Back to comics.

uh, no.

As the former director of marketing for a dvd label, let me assure you that the day DVDs go onto shelves at the Blockbuster is the same day (every tuesday) they go on sale at a retail store.

There’s no reason why the same couldn’t be done at Marvel.com.

I would rather see more ads on the Marvel site and have access to cheaper comics (or free!) with additional content - forum boards, galleries, interviews, etc… then I’ll go buy the trade collection at my LCS.

$5 a month or $40 a year and I’d consider it.

There’s a deficit with digital in that I can’t read it on the pot or in bed or on my lunch break at the local Fuji Grill. It would take a lower price tag for me to sacrifice convenience like that.

*note: of course being “not that bad” is not really the same as being “good” and/or “sensible” - I think that at their current price point, they’d need something like “Today’s Comics: Today!” to bring in subscribers. Maybe, I’m not sure how big a need the average reader has to remain on the edge of what’s going on. I know I’m perfectly content to wait for trade, and I’m not even the casual reader.

As it is so far, a person would just be subscribing to an online Marvel library of back issues.

Good start though.

Maybe they would if they were self contained stories. Not any more.

Once they get their servers in order, I’m going to take a serious look…

We have no way of knowing how many magazines that guy bought every month. I only report what I actually saw that day.

And no, comics have not always been 3 times as expensive as sodas. If anything, they were close to the same in price until the 1970’s, when comics began to increase dramatically in price.

Perceived value is everything.

Erik Grove: “I think if you really freak out about how expensive comics are, consider your alternatives and how old and cheap it makes you sound.”

My alternatives are trade paperback collections that are reasonably priced or how about a paperback novel that will give me 20 times the entertainment time for less than twice the price of a comic book?
I don’t think that makes me sound old; I think it makes me sound like someone who knows price-gouging when they see it.
As fewer and fewer people buught comics, publishers charged more and more for those comics. And those increases have not been consistent with the increase in printing costs.

Erik Grove: “I have a nephew and his toys cost me 3 or 4 times what a comic costs.”

Apples and oranges.
Unlike comics, toy sales haven’t dropped 70% in the last 20 years, so kids (and parents) must feel they’re getting their money’s worth.

Average parent’s reaction to expensive toy? They’re annoyed. But they usually buy the toy if it means something to their kid.
Same parent’s reaction to a comic’s $3 price tag? They’re incredulous. I’ve seen and heard it more times than i can count.

And TEN DOLLARS a month just to BROWSE Marvel’s archive? In yet another clumsy Flash viewer?! HAHAHAHA!

I think this is the equivalent of my parents constantly going on and on about how Coke used to be a nickel and gas used to sell for a whistle and a little Fred Astaire dance. $3 for 30+ minutes of entertainment that you keep is a BARGAIN. Compare it to renting a DVD or buying 1/7 of a DVD or getting three songs from iTunes. Comics are properly priced in comparison to competitive entertainment. People who want comics to sell for a dollar do the medium a disservice. I’m just saying a bottle of soda at my job is $1.35 from the vending machine. I bet comics have always been about 3 times as expensive as soda so I think if you really freak out about how expensive comics are, consider your alternatives and how old and cheap it makes you sound. I have a nephew and his toys cost me 3 or 4 times what a comic costs.

Apparently, comics are only too expensive when a kid wants it, not when a parent wants it.

HMM???

But I have to say, every time my 7-year old wants me to buy him a copy of Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, I hesitate. I hesitate, and half the time I say “no.” I remind him that he has tons of comics at home, and thousands of mine he can read.
Because three freakin’ dollars is too much. About three times too much.
The average parent (or young adult for that matter) looks at that $3 price tag and walks away, never to return.
We need to make them that way again, especially with all the competing media they face.

Now that I have reading-age kids of my own, I meet and talk to plenty of other kids their age and I can assure you: 95% of them would rather be hitched to an X-Box or PS2 than read ANYTHING.
We have a very uphill fight on our hands.

And yes, $10 a month for undownloadable online comics is way too much. I would think it far more desirable to attract 10x the subscribers at 1/3 that price.
“$2.99 a month for all the comics you can read!” Works for me.

Comics were always inexpensive entertainment til the early 80’s. Which was about the same time the readership began shrinking.
Nevermind dollar volume, how many READERS do we have now, compared to 1967? Back when Fantastic Four sold over a quarter-million copies - as compared to the pitiful 60,000 or so it sells today?

Whoever finds a way to make comics affordable again will reap considerable benefits. If I were Marvel, I’d make new issues available online the same day as comic shops for an additional charge of about a dollar per title. That’s more than Marvel clears per copy now, I’m sure.

This generation of readers is not as attached to the printed page as my generation.
My guess is the next generation will probably PREFER electronic comics delivery *and* collecting. To have every Marvel comic ever published, digitally restored and viewable with a keystroke? What a great thing. No gooey tape to remove, no disintegrating paper to protect.
Your own mint-condition Marvel library, safely stored in cyberspace forever… I’m almost convincing myself.

Let’s just hope Marvel doesn’t offer new comics online a week EARLY.
I wouldn’t want to be a retailer if that happens.

It died. They buried it in Avi Arad’s backyard and had a very nice little ceremony. They served crab cakes!

Word.
Well, if you want my single biggest gripe in comics it is this, dead on. Comics cost way, way too much. Whether they are on-line or off-line. The price of comics has risen way past the price of inflation.

Why are we using fancy paper and high end color reproduction and whatever else drives up the price for comics? Save it for the trades of the really good stuff.

BRING DOWN PRICES!!! Profits are likely to IMPROVE. See, “elasticity of demand.”

And at a $60/yr. or $10/month price point you won’t have many kids intersecting your webspace…especially if they can’t download them, put them on their ipod, etc…

Whatever happened to the idea that comics were an inexpensive form of entertainment?

I find the timing somewhat ironic, given that’s one of the contentious points of the WGA strike. It would really be ironic if Whedon, Heinberg or Vaughn don’t get a cut of the online Marvel stuff.

If it worked, though, I could see reading comics via smartpanel as being okay. NOT as good as reading the actual comic, believe me… there’s something about seeing a whole page… but good. It’s good.

I’m going to try this out, but I’m not saying I’m dropping $60 just yet.