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Has Anyone Seen New Comic Prices?

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  • Adam West
    Museum CPA
    • Apr 14, 2003
    • 6822

    Has Anyone Seen New Comic Prices?

    I stopped by local comic shop today to pick up my comics and my jaw dropped when I just realized Amazing Spider-Man was $5.99!!

    I buy a bunch of different comics including the Walking Dead which is $3.99 and probably didn't pay much attention to the price until today because of a bunch of variant covers and wow....it is just about unaffordable anymore to buy at that price and I like to buy the variant covers because of the art work.

    Definitely need to cut back on that monthly expense!!
    "The farther we go, the more the ultimate explanation recedes from us, and all we have left is faith."
    ~Vaclav Hlavaty
  • LonnieFisher
    Eloquent Member
    • Jan 19, 2008
    • 10814

    #2
    I liked it when they cost twenty five cents! I thought it was a rip-off when they went up to thirty five cents.

    Comment

    • Bruce Banner
      HULK SMASH!
      • Apr 3, 2010
      • 4327

      #3
      PUNY HUMANS!

      Comment

      • MRP
        Persistent Member
        • Jul 19, 2016
        • 2037

        #4
        Comics are now a niche product, not a mass market product, and priced accordingly. Print runs are so small now, economy of scale works against them, while printing prices and shipping prices continue to increase, and creator page rates rise to meet cost of living expenses. SO they cost more to produce and they are making fewer of them, so the price per unit has to increase to keep pace. Plus niche market prices always cost more than comparable products in the mass market because of the much smaller potential audience for them.

        Add in the fact that there are levels of distribution each needing to make money. That $6 Spider-Man comic is sold by Marvel to the distributor for $1.50 (which is all they get per issue to pay all their expenses/costs for creation and production of the book) who sells it to the retailer for $3 who then sells it at MSRP $5.99, so each layer has to make its money out of that tiny slice of the cover price. Sure I'd love for comics to be a quarter or even a buck again, but those small cover prices are why mass market retailers no longer wanted to carry comics and why they disappeared from places like 7-11 or the corner drug stores. But I'd also like new cars to cost under $3k and houses to cost what they did in the 70s etc. but they don't because time and costs ahve continued to march on.


        -M
        "Opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding." -Plato

        Comment

        • RonnyG
          Career Member
          • Apr 23, 2014
          • 909

          #5
          I also remember when comics were printed on old newsprint paper. Now its all glossy paper, and slick looking. I wonder if that is why they're more expensive?

          Comment

          • PNGwynne
            Master of Fowl Play
            • Jun 5, 2008
            • 19445

            #6
            My comics reading and collecting are all HC reprints and TPB collections now.
            WANTED: Dick Grayson SI trousers; gray AJ Mustang horse; vintage RC Batman (Bruce Wayne) head; minty Wolfman tights; mint Black Knight sword; minty Launcelot boots; Lion Rock (pale) Dracula & Mummy heads; Lion Rock Franky squared boots; Wayne Foundation blue furniture; Flash Gordon/Ming (10") unbroken holsters; CHiPs gloved arms; POTA T2 tan body; CTVT/vintage Friar Tuck robes, BBP TZ Burgess Meredith glasses.

            Comment

            • MRP
              Persistent Member
              • Jul 19, 2016
              • 2037

              #7
              Originally posted by RonnyG
              I also remember when comics were printed on old newsprint paper. Now its all glossy paper, and slick looking. I wonder if that is why they're more expensive?
              Newsprint costs almost as much if not more than regular paper stock now, plus there are fewer actual presses running offset printing for newsprint so it is no cheaper t produce books on it now. Most of the supply stock and the time on the presses available has been scooped up by the newspapers who actually still use newsprint, so it's hard to get and hard to get time on the presses if you do, and that was prior to pandemic related labor and production issues causing prices and printing press time to be at a premium.

              -M
              "Opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding." -Plato

              Comment

              • TheVintageToyKid
                Career Member
                • Jul 23, 2019
                • 673

                #8
                I only buy old comics. On the off chance I do buy a new one, it's usually a reprint of a classic comic book story.
                "I thought they didn't allow no bathin' suits in here."

                Comment

                • Adam West
                  Museum CPA
                  • Apr 14, 2003
                  • 6822

                  #9
                  I definitely enjoyed buying the $1 reprints of classic comics that were usually up at the front counter of my local comic shop, but they don’t seem to be making them anymore.
                  "The farther we go, the more the ultimate explanation recedes from us, and all we have left is faith."
                  ~Vaclav Hlavaty

                  Comment

                  • Timothy2251
                    Jerks beef with Ten Bears
                    • Mar 15, 2008
                    • 1959

                    #10
                    Originally posted by PNGwynne
                    My comics reading and collecting are all HC reprints and TPB collections now.
                    I went digital years ago and have amassed a far larger collection of scanned comics than the 20 long boxes of physical comics I had.
                    "It's sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death. It shall be life."

                    Comment

                    • MRP
                      Persistent Member
                      • Jul 19, 2016
                      • 2037

                      #11
                      Originally posted by Adam West
                      I stopped by local comic shop today to pick up my comics and my jaw dropped when I just realized Amazing Spider-Man was $5.99!!

                      I buy a bunch of different comics including the Walking Dead which is $3.99 and probably didn't pay much attention to the price until today because of a bunch of variant covers and wow....it is just about unaffordable anymore to buy at that price and I like to buy the variant covers because of the art work.

                      Definitely need to cut back on that monthly expense!!
                      Of course if you look at back issue prices and how they have skyrocketed in the pandemic era, new comic seem cheap by comparison. Stuff that was dollar bin fare for decades is now selling for hundreds of dollars. It's definitely a time to be a seller and not a buyer of back issues.

                      -M
                      "Opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding." -Plato

                      Comment

                      • TrekStar
                        Trek or Treat
                        • Jan 20, 2011
                        • 8355

                        #12
                        The last comic book I bought was around 1986 off the squeaky turning comic rack.

                        I still have a bunch of Superman and Spider-man comics from the 70’s - 80’s the oldest is marvel-team up
                        Spider-man and Black Panther, a whopping 20 cents, I think it’s dated 1968.

                        If I want to go back and read comics, I go to the read comics for free website.

                        Comment

                        • YoungOnce
                          Career Member
                          • Aug 29, 2007
                          • 966

                          #13
                          Originally posted by TheVintageToyKid
                          I only buy old comics. On the off chance I do buy a new one, it's usually a reprint of a classic comic book story.
                          This is me... I can't get into the new stuff and there is a lot of great old stuff I missed.

                          Comment

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