK
SPINNING THE RACK
Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Yeah, Tom, forty bucks is a lot of cash, but what
are the odds of all those books arriving in the stores in the same week?” And I would
answer you by saying that the combination of titles may be different, but the odds of the
average comics reader finding $40.00 worth of new stuff he’d like to read in a single week
are pretty good these days. And, hey, what about when it’s time for your favorite titles’
summer annuals?!? . . . and, now, PLUS specials?!?
Every time a comics publisher perceives a particular story as an “event,” they feel the need
to “upgrade” the format and slap at least a $4.95 price tag on the cover.
SUPERBOY/ROBIN: WORLD’S FINEST III is a good example of this. Soon after the
“Reign of the Supermen” storyline ended in the Superman titles, the new Superboy was
given his own comic book series, and, since Robin also had his own title, which, like
SUPERBOY, boasted Tom Grummett as the artist, fans began asking for a junior
WORLD’S FINEST pairing of the Boy of, um, Telekinesis and the Boy Wonder. Makes
sense, right? Seems natural, eh? As it turned out, what readers were hoping would be a
crossover between the two title became a two-issue, Prestige Format mini-series . . . an
“event” costing a total of $9.90 for a story that would’ve cost, maybe, $3.90 if it had run
in the characters’ regular titles. Now, don’t get me wrong: the story was good. After all,
SUPES/ROBIN was written by Chuck Dixon and Karl Kesel, two of my favorite comics
writers, and the artwork was by Grummett and Scott Hanna, two of my favorite artists . . .
but did it have to be printed on paper that will outlast my great, great grandchildren and
bound in slick, cardstock covers? I don’t think so. As I said, the story was good, but it
certainly wasn’t ten bucks worth of good . . . and I don’t know of many comics--even
those written and drawn by the best of the best--that are worth that much money.
GEORGE: I’m at a bit of an emotional impasse over the whole issue of how much a comic book should cost. There’s a whole bucketload of issues at work here so let me try to sift through what I think are the keys. I think a publisher should charge as much as they please for a comic book. If someone wants to buy a bunch of $2.95-and-upwards comics, it’s their right, and it’s the right of the publisher to provide those folks with product. Just as I would defend the right of a company to publish bad books that sell, I believe they are on solid ground in offering overpriced books that sell. It’s my right to decide that I am not going to spend more than X-amount of money per month, or week, or whatever.
Things get a bit complicated in that I am an adult with a certain amount of discretionary
income, and, as a result, I am in a position where I can decide to purchase certain books
and to pass on others, all the time remaining fairly comfortable in the knowledge that if I
really want to buy all the Amalgam II books, I can do it. What worries me is that books
that cost $1.95 a pop add up quickly, and, while it may not prohibit a gainfully employed
adult-type person from acquiring most of the comics s/he would like to have, it does
become cost-prohibitive pretty quickly for younger folks who are reliant upon a part-time
job or Mom and/or Dad for their spending money. I don’t know that my demographic
group is the prime target of comic book publishers, but it seems to me that the product is
being priced as though it is. If this is the case and--intentional or not--I believe it is . . .
then, there’s a problem here. I don’t think comics should be priced at a level that
discourages children and young people from becoming a part of the hobby. In fact, I think
that it’s a lousy practice and lousy business to boot.
Here's why: As I've said I think if a publisher wants to charge $4.95 for a book that could
just as easily, with slightly different packaging, be sold for $1.50, then they should charge
the $4.95. As a person who would admittedly prefer to spend $1.50 rather than $4.95, my
belief is that charging the higher price as a rule is a short-sighted practice which fails to
look at the long-term health of the industry. It would seem to me that the folks at Marvel
and DC would want to do all they could to ensure that ten to twenty years from now, the
8-15-year- olds of today will still be buying comics. This will not be the case, for the most
part, if they never start buying them now. At this point, I am not touching at all on the
issue of the content or aiming a book at a particular audience; I am talking only about the
price of a book and what that does to the buying power of a young person. Both
companies--Marvel, though, more than DC--have shown a remarkable ability to jump on
things in the short-term and drain them dry. Bazillion-part crossovers, square-bound
books that would make great 80-Page Giants, and X-Men in more different combinations
than there are possible ways to begin the name of a team with the letter X (the
Unspeakable X-Pletives is still available at this point) are all designed to get as much cash
as possible NOW, while overlooking the long-term damage done to the market in terms of
those who finally throw up their hands, unable to continue to keep up with the
overwhelming barrage.
That's my quandary. Comic books, like breakfast cereal, cost too much. If they want to
damage the industry (see Marvel Comics in the Chapter 11 section of your program), go
for it, and happy camping. Really. If they want to charge a $100.00 a comic and someone
will buy it, then I think they should be able to do it. I just can't help thinking that
somewhere down the road there will be an unfortunate price to be paid by publishers and
fans alike.
TOM: This is very true. By offering so many comics in higher-priced formats, with interlocking storylines, and in attempts to milk dry the latest top cow (not necessarily Marc Silvestri’s heroes, though), the publishers are harming themselves, essentially biting the hands that feed them. If I were a kid, trying to keep up with, say, the massive number of mutant books from Marvel (since George brought them up), I would be incredibly frustrated by trying to organize my comics-buying dollars around THE UNCANNY X-MEN, X-MEN, EXCALIBUR, X-FORCE, X-MAN, GENERATION X, X-FACTOR, WOLVERINE, and CABLE . . . nine titles, roughly $18.00 a month. However, the frustration doesn’t end there. Readers are encouraged to buy not only the regular monthly titles, but the semi-regular mini-series featuring solo mutants--BEAST, STORM, BISHOP, ROGUE, GAMBIT; the blockbuster one- and two-shots--ONSLAUGHT: X-MEN, X-MEN: BROOD; and the trade paperbacks that collect entire storylines that ran through all the titles--the various “Age of Apocalypse” books, THE X-CUTIONER’S SONG, INFERNO.
A child, a teenager, or, even, an adult could go broke just collecting the X-titles . . . and,
let’s face it: comic book readers, collectors, enthusiasts--whatever we are--are, by their
very nature, completists. They feel compelled to follow not just one, but ALL of a
particular character’s--or team’s--adventures. Are publishers wrong for taking advantage
of this? No. I began reading comics in the days when there was a plethora of Superman
titles--SUPERMAN; ACTION COMICS; WORLD’S FINEST COMICS; JUSTICE
LEAGUE OF AMERICA; SUPERBOY; SUPERMAN’S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN;
SUPERGIRL; and SUPERMAN’S GIRLFRIEND, LOIS LANE. However, you must
remember: comics were only twenty cents each in those days, the stories didn’t cross over
at all, and, for some reason, DC only published those titles eight or nine times a year. So,
outside of the occasional Superman-related LIMITED COLLECTORS’ EDITION or DC
100-PAGE SUPER-SPECTACULAR, there wasn’t much money involved in keeping up
with the Man of Steel and his friends. Now . . . not so much.
George is right: there’s nothing wrong with comic book publishers making money; after
all, that’s why they publish comics in the first place. However, there’s a point where
supply becomes exploitation, and it becomes all too clear that fans are being gouged for
their interest in a particular character or team.
And how good is that for the industry? If it persists . . . if publishers continue alienating
scores of readers with books that are too expensive, there will be no industry.
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