Where's your comics cost breaking point?

[thunderbolt]

How much more do the monthlies have to go up before you quit? For me, I'm almost there. Image seems to have a 3.50 standard price for most of its stuff now. If DC and Marvel go up to 3.99 for the standard books, as is rumored, I'm done.

[The Toyroom]

I'll still buy...I'll just cut back on the number of titles each week

[Airdave817]

Breaking Point

I'm almost there.
I used to read a lot of DC, and only Ultimate Spider-Man.

Now, I'm looking really close at The Brave and the Bold. That book is on the bubble. This latest, Raven-Supergirl team-up was just gawdawful. I'm thinking I might round out the Green Lantern-Phantom Stranger team-up and be done with it. I really don't want to see the return of the Archies-Impact heroes.

That would leave me reading Green Lantern, Ultimate Spider-Man and Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four. If the price goes up to $3.99; well, I think I've read the best of Bendis in Ultimate Spider-Man. I might finish up Blackest Night. I coul bail on MAFF anytime - they're done-in-one. I've already been looning at my collection and spotting gaps in back issues I'd like to fill.

I'd probably pick an artist, like - oh - say Howard Porter. Find some of his stuff, like Star Trek or Underwordl Unleashed. catch up with him at a convention and get an autograph or a skecth. He did a really cool Ted Knight Starman skecth for me awhile back at FallCon. Of course, the idea of going to a convention could change if the economy tanks worse yet...

[megoscott]

'Fraid they lost me at $1.00 about 15 years ago.

I don't know how you guys do it. I walk into a comic shop and don't see anyway to NOT spend $50-100 at a time, so I just walk back out.

[ctc]

>I walk into a comic shop and don't see anyway to NOT spend $50-100 at a time,

I don;'t really get any new books. Most of what I read are the compilations of different Japanese comics, and they run about $8 for 250 pages. So I don't feel too ripped off.

Don C.

[Random Axe]

FoR me it's all about cost vs. value. I only collect maybe 4-5 titles a month, so it's no huge expenditure. I can see where those picking up 20 plus comics a month would feel the crunch.

Now, I went into my local shop on Wednesday with the intention of picking up Black Terror. He looked cool and Alex Ross is attached to the project, so I figured I'd at least give it a shot. I flipped through it and put it back on the shelf. the book was about 18 pages long and it appeared NOTHING happened in the book. It was too dark and grainy and just not a good use of 3.50.

I think the price hikes are feeding the TPB's. That's how I get the majority of my books.

Scott

[The Toyroom]

Usually I plop down about $24-30 a week, depending on what ships on a given week. But lately, I've been dropping titles a little quicker than I used to...but I think I can accelerate that even more.

For example, I think that Alex Ross has seen the last of my greenbacks with his "Project Superpowers" and "Avengers/Invaders" nonsense....the potential is there because the characters are great but the execution has been lackluster from the get-go IMO. Classic Golden Age heroes and fancy covers and character sketches aren't enough for the dough they're charging. I just regret not jumping off months ago.

[JDeRouen]

I just spent $93 today on three weeks of comics. Then I came home and read this post. Yeah, it's getting ridiculous. Must... stop...

[kingdom warrior]

Already have....I went cold turkey and just stopped. In this economy now those prices are ridiculous for me. Not really missing anything anymore. I've soured on new comics.

[HardyGirl]

I've gotten very few new comics over the last few years; a few Archie/Josie compilations, a CSI comic and a Ghost Whisperer comic. But I feel really bad that I've had to ask my parents to send their kids for more money than I used to for field trips to the comic shop. (was $10, now it's $15) I'll buy classic stuff from toy shows, for discount prices, but that's pretty much it.

[cjefferys]

As far as single issues go, my breaking point was reached well over 10 years ago, I haven't bought a new comic since. I'm not paying that much money for something that takes me 20 minutes to read. I only buy the occasional collected TPB, at discount prices. They work out to be much cheaper and look nicer on my bookshelf.

[Riffster]

subscriptions are the way to go $20 a title for Marvel

[kryptosmaster]

I agree with many of the points made here. I think comics went overpriced when they passed $1 but I kept on buying them anyway. I used to try a lot more new titles when they were $1 or less. Oddly enough, even with the massive price increases since then; I still average about $10 a week give or take. Sometimes more towards $15 but that's rather telling since books have quadrupled in price since I was spending $10 a week.
I rarely buy anything new and have completely dropped Marvel books. That crashed down when they decided to start all their titles over at #1's.
I find them less and less worth the money and have dropped many, many titles recently that I wouldn't have dreamed of dropping a year ago. Superman/Batman, Justice League, Brave & Bold. I also am so sick of these never-ending, no-resolution mini/maxi-series events (Crisis-this-and-that, 52, countdown, trinity, etc). If I stopped buying new books the only ones I'd keep buying are Superman & Action and maybe Supergirl. Second tier maybes include Justice Society , Booster Gold & Jonah Hex. I've also bought my last Alex Ross associated work. Barring anything he does for a title I already buy, he lost me as a fan. I think he's a great artist but it's a personal thing with me.
As for the actual question at hand; I guess I answered that already. The price probably won't push me totally away but will get it to the point where I just buy less and less.
It's more the ignoring of the fanbase that buys their books that will push me away in the end than the actual ridiculous prices.

Rich

[MIB41]

I've decided to take a break from comics because I sense too much of a trend in the same style of story telling - Kill the hero and spend as much time as fans will give you to steer them down deadend storylines until they demand him back. I have no problems shaking up the norm every once in a while, but when each issue tends to only have about a paragraph's worth of real story and the overall purpose is to stretch the tale over as many issues as possible, then I put my wallet back in my pocket. Of course the heroes don't have to be dead either, but that's how some of the more high profile characters have stretched their story into other titles. It's just old hat. Even the writers of DC comics had no idea the response to the "death" of Superman would be as big as it was until the fans reacted... then they stretched it out. Captain America and Batman stories are just the "Death" of Superman reworked.