In a day and age when so many comics are seeing a price increase, DC surprised many with the announcement that they are lowering the cover price on many of their ongoing series. Ongoing monthly books that are currently $3.99 will now be $2.99.
“Today’s announcement re-affirms DC Comics’ commitment to both our core fans and to comic book store retailers,” said Jim Lee, DC Comics Co-Publisher. “For the long term health of the industry, we are willing to take a financial risk so that readers who love our medium do not abandon the art form.”
One wonders if this is a reaction to the August sales figures that had the industry selling fewer single issues than ever before. This move by DC now has 80% of their titles priced below $3.00.
Take the jump to see a complete list of the titles affected.
As of January, the following titles standard length ongoing titles, previously priced at $3.99 for 32 pages/22 story pages, will be priced at $2.99 with 32 pages/20 story pages:
- American Vampire;
- Batman: The Dark Knight;
- Batman Incorporated;
- Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors;
- JSA All-Stars.
As of January, the following licensed titles, previously priced at $3.99, will be priced at $2.99:
- Gears of War;
- God of War;
- Kane & Lynch;
- Ratchet & Clank.
As of January, the following ongoing titles previously priced at $3.99 for 40 pages/30 story pages including co-features, will no longer include co-features and will be priced at $2.99 for 32 pages/ 20 story pages:
- Action Comics;
- Adventure Comics;
- Batman: Streets of Gotham;
- Detective Comics;
- Doc Savage;
- Justice League of America;
- Legion of Super-Heroes;
- The Spirit.
In January, five books are $3.99 for 40 pages/30 story pages:
- Batman: Europa # 1
- First Wave # 6
- DCU: Legacies # 9
- Weird Worlds # 1
- World of Warcraft: Curse of the Worgen
The following oversized anniversary issue will be $4.99 for 48 pages/38 story pages:
Hellblazer # 275
Sounds like good news to me! Does this price drop mean that you’ll be buying more comics in the future?
16 Comments
I’m happy that they are dropping the price on some issues, though it will only affect 3 titles for me.
I don’t think it’s going to make me buy any more comics. Instead, I might save the difference to pick up an extra Trade or two over the year.
Thats a huge plus for me Im going to be looking to add more DC title to my pull list on DCBS alo hope to even pick some that I just droped in the last year or so.
Hooray! I can justify adding a couple more books to my pull list! Thanks DC!
At last its finally moving in the right direction. Never thought I’d live to see the day, that they’d drop the price.
Wish Concert tickets and other things would go down in price too.
I might just pick up one more DC title, because of this.
Good. 20 story pages instead of 22 ain’t so good though.
I’m torn on this one. Obviously, cheaper comics are good for fans. At the same time, I feel concern for the creators who are paid per page and will not only have less space to tell their story but will be paid less per issue than before.
Well, color me pleasantly surprised.
I’m glad they’re dropping the back-up features. I think a backup feature works when it’s a done-in-one. Reading decompressed mini-stories is like going back to Mark Trail comics in the newspapers. The Red Tornado/Cyborg one was painful. The Liberty Belle/Hourman one at least jumped between some segments, but I would rather have seen it as a one-shot.
Also painful: the Titans preview. Either they’re not using a focus group on these things, or the focus group was very drunk.
yeah;
I definitely think this will go one of two ways as far as storytelling goes
1) Storytelling will get more concise and a lot of the indulgent narrative fat will be trimmed; allowing for captivating done in ones.
or
2) They’ll try to compensate for shorter book length we longer arcs and more title tie-ins.
Personally I’d rather things go the first way.
i can’t say that is a mart move, because it was just stupid to think 4$ for a comic book would work out fine. 20 story pages instead of 22 is maybe also good news for the artists, because many of them can’t do 22 pages a month anyway.
Cutting back on the number of pages and of features while ultimately making the resulting books more expensive on a per-page basis doesn’t look too wise to me. Maybe it will encourage less decompressed storytelling, however, which would definitely be welcome.
It would be better to go the opposite direction, however, and make the comics thicker and more worth the money actually spent on them. 20-pagers might be a good idea for online comics, but I can only see hesitation to commit money commit with this move.
The manga model is the one to emulate instead – DC (and for that matter Marvel) should strike to make their monthlies more anthology-like, with more pages and more features, thereby giving readers less of a risk of disappointment if they decide to follow the book for a while. Besides, it is just plain cheaper to read thick books than thin ones.
But wouldn’t that also mean a much smaller trim size?
You know what’s funny? They took the time to mention that starting in January, God of War is going to $2.99 when January is the LAST issue of the title. I’m very happy to see that it survived being Wildstormed at Wildstorm though.
I think this is a move in the right direction. I don’t think that Second Features were very good in the first place so I’m happy to see them go. It’s nice to see a comic company take some initiative towards consumer happiness instead of stockhold padding.
I love this. Love it. But, if they really want to sell more comics, they’d consider dropping it to the $1.99 that they’re selling digital comics for.
Not only would it make continuing in the hobby more sustainable for people who are hurting for disposable income (and, in this economy, a lot of people are), but they’d open the doors to a lot of people who might be interested but are currently put off by the cost or who maybe currently wait for the collected story in TPB format.
I don’t want to be one of those guys who bails out on my local comic shop and goes digital, but the longer they sell them at such a discrepency, the harder time I have justifying not going that route.
(For example, I buy somewhere around 40 books per month. Let’s figure that, between Marvel and DC, 25% of those books are $3.99 and the other 75% are $2.99. Over the course of a single year, I could save $600. That’s a decent amount of cash. Every year.)
I like a lower price point, so that’s a good thing. I don’t buy many of the titles listed here, so it doesn’t seem to really affect me, but now that they’re cheaper maybe I’ll pick some up. I don’t know why but I have a much easier time dropping more money when it’s a little here and there over one big price. I could go out and buy one TPB for $15.00 and be done right there, or spend $30 on a bunch of individual comics and be fine with that too. I’ll never go to digital comics, so I’m glad that the prices have dropped, even if the page count is down.
I’m glad DC is going back to the 2.99 price, but I wonder if it’s ‘too little, too late’ , for many collectore like me that jumped off during the price hike. I basically stopped collecting after DC followed Marvel on the price hike, during a recession, where I like many other people was laid off. The sad thing is; even though I do miss a few comics, I doubt I will ever buy an issue again. Maybe a graphic novel but as far as the single issue, I doubt it. I realized the entertainment vaule at the price just wasn’t worth it, especially with all the crossover events they were shouving down our throats at the time. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only fan out there that realized they could go without. Hate to say it but I think the damage DC and Marvel did is all ready done, and there won’t be any going back.