The Value of a 12 Cent Comic Book in Today's Dollars

[Junkdrawer]

Just thought of something. Those dimes and pennies kids were spending on their 12 centers were solid silver/copper at that time. How does that effect the real world price then vs. now?

The silver dime is about $2.68 and the 2 copper pennies are $.0285 each = $2.74

 

On that same note when gas was about $.50 per gallon and now it's $4.00, well that same $.50 is worth $13.42 in silver obvoiusly

[Lazyboy]

Newsstand distributors want higher cover prices. It's hard for them to squeeze any money at all out of a book that's got a .99 cover price; they're loss leaders. I'd bet that if DC & Marvel & Image & whoever else started trying to put out a line of .99 books, the newsstand distro companies - a racket in and of itself, best believe it - would kick pretty strongly.

 

The higher the retail price, the more room for discounting through the supply chain. Coupled with the glut of titles and the downswing of readership, there's no way books will go down significantly in price any time soon

 

 

 

[jools&jim]

 

The hyper-inflation of comics prices over the years is interesting, but even if comics were only 25-cents a pop again (not likely), kids still wouldn't want them as they currently exist and as they're currently distributed and marketed: it's not about price -- it's about content. And today's uniformly dingy colors, ugly artwork, and boring, overly-complex stories (written mostly for adults) are almost inherently unappealing to anyone but long-term addicts down at the kid-bereft LCS.

 

My wife is a public children's librarian, and is routinely asked by young kids and their parents for "superhero" books starring Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. Up until a few months ago, almost all she had to offer kids in that key age bracket--ages 6-9 or so--was a very limited selection of modern Marvel and DC trade paperbacks featuring those signature characters.

 

And nobody wanted them. Not the kids, not the parents -- nobody. So late last year she petitioned the collection development people to order a bunch of "young readers" style superhero "chapter" books, like these:

 

http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=batman+young+readers&box=batman%20young%20readers&pos=-1&ugrp=2

 

The first few batches came in to my wife's branch last month, and the librarians can't keep them on the shelves. They're a true sensation.

 

Kids LOVE these characters and WANT to read about them. But despite some valiant efforts by comics publishers to develop their young readers' lines of actual comic books, it just ain't working, for whatever reasons. These sorts of books, however, are clearly doing something right. Not sure how well they're selling as opposed to circulating (for free) at the library, but it's not hard to imagine parents seeing a better value in an age-appropriate superhero chapter book at $3-$4 as opposed to similarly priced fugly, confusing new comics. I know which one I'd rather spring for!

 

[dupont2005]

But despite some valiant efforts by comics publishers to develop their young readers' lines of actual comic books, it just ain't working, for whatever reasons.

I think the reason is those children's "Adventure" lines are an obvious afterthought and treated as such. No-Name talent paid to mimic the cartoon, like all those terrible Harveys did. If comics were still popular then kids would buy the Adventure line, somewhat. There has always been garbage marketed toward kids under a popular license. It always sells, but more often than not the kids are disappointed when they learn the thing with their favorite character on it isn't any good. It's patronizing and even very young kids can often tell when they are being treated like they are dumb. Giving them half an effort is exactly that. When mainstream comics were suitable for kids we had Neal Adams drawing the comics that a ten year old would read. We had Jack Kirby drawing comics that a ten year old would read. Those comics and those stories weren't that month's garbage, but that months treasure, even if they weren't bagging and boarding them back then. Maybe it's that back then people opened them up and looked at what's inside Either way, I am not above enjoying a great children's comic, and those kid specific moderns from Marvel and DC are just not enjoyable. I think a great compromise would be instead of making mainstream comics unsuitable for kids and having a crappy kids imprint, why not make the large super hero universe kid friendly and still good enough to keep adult readers happy, and then making the seedy adult comics their own imprint? I think because the thirtysomethings might not like UXM being kid friendly and Marvel can't risk losing their bread and butter.

[CycleGirl]

If Amazing Spider-man sold for $0.99, and was sold at every convenience store, how many would they sell? I'm just asking? How much more could the publishers get in ad revenue if their circulation went up 10X. I know that I'm dreaming, but why not dream big?

Probably not many because super hero comics are garbage these days. That's not nostalgia talking either, the whole formula for creating a super hero comic had changed into something it has never been before. They aren't for children like they were when we bought them off the magazine rack at 7-11. They are for 30+ year old men who still need their Spiderman and Wolverine, but need threesomes and cannibalism and they need it ON TIME so it's pretty much 98% swipes of other comics, Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions, and porno screencaps because the level of detail expected of artists today in the time frame expected to complete it is pretty much impossible long term without lightboxes and tracing. This is why children aren't reading comics. Making them 99 cents each would probably not effect readership more than 10%. I know in my own personal opinion, there is no price point that could make me interested in that garbage. I would think most kids who barely even know who Wolverine is and have absolutely no clue who Deadpool is would not be interested at ANY point. Rather than lower prices, the way to get kids to read comics again is to flat out stop publishing all that nonsense and get stuff like Bone on the stands. Things that are actually masterfully written and illustrated, kid friendly while still being a captivating and epic story, every page being a work of art. Do that and actually put it at the forefront above the tits and explosions that make up the entirety of mainstream comics, and kids will read comics again.

Good points and you may be on to something dupont 2005 (thumbs u I really don`t think it`s price as my 10 year old son just started buying Pokemon manga graphic novels with his paper route money and they start at $7.99.My son said he prefers the Pokemon comics over the modern new stuff because as he says the new Marvel/DC comics are not fun but Pokemon is.

This is his first comic book he bought without help from dad!

 

The manga you show is 192 pages. I think that this may show that the problem is more with value than with price point. 20 story pages for $3 - $4 is a terrible value. 192 pages for $8 is a much better value.

 

I haven't picked up a recent Archie-type digest. I do see those in my local super-market. I've often wondered how well those sell. They are the only comic that I see positioned for impulse-type purchase.

[CycleGirl]

The hyper-inflation of comics prices over the years is interesting, but even if comics were only 25-cents a pop again (not likely), kids still wouldn't want them as they currently exist and as they're currently distributed and marketed: it's not about price -- it's about content. And today's uniformly dingy colors, ugly artwork, and boring, overly-complex stories (written mostly for adults) are almost inherently unappealing to anyone but long-term addicts down at the kid-bereft LCS.

 

My wife is a public children's librarian, and is routinely asked by young kids and their parents for "superhero" books starring Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. Up until a few months ago, almost all she had to offer kids in that key age bracket--ages 6-9 or so--was a very limited selection of modern Marvel and DC trade paperbacks featuring those signature characters.

 

And nobody wanted them. Not the kids, not the parents -- nobody. So late last year she petitioned the collection development people to order a bunch of "young readers" style superhero "chapter" books, like these:

 

http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=batman+young+readers&box=batman%20young%20readers&pos=-1&ugrp=2

 

The first few batches came in to my wife's branch last month, and the librarians can't keep them on the shelves. They're a true sensation.

 

Kids LOVE these characters and WANT to read about them. But despite some valiant efforts by comics publishers to develop their young readers' lines of actual comic books, it just ain't working, for whatever reasons. These sorts of books, however, are clearly doing something right. Not sure how well they're selling as opposed to circulating (for free) at the library, but it's not hard to imagine parents seeing a better value in an age-appropriate superhero chapter book at $3-$4 as opposed to similarly priced fugly, confusing new comics. I know which one I'd rather spring for!

 

I tend to agree that most comic books seem to be written for adults these days.

 

People have heard me say (many times, sorry) that I like the X-Men First Class series for young readers. So, I know of at least one exception.

 

 

[markseifert]

So late last year she petitioned the collection development people to order a bunch of "young readers" style superhero "chapter" books, like these:

 

http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=batman+young+readers&box=batman%20young%20readers&pos=-1&ugrp=2

 

The first few batches came in to my wife's branch last month, and the librarians can't keep them on the shelves. They're a true sensation.

 

These are your basic children's book format? Full page illo with some text at the bottom?

[CycleGirl]

Okay, I did some looking and found this. The double-digests far outsell comic books at Archie comics. The digests are $3.99. A couple things come to mind, they are sold in supermarkets, there are a lot of pages (see below) and I wonder if people find the pocket book more convenient?

 

If I could find DC and Marvel sales figures, I would post them...

 

Archie Sales Figures 2010

 

edit: double digest is 160 pages

 

 

[CycleGirl]

A lot of reasons have been given for why comic readership is down, but one of them is pretty obvious, they are too expensive! We bought them and read them as children because they were a good value.

 

 

I don't agree with this. Children don't decide on what they like based on monetary value.

 

I've said this many times in the past, and I'll continue to say it: I don't think the decline in comic readership has much to do with the prices of comics at all; it's more about competing forms of entertainment, including, but not limited to, video games, social networking sites, and message boards.

 

Comics need to get "plugged in" to these things, otherwise the medium is toast.

 

 

I'm not sure I understand your point. Is it that kids won't read due to competition for their attention? If so, I beg to differ. I can point at the Harry Potter books that have sold over 400 million books worldwide. Young people are apparently willing to read.

 

If your point is that they are not being adequately marketed to through the media, it's hard to imagine any characters having more name recognition than Spider-man, Superman and Iron Man these days. Films have created a ready-made market for comic books.

 

I truly believe that it's only a matter of getting the right product, at the right price, and to sell it at a place most convenient to the customer.

[CycleGirl]

In the way we see products today decline in quality to keep prices low, I would tend to think that first the 10cent comic was born (Famous Funnies #1 released July 1934) and as costs rose books shrunk in overall size and page count to maintain the 10cent attractive price, having no alternative the 2 cents was inevitably added, but inflation had begun long before that.

 

Yes, I think that this is right. Rather than change the cover price, the page count was reduced.

 

Action #1 was 64 pages.

 

By 1960, my Archie's Girls: Betty and Veronica was still 10 cents but down to 32 pages.

 

 

[Owls Head]

lots of things cost more than they should these days

 

Look at houses, oh wait, bad example...

[RockMyAmadeus]

Throughout the 60's, DC reigned supreme in comic book land, with sales toppping 1,000,000 per issue for your average Superman title on a fairly routine basis.

 

As an adult, I found them illogical and unreadable, for most of the time.

 

I highly suspect that the reason they are so intensely popular with certain grown adults is because they were children when these books came out.

 

Those books...silly and ridiculous as they are...are as important to them as my copies of the Oz and Choose Your Own Adventure books are to me.

 

Something doesn't have to be high fiction....or aimed at adults....for it to be entertaining to kids.

[500Club]

Choose Your Own Adventure books

 

[Subliminal]

Throughout the 60's, DC reigned supreme in comic book land, with sales toppping 1,000,000 per issue for your average Superman title on a fairly routine basis.

 

As an adult, I found them illogical and unreadable, for most of the time.

 

I highly suspect that the reason they are so intensely popular with certain grown adults is because they were children when these books came out.

 

Those books...silly and ridiculous as they are...are as important to them as my copies of the Oz and Choose Your Own Adventure books are to me.

 

Something doesn't have to be high fiction....or aimed at adults....for it to be entertaining to kids.

 

It seems like every dog has its day , as long as it was someones dog at one time.

 

Perhaps that explains why DC and Marvel seem obsessed with rebooting the same old characters, because as business owners and not collectors they don't truly understand the appeal. The mostly just try to clone the old top selling characters and make them fit into society at the time, rather than spend their creative energy creating new characters that younger new readers will cling to as their own for a generation.

[dupont2005]

Throughout the 60's, DC reigned supreme in comic book land, with sales toppping 1,000,000 per issue for your average Superman title on a fairly routine basis.

 

As an adult, I found them illogical and unreadable, for most of the time.

 

I highly suspect that the reason they are so intensely popular with certain grown adults is because they were children when these books came out.

 

Those books...silly and ridiculous as they are...are as important to them as my copies of the Oz and Choose Your Own Adventure books are to me.

 

Something doesn't have to be high fiction....or aimed at adults....for it to be entertaining to kids.

Well, the 60's were a very different time. But what you say is true. The Smurfs and He-Man cartoons I loved were as bad as they get. Maybe that's why when I turned 5 or 6 I lost all interest. It's what happens with kids and Pokemon today. At a certain age it's the coolest thing, then all the sudden it's so completely out of vogue that no kid would ever admit to ever liking it. That's one way to go about things, and there is obviously money to be made doing so. There is also a great deal of risk creating garbage for kids because they might be too dumb to know any better. The other way to do things is more like what Pixar does, tell a good story and animate it well. Make it enjoyable for everyone. THEN people will talk of bias when it doesn't get an Oscar for movie of the year, then those kids will still love it after Pokemon has lost it's magic. It will be pretty well universally enjoyed by most who bother to view it. Apply this to a periodical for kids that can also be enjoyed by adults and you create a possible lifelong following. The market is as broad as it can get. If five year olds and fifty year olds are buying the same comic book I think the publisher has a pretty sweet thing going.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Throughout the 60's, DC reigned supreme in comic book land, with sales toppping 1,000,000 per issue for your average Superman title on a fairly routine basis.

 

As an adult, I found them illogical and unreadable, for most of the time.

 

I highly suspect that the reason they are so intensely popular with certain grown adults is because they were children when these books came out.

 

Those books...silly and ridiculous as they are...are as important to them as my copies of the Oz and Choose Your Own Adventure books are to me.

 

Something doesn't have to be high fiction....or aimed at adults....for it to be entertaining to kids.

Well, the 60's were a very different time. But what you say is true. The Smurfs and He-Man cartoons I loved were as bad as they get. Maybe that's why when I turned 5 or 6 I lost all interest. It's what happens with kids and Pokemon today. At a certain age it's the coolest thing, then all the sudden it's so completely out of vogue that no kid would ever admit to ever liking it. That's one way to go about things, and there is obviously money to be made doing so. There is also a great deal of risk creating garbage for kids because they might be too dumb to know any better. The other way to do things is more like what Pixar does, tell a good story and animate it well. Make it enjoyable for everyone. THEN people will talk of bias when it doesn't get an Oscar for movie of the year, then those kids will still love it after Pokemon has lost it's magic. It will be pretty well universally enjoyed by most who bother to view it. Apply this to a periodical for kids that can also be enjoyed by adults and you create a possible lifelong following. The market is as broad as it can get. If five year olds and fifty year olds are buying the same comic book I think the publisher has a pretty sweet thing going.

 

Absolutely.

 

People forget that it is an art FORM. The potential is limitless. There is nothing that cannot be done with the form. The sooner publishers wake up and realize this, the better.

 

It took about 30 years for film to go from being a niche carnival sideshow type phenomenon to becoming...ya know...THE MOVIES...but you had a lot of incredibly creative people putting their best work into it.

 

Books were pronounced dead in the mid 90's. Nobody read books anymore, especially kids. Until Harry Potter. Now, more kids read books than have since the 1970's, because of HP and other "kid friendly" works that are cross demographic appealing.

 

But....

 

Like you said, there's room for everything. DC was successful in the 60's because of their editorial policies. There are very few "intelligent" DC comics from the 60's. And though the 60's was a different time, kids are still kids. Film doesn't require much of a commitment. Novels moreso, but then there are years between episodes.

 

For comics to get back into the hands of EVERYONE, they need to start with the kids, and they need to be 1. accessible pricewise, and 2. at a level that appeals mostly to kids...for now.

[Not*Sure*]

I do not care for most modern books. When I had a shop I sold only back issues.

There were a lot of reasons for this. Initially, I sold new issues and Diamond had a distribution center down from the shop..I could go in browse and choose new items or order them depending on what my customers wanted.(they also had a back area where they tossed unused fixtures I could go and take whatever i wanted I got spinners there regularly) They had this huge bin of Tshirts and you could dive in and pick out comic Tshirts for cheap..

 

This was mainly for the convienance of my subscription wanting customers. Most other stuff I bought for me.

 

Then DC and Marvel changed the way they wanted to sell me comic books. Diamond closed the distribution center there. They hand long forms to fill out even wanting to know what sort of candy I sold at point of purchase,what knick knacks were sold on my shelves. then they demanded that if I wanted title A I couldn't just order title A only I'd have to order oh so many titles or they would choose titles for me. And if I wanted a popular title I might have to order 11 other titles to get my minimum etc..too much hassle..

 

Then the new books mostly came in in carp condition..boxes dinged corners and the ding was through the entire box of books..return them and get a box in WORSE shape..return those and get the SAME box from the first time..it was maddening. I went into cahoots with another store and allowed them to supply my subscription customers and went back issues only.

 

New books sort of sucked..little story..lots of ads..lots of splash pages..a good 20+% of the book going to pages with one large panel with the character uttering one small line. Parents complained about racy ads in newer books..not just skimpy comic babes but ads that were not wholesome as they could be.

 

I enjoy the work of some new artists and enjoy the stories of a few..but wrapping them up and selling a 20 odd page book with only half of that actually going on the story...sucks..give me an old comic book anyday.

 

 

AND I HATE crossovers/tie ins/ongoing storylines that never give a satisfied ending..So I buy one book and then find out I have to buy 11 other titles I have no interest in to get the entire story and then the story sucks..why bother..

 

 

 

[Not*Sure*]

When we donated a bunch of books to the Christmas Angel Tree (we adopted 150 or so boys and then decided to branch out and collect other things to donate for girls and tweens in all an entire truckload of toys but a LOT of comics 9 long boxes worth) We chose family friendly books richie rich, archies, spidey youth titles etc for the girls we added Barbie and Supergirl etc..we wrapped 6 comics to a package.

 

The fox4 people said the comics were devoured. The kids loved them. We felt great that not only were we donating Happy Holiday presents to the children who may not have gotten them we gave them reading material that they could actually enjoy.

 

BUT these comics, the kids who got them could probably not afford to go out and buy a new comic off the shelf..and that is sad.

 

 

[Prince Namor]

My girlfriend's daughter loves to read.

So I take her to the comic book store with me whenever I can.

She usually gets Donald Duck, Simpsons or Futurama.

If not for me taking her there, she would never have even been exposed to comics.

There needs to be a way to make comics more accessable to kids, teens, and young adults.

[Park]

A lot of reasons have been given for why comic readership is down, but one of them is pretty obvious, they are too expensive! We bought them and read them as children because they were a good value.

 

 

I don't agree with this. Children don't decide on what they like based on monetary value.

 

I've said this many times in the past, and I'll continue to say it: I don't think the decline in comic readership has much to do with the prices of comics at all; it's more about competing forms of entertainment, including, but not limited to, video games, social networking sites, and message boards.

 

Comics need to get "plugged in" to these things, otherwise the medium is toast.

 

 

I'm not sure I understand your point. Is it that kids won't read due to competition for their attention? If so, I beg to differ. I can point at the Harry Potter books that have sold over 400 million books worldwide. Young people are apparently willing to read.

 

If your point is that they are not being adequately marketed to through the media, it's hard to imagine any characters having more name recognition than Spider-man, Superman and Iron Man these days. Films have created a ready-made market for comic books.

 

I truly believe that it's only a matter of getting the right product, at the right price, and to sell it at a place most convenient to the customer.

 

I don't believe the price has much to do with it either. Kids are no different than they were 20, 30 or 40 years ago. If they want something, they will save up for it and get it. While I think the lower prices would help for the new releases, I don't believe it is much of a factor when it comes to kids buying comic books.

 

Right now kids are not into comic books like we were 20 or 30 or even 40 years ago so it doesn't matter how much they cost. I don't think I really knew how much a comic book cost off the stands for the first few years I bought books. The only thing I was concerned with was how many books I could get with the money I did have.

 

There are comics aimed at kids today but they seem to be a small segment of the overall number of comics available. The majority of books are aimed at you and I because we are the target audience.

 

Granted every kid out there knows who Spider-man, Super-man and Batman are because of the movies but they don't know about or they don't care about comic books. There are undoubtedly more cartoons out there based on comic books than there were when we were kids but that doesn't translate into more readers.

 

I grew up with skateboards and bikes, comic books at 7-11 or U-Totem across the street, Colecovision, Dungeons and Dragons (though I never played), cassettes, 5 channels on TV, 4 hours of cartoons on Saturday on the one television in the house etc. etc. I am sure the majority of posters here grew up with the same things as evidenced by one of the recent polls here that put the majority of us in our 30's or so.

 

My 9 year old son today has skateboards and bikes but also can choose from roller blades, 90 different brands of skateboards, scooters, Razors and so on. The only comic books he sees are when I take him to the comic book store. Where I live there isn't a 7-11 for twenty miles and regardless there aren't any comic books there. Xbox, Wii, Playstation. Online play with all of those systems and so on. Ipods, MP3s. We have Direct TV so just a wee bit more channels and at least five or six that play cartoons non stop. There is more than one TV in the house. This doesn't even mention the internet.

 

The point being that kids have so many things vying for not only their money but their time as well. What is going to make a comic book stand out against the onslaught of other entertainment out there aimed specifically at them?

 

So yes the movies have made kids of today aware of Spidey and Batman and Supes much more these days. You can't spit without finding Spidey or Batman on something but that doesn't mean kids even have an idea comic books exist. We grew up with these characters through comic books for the most part. Comic books were a part of the culture.

 

Today I am sure that Spider-man makes a fortune for Marvel. I am also pretty sure that comic book sales are a small part of that. Spider-man is a part of the culture for kids but comic books are not. Not really anyway.

 

Comic books being available everywhere (7-11, Walmart, Circle-K) and having content suitable for a 9, 10, 11, 12 year old kid (No giant hooters, easy to read stories, writers thinking like a 12 year old kid and not a sweaty thirty-five year old perv) would be a great start to getting kids invested in comic books again.

 

I would imagine it would be a process that will take many years of being inundated with comic books everywhere to take hold if it does at all. IMO if all the publishers dropped their books to $1.50 for a year they still would not see an increase in kids buying comic books. On the other hand, I wonder if Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel went on overload with ads for comic books if there sales would go up.

 

Give yourself a pat on the back if you read all this. If RMA tries to break this down point by point I think it will break the boards.