Marvel, Disney And The $1.99 Comic Book

[Rich Johnston]

[caption id="attachment_6046" align="alignleft" width="197" caption=""Remember these days?""]
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Marvel publishing makes millions.

Marvel films and related licensing can, over time, make billions.

Marvel films' success are based, in part, by the good feeling towards their comics, the media buy in of the fans buzz, the A-list actors willing to take lower salaries to be in something cool, the genuine enthusiast experience that is infectious to the mass market.

If the comics get too expensive, the casual fans may drift away. Marvel may make more money at a higher price point, but with less readers, and less buzz. Which, eventually, may impact on the movies and licensing.

However, what if Disney was preemptive? What if Disney want to do something that makes a big impact on the comics business. It may make less money, it may cost them in instant revenue, but it also may reignite the kind of buzz that will help the slew of Marvel and Marvel-related films and merchandise.

What if the comics, rather than creeping towards the $3.99 price, suddenly dropped. To $1.99. Across the board. Sales would rocket, market share would soar, other publishers would be squeezed off the shelves, plastic rings or no plastic rings, comics revenue would fall. But buzz would increase, increase, increase.

It might even just save the direct market. Or it might doom it, if certain retailers have become used to the $3.99 price point. Volume might help though...

Naturally such a publisher would need deep pockets to do this on a mass scale.

Oh, it's Disney.

Lose a million, make a billion. This is not just speculation, I understand it is seriously being discussed at the publisher right now.

And suddenly Vampirella and Fell won't seem that special...

And it might just make Marvel's reluctance to go below $1.99 for digital downloads of single issues moot, and see them support the 99 cent model rapidly becoming the norm...

[Paul Nolan]

Yes Marvel should do this... along with new Sojourn, Negation, Route 666 and Way of the Rat.

Yes I could live with that.

[Union Jim]

I'm crossing all my digits (And a few other body parts) for this to come true.

I currently buy around 30 Marvel books a month, and at $1.99 I'd probably end up buying at least half as much again.

However, why hasn't DC done this? (my business knowledge is zero, so I'm guessing Disney is MUCH bigger than Time Warner?)

Would Marvel end up flooding the market Or would they have to cut back on the number of books to make this remotely cost effective?

Would it really squeeze other publishers of the shelves? I for one am happy to pay more for books from indie companies like IDW and Dark Horse (who seem to mainly be sticking with $2.99 thankfully) amongst others. I think most fans follow books for the content, not cos it's cheaper than another book. People will stick with the more expensive indie/DC books but might splash out on a few extra Marvel books if they are cheaper (or even use the money they've saved to buy more non-Marvel books).

However this pans out it will be interesting to watch.

[Dave Wallace]

I like the theory, but I'm not sure that the $1.99 price point would boost sales quite as much as we might like to think.

From what I've read, Marvel's recent $3.99 price rise seemed intent on pushing readers that little bit further to see if they would shell out a little more for the books they buy every month. And, given that the prices haven't dropped back to $2.99, I'm guessing that readers have done just that.

So essentially, the readers buying $3.99 books are probably the same ones that were buying $2.99 books. The pricing doesn't seem to be having a big impact on the sales (unless somebody knows different?).

I'm just not sure that dropping the price would actively encourage a lot of new readers to buy the books, or create the extra "buzz" that's mentioned in the article (not enough to make it financially worthwhile for Marvel/Disney, anyway). It would probably just serve to make existing readers a little happier. Which would be nice and would probably promote a certain amount of goodwill, but not enough to make it worth losing an extra dollar (or two) of revenue per issue sold.

[Tom]

I like the theory, but I'm not sure that the $1.99 price point would boost sales quite as much as we might like to think.

From what I've read, Marvel's recent $3.99 price rise seemed intent on pushing readers that little bit further to see if they would shell out a little more for the books they buy every month. And, given that the prices haven't dropped back to $2.99, I'm guessing that readers have done just that.

So essentially, the readers buying $3.99 books are probably the same ones that were buying $2.99 books. The pricing doesn't seem to be having a big impact on the sales (unless somebody knows different?).

I'm just not sure that dropping the price would actively encourage a lot of new readers to buy the books, or create the extra "buzz" that's mentioned in the article (not enough to make it financially worthwhile for Marvel/Disney, anyway). It would probably just serve to make existing readers a little happier. Which would be nice and would probably promote a certain amount of goodwill, but not enough to make it worth losing an extra dollar (or two) of revenue per issue sold.

These things don't happen quickly. Comics have a long history of failing to appeal to the middle classes. But lately it's priced itself out of the market for a more financially-challenged audience it could once rely on. By catering to a niche audience, who will trek to some remote comic shop and pay higher prices, the overall audience has dwindled. The youngest audience especially. I could hardly afford any comics at all when I was little - the thought of keeping up with the whole month's worth of Spider-Man comics always felt, to me, a pipe dream.

So if Disney remedies this the market will expand over the course of a generation. It would surely transform the direct market, in a way that will boost some and hinder others. But that's just the reality of business, and of life; things don't stay the same way forever.

[nilskidoo]

Wasn't this a missing stanza from John Lennon's Imagine?

God I hope such a thing would happen. It would help along so many an ill.

[Somebody]

If comic prices dropped to $2, it would probably knock a load of comic shops out of business - they work subscription-only, or nearly so, and you can't grow that quickly. So their revenue would drop by somewhere between a third and a half overnight.

Low prices was actually one of the reasons comics got pushed off the newstands in the first place, actually - if a shop could make more money with a $3 magazine over a $1.50 comic that took up the same shelf space, they went with the magazine.

[Wallabee Champ]

I like the theory, but I'm not sure that the $1.99 price point would boost sales quite as much as we might like to think.

From what I've read, Marvel's recent $3.99 price rise seemed intent on pushing readers that little bit further to see if they would shell out a little more for the books they buy every month. And, given that the prices haven't dropped back to $2.99, I'm guessing that readers have done just that.

So essentially, the readers buying $3.99 books are probably the same ones that were buying $2.99 books. The pricing doesn't seem to be having a big impact on the sales (unless somebody knows different?).

I'm just not sure that dropping the price would actively encourage a lot of new readers to buy the books, or create the extra "buzz" that's mentioned in the article (not enough to make it financially worthwhile for Marvel/Disney, anyway). It would probably just serve to make existing readers a little happier. Which would be nice and would probably promote a certain amount of goodwill, but not enough to make it worth losing an extra dollar (or two) of revenue per issue sold.

Good point, Dave. The consumer base is pretty much inflexible at this point. It's not on the verge of growing or shrinking, as the recent price experiment shows. And your last point is the one I think will win out - lower prices may bring some good will, but is it worth losing the revenue?

[Kevin T Brown]

I'm crossing all my digits (And a few other body parts) for this to come true.

I currently buy around 30 Marvel books a month, and at $1.99 I'd probably end up buying at least half as much again.

However, why hasn't DC done this? (my business knowledge is zero, so I'm guessing Disney is MUCH bigger than Time Warner?)

Would Marvel end up flooding the market Or would they have to cut back on the number of books to make this remotely cost effective?

Would it really squeeze other publishers of the shelves? I for one am happy to pay more for books from indie companies like IDW and Dark Horse (who seem to mainly be sticking with $2.99 thankfully) amongst others. I think most fans follow books for the content, not cos it's cheaper than another book. People will stick with the more expensive indie/DC books but might splash out on a few extra Marvel books if they are cheaper (or even use the money they've saved to buy more non-Marvel books).

However this pans out it will be interesting to watch.

In terms of who is bigger, I think they're fairly even. One is probably about $2 billion more than the other. I seem to recall Disney being worth about $45 billion last year, but that figure comes strictly from memory and not to be taken as "gospel".

For a long time Time/Warner was ahead. No idea if that's changed.

In the end, when you get to that amount of money, it really doesn't matter.


EDIT: Disney is worth $38 billion, T/W is $30 billion. LINK.

[Tom]

Hurrah. I've been arguing for this, on/off, for years. And I'd pretty much given up hope it would ever happen. But this would be absolutely lovely (especially if the reduced prices trickle into TPB pricing as well).