The Comics Rack

Comics Econ 101

   In the midst of a discussion about the current price of comics, an idea occurred to me. The comic book of today is really no different than the comic book of the 60s. Granted, the paper is of better quality and the color choices are unlimited, but the package is nearly identical to what was available 40 years ago; identical, that is, until you look at the price.
   Back in mid-30s, when M.C. Gaines slapped a ten cent sticker on an armload of Famous Funnies, nobody realized that people would pay to read a comic book. After all, the early comics were simply reprints of popular newspaper strips and had been given away as promotional items. The Gaines experiment proved, however, that people would pay to read comics and it paved the way for the all-original comic books that soon followed.
   Looking back nearly 70 years later, paying ten cents for a 64 page comic book seems like a ridiculously small amount. But, ten cents was, for the time, a reasonable amount for most any magazine. The price for pulp magazines, such as those that featured The Shadow or Doc Savage, was a dime in the 30s and a few, such as Weird Tales, cost 25 cents. Slick magazines, like Colliers, would set you back a whole fifty cents and, to use an example of a magazine still being published, Time Magazine cost fifteen cents an issue. This meant that comic books were worth displaying and selling to the news agents, or magazine salesmen, in terms of profit and that, to the public at large, they were reasonably priced.
   By the mid-40s, the sales figures for the top selling comic books were in the millions of copies each month; making comic books a major portion of the sales of printed material. What the sales figures didn't show, however, was who was buying the comic books. Sales in the millions would suggest that children AND adults were buying and reading the latest adventures of Superman, Capt. Marvel and all the other heroes, simply because there weren't enough children around to support sales in that range. Public perception, on the other hand, firmly believed that comic books were only for children.
   Ignoring the evidence of the sales figures, comic book publishers sided with public perception. As rising costs forced other magazine publishers to raise their prices, comic book publishers held to their ten cent price on the grounds that their audience couldn't, or wouldn't, pay more. With no price increase, something had to give and comic book publishers simply shrank the page count of their comic books to counter rising costs. This shrinkage continued into the 50s, when the standard became a 32 page comic book (half the size of its Golden Age brethren) priced at ten cents. The cost rose to twelve cents in the 60s and has been spiralling upward ever since.
   While all this pricing and shrinking may sound like simple economics, it caused much more damage to the comic book industry than one might think. By accepting children as their only audience, comic book publishers not only sold their own medium short, but put themselves in a position where they had to produce a low cost product. Since the cost of a comic book was low, the profit margin for news agents was also low. Most magazine distributors came to view comics as a product that, due to the number of titles, was an inconvenience, and didn't need to be handled with the same due that was given to other, higher profit, magazines. And, of course, public perception didn't change because all they saw was a thin, low cost product done in primary colors.
   When the first comics came out, they cost ten cents. A copy of Time Magazine cost fifteen cents. Today, a copy of New Avengers will cost you $2.25 for a 32 page magazine with 22 pages of actual story. A copy of Time will set you back $3.95 at the news stand, but it has a larger page count as it did in the 30s. How? Through advertising revenue, mostly. Time has spent the years since its debut in 1923 building good will and establishing its identity, so advertisers are willing to pay (and pay quite well) to appear in the magazine. In fact, advertising revenue supports Time so well, that you can subscribe to Time and drop the cost from $3.95 to seventy cents an issue!
   The comic book industry, on the other hand, has never really established an identity that would attract high ticket advertisers. Comics are still perceived as a product for children, with some crossover into the early teens, and the advertising they carry reflects this perception. Because of this perception, circulation is lower than most magazines and it is the readers of the comics who carry the bulk of the cost, rather than that cost being offset through advertising. How do we know that? Simply look at subscription cost. The cover price of New Avengers is $2.25. If I subscribe, which is a guaranteed sale, the best deal I can get is $1.98 per issue: a miniscule savings as best and proof that the buyer, not advertising, is underwriting the cost of the comic.
   Where all this will lead is anybody's guess. The new cover price of $3.50 seems to be appearing more and more frequently and I will venture to guess that this will lead to a further drop in sales. Obviously, the comic book publishers need to re-examine their product and come up with a new format; one that will not only bring in an adult audience, but that will also attract advertisers. Thicker comics with more content are one avenue that has yet to be fully explored and the idea of "adult" comics (not salacious...adult) might be the only way to save an industry teetering on the brink of collapse.