How much is a single, basic...

[DavidCoppola]

....Comic book now? It's gotta be crazy expensive.
I collected Marvel and DC (and other odd ones) in the late 60s/early 70s. Could not imagine it now.

[Earth 2 Chris]

DC is "holding the line at $2.99" on most titles. Marvels start at $3.99, I believe.

Oh and many of the DC titles are actually worth that again.

Chris

[emeraldknight47]

DC is "holding the line at $2.99" on most titles. Marvels start at $3.99, I believe.

Oh and many of the DC titles are actually worth that again.

Chris

Man, and my parents thought I was insane when I asked for a dollar to pick up the very first MARVEL TREASURY EDITION!! It amazes me that kids (and even some adults) these days can financially afford being a true comic book collector 'cause by the time you've bought three or four titles, you've already burned through an Andrew Jackson! Back in the day when I was a serious collector, I usually snagged anywhere from twenty to thirty titles a month. These days, it sounds like I'd have to take out a second mortgage to support a habit like that...

[Earth 2 Chris]

$2.99 actually isn't bad considering the cost of everything else nowadays. Anything over that is pushing it, admittedly.

Comic companies sold far more copies back then, so they could afford to sell them cheap. A "hot" comic barely sells over cancellation level for comics in the late Silver/early Bronze Age.

Chris

[palitoy]

Yeah, that's the sign of lower print volumes and not greed sadly.

Same thing seems to be happening with action figures, as retailers become more and more stingy about inventory and turns, production volumes plummet.

[warlock664]

Man, and my parents thought I was insane when I asked for a dollar to pick up the very first MARVEL TREASURY EDITION!!

Well, sure; they knew you'd actually need $1.50 !

[Mr.Marion]

Well, sure; they knew you'd actually need $1.50 !

Some of the early DC limited editions were a buck. http://www.treasurycomics.com/galler...ce7275.htm#C31

[warlock664]

Some of the early DC limited editions were a buck. http://www.treasurycomics.com/galler...ce7275.htm#C31

Yes, I know, but he referenced specifically MARVEL TREASURY EDITION; just messing, anyway!

[MRP]

Marvel's $3.99 comes with a free added digital copy as well, which for modern consumers is an added value. If you want a DC digital copy you have to pay full cover price again.

Comics are a niche market right now, and niche products cost more than comparable products in the mass market. The best selling comics barely move 100K copies except for when an issue has a crazy number of variants or is included in something like Loot Crate to bump numbers. Just to put it in perspective, when a book like Power Man and Iron Fist was demoted to bi-monthly then cancelled in the mid-80s it was moving 125K copies a month, and only the top 3-4 titles from all publishers combined sell over 100K today. A book like Conan from Dark Horse these days sells 8k copies.

Also with the way the distribution system works, publishers get $1 for a $4 title. Diamond buys the books from Marvel/DC etc. for $1, sells it to retailers for $2 to make their money. Retailers buy at $2 and if they can sell it (it's non-returnable) they sell it for $4 minus whatever discounts they offer for incentives to pull customers or what have you, to make their money cover operating expenses, and pay for copies that don't sell and they make nothing on. Plus paying for all those "free" books they give away on Free Comic Book Day (Diamond charges anywhere form 25 cents to a $1 per copy for those books the retailers are supposed to give away). Economy of scale works against comics pricing. The longer the presses run, the cheaper per unit the books are, but such small print runs mean unit costs are astronomical for printing, which is why niche products cost considerably more than mass market ones with larger print runs. The margins on these books at $3 or $4 is incredibly small. Retailers essentially have to sell 80% of what they order on a book to even clear costs and begin to see a profit, so if they order 5 copies of a book, they have to sell 4 of them before they begin to see a profit even at the cover prices we think are cringe worthy. And it's not going to get any better any time soon.

-M

[LonnieFisher]

It's 3.99 for the new Micronauts comics.

[emeraldknight47]

Well, sure; they knew you'd actually need $1.50 !

LOL! Actually, despite the buck-fiddy cover price. I only had to pay a dollar 'cause I picked it up at the pharmacy where my parents got all our prescriptions filled, so he just cut out the 50 cents. Those were the salad days of comic buying.....

[warlock664]

LOL! Actually, despite the buck-fiddy cover price. I only had to pay a dollar 'cause I picked it up at the pharmacy where my parents got all our prescriptions filled, so he just cut out the 50 cents. Those were the salad days of comic buying.....

Amen !
My mother actually caved and bought this for me on a family vacation in the summer of 1974! It kept 10-year-old me quiet in the back seat for hours!

[Earth 2 Chris]

I've got a Limited Collector's Edition C-43 "Christmas with the Super-Heroes" treasury that has a $1.00 price printed on it, but the Woolco price tag says 99 cents! What a saving!

Chris

[greensavage2000]

I remember when I was a kid Kresge's at Great Southern had comics with a seven for a dollar price sticker. The selection wasn't great but Dad and I would still find a couple bucks worth.

[HardyGirl]

Yeah, remember when your comic book money used to jingle? I remember when I lived in WI in '91, and stopped at the convenience store to pick up something, I noticed the comic spinner rack had comics priced for a dollar! I was shocked! A dollar? I couldn't believe it! Later on I heard about Comic Book stores. That was a new one on me too, as I thought all comics were purchased at corner stores, drug stores and convenience stores. When I taught after school, we would go to the Comic Book store once a year, and they were allowed to get Cartoon Network titles, (the cheapest and least objectionable). Now they actually need to have 2 different types of DC Super Friends/Justice League fro adults and kids (priced differently, of course). But you also have to consider materials used to make comics now are more expensive when they were just newsprint.