Over the last couple of days comic shop owners, readers, and fans of Dark Horse Comics have been in a tizzy over an announcement that Dark Horse was going to release their titles Day and Date and at a price point a whole dollar less than the physical copy. Only problem was, that wasn’t the announcement Dark Horse Comics made.
Dark Horse Founder and Publisher, Mike Richardson clarified the price point concern in a letter sent to retailers and fans.
December 5th, 2012
Dark Horse retail partners and fans,
You may have been surprised by our recent announcement regarding digital pricing.
We apologize for the confusion and concern surrounding Dark Horse’s recent announcement of simultaneous release in print and digital. We want to make it clear that nowhere in our announcement (see below) did we indicate that our same-day digital pricing would be less than that of our physical books. Due to some miscommunication, there has been widespread speculation based on our current pricing model.
To clarify: We have chosen to release all new single-issue comics digitally for the price of $2.99 for the first month, dropping to our standard digital pricing of $1.99 after that.
Dark Horse values our retail partners and is grateful for the twenty-five years of business we’ve done together. We have considered the retail community in all of our digital decisions and look at direct-market shops as crucial to our continued success. With that in mind, Dark Horse will make every effort to keep our comics retailers strong in a changing market.
We continue to value everyone who both buys and sells Dark Horse products, and thank you for your support. All of you are the reason we are here today.
Mike Richardson
I’m not really sure where the confusion started – probably one of those websites that spread rumors disguised as news… It seems that the full price for the first month, then dropping the price seems to be the industry standard as other publishers have adopted this price model as well.
