Marvel vs. DC Pricing

spid · Post by **spid** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 6:45 am

NOTE: Bob split this thread off from the Justice League #1 thread:

Gilgabob wrote: I noticed quite a few people were feeling the price was too high (for Justice League #1). Isn't $3.99 the base price for most of the Marvel titles? It seems this issue is getting judged on a different curve for some reason. I've breezed through plenty of $3.99 books from Marvel in the past too.

Marvel has a wide variety of prices. Last time I looked the majority of books were at $2.99. The big difference is Marvel did not make a big campaign out of "holding the line at $2.99". When you do that kind of promotion, and most of your other relaunch books are at $2.99 people are going to question why one book is $3.99 if it is not offering anything special.

Danscomics · Post by **Danscomics** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 7:20 am

spid wrote:
Gilgabob wrote: I noticed quite a few people were feeling the price was too high. Isn't $3.99 the base price for most of the Marvel titles? It seems this issue is getting judged on a different curve for some reason. I've breezed through plenty of $3.99 books from Marvel in the past too.
Marvel has a wide variety of prices. Last time I looked the majority of books were at $2.99. The big difference is Marvel did not make a big campaign out of "holding the line at $2.99". When you do that kind of promotion, and most of your other relaunch books are at $2.99 people are going to question why one book is $3.99 if it is not offering anything special.

Marvel didn't make a big deal about it because they dropped the page count along with the price and planned to ship more than 12 issues a year for all $2.99 titles (I believe they said 15 to 18 a year but I could be mistaken). I'm sure they realized if they made a big push like DC did, the community would call them out on those points.

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 8:41 am

spid wrote: Marvel has a wide variety of prices. Last time I looked the majority of books were at $2.99.

Time to look again for their "wide variety" of prices. From the current September order form:

47 @ $2.99
2 @ $3.95
46 @ $3.99
2 @ $5.99
1 @ $7.99

So they are about 50% $2.99 and 50% $3.99, BUT all their top selling books (including all Ultimate books, Spider-Man, Thor, Cap, Iron Man, & the Bendis Avengers) are at the higher price.

spid wrote: The big difference is Marvel did not make a big campaign out of "holding the line at $2.99".

They don't make it a big deal because they are on the public record as making it a point to milk as much money out of their fan base as they can.

Here are some statements reported from about 2 years ago made by Marvel's General Counsel and Executive Vice President to the Executive Office, John Turitzin as he was talking to a financial audience about the price increase on a number of Marvel titles from $2.99 to $3.99:

John Turitzin, one of the three main bosses at Marvel spoke at the Cowen & Company Technology Media & Telecom Conference, talking about the performance of the company and telling people that "our company is a cash machine".

[the increase] is part of an ongoing process of testing just how much money they can make from publishing comics. And they believe enough Marvel fans will pay they increased prices. But if they don't, those prices will come down.

It's 2 years later & they are still charging $3.99 for their most popular books, so fans are obviously willing to pay it. What they DID do was drop down the price on the more marginal titles that they originally charged $3.99 for and people WOULD NOT pay the price for. BUT, as Dan pointed out, they double ship these titles a few times a year @ they $2.99 price to squeeze those extra $ out of the fans over the course of a year anyway.

They made this salient point:

This is a different message to those made by Marvel editorial staff that blames move for moving some titles from $2.99 to $3.99 as purely due to increased operating costs.

In a question and answer session at the end, fund manager Jason Wood (who is one of the hosts of the 11 O'Clock Comics podcast & columnist at iFanboy.com) noted that despite price increases on a number of titles, they expect publishing revenue to remain the same and asked how much Marvel views demand for their comics as inelastic - that they will sell fewer issues (with the reduced costs that brings) but will bring in the same amount of money.

Turitzin stated "We're always testing our pricing on our comic books to see the extent of which we can, you know, it is inelastic, and we can increase our profit in that business.

"We sell comics at different price points, we sell more popular comics at higher price points, we sell other ones at lower price points, we differentiate in pricing in that way, some of our comics aimed at kids, Marvel Adventures line is a lower priced line. We're just looking to maximize our profits for business without alienating our own fanbase without making them feel that they're gouged which I hope you don't feel."

And this is working, because here you are 2 years later, not feeling price gouged and defending Marvel.

So, I see a difference between Marvel pricing & DC pricing. Is DC's driven by altruism? Certainly not. They could not get away with it because they don't have the same rabid fanbase that Marvel has for their top books. Marvel is a business and they are in it to make money. They will extract as much as is possible from their fans via pricing designed to maximize profits.

spid · Post by **spid** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 9:10 am

Two years ago you would heard me say I do not see what the big deal with that statement just as I will say it now. They were being honest. I find no fault with a business admitting they are in it for the money. And my original response was why fans are bringing up price for a DC comic. People have every right to question the attention of a company that screams we care about the fans from the rafters while doing the exact same thing as their chief competitor.

47 comics for $2.99 sounds very close to the 50 or so comics DC is offering at $2.99. So I do not see the reason one company should get praised while the other other company is vilified.

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 9:33 am

spid wrote:Two years ago you would heard me say I do not see what the big deal with that statement just as I will say it now. They were being honest. I find no fault with a business admitting they are in it for the money. And my original response was why fans are bringing up price for a DC comic. People have every right to question the attention of a company that screams we care about the fans from the rafters while doing the exact same thing as their chief competitor.

I'm not saying Marvel does not have a right to charge what the traffic will bear. They have a fanbase that is willing to pay higher prices for their products so they should charge the higher price as long as they can.

And as to Marvel "being honest", the ONLY place you heard them speak the "cash cow" truth was in a financial forum, to investment people. Their editorial office has never owned up to these statements.

spid wrote: 47 comics for $2.99 sounds very close to the 50 or so comics DC is offering at $2.99. So I do not see the reason one company should get praised while the other other company is vilified.

While it's true they both have about the same # of $2.99 comics, Marvel has 46 comics @ $3.99 vs. DC's 5

Marvel's a business, they are in it to make money, raising prices on their best sellers to $3.99 makes them more money. More power to them. If DC could get away with it, I'll bet they'd be doing the exact same thing, but they can't because they don't have the same kind of "fanbase attitude" that Marvel has.

DC is "holding the line @ $2.99" because they could NOT get their fans to pay $3.99 on a consistent basis.

Look at the titles in their initial 52 relaunch that are $3.99:
Justice League
Action Comics
All Star Western
Men of War

Sure, these have a couple of extra pages in each, but they are using the same algorithm Marvel originally used. The 1st 2 (JL & Action) have top creative teams & they figure will sell anyway.

The 2nd 2 (Western & War) seem to be following the initial Marvel logic that people who want these niche kind of titles will pay whatever price they put on them. This strategy failed at Marvel & they cancelled or dropped the price on the niche titles they originally tried to get $3.99 for because people just skipped them. I'd expect the same to happen for DC's Western & War. They'll either cancel them or drop the price within 6 months or so.

I personally don't think DC is "sainted" or anything. At the same time. while Marvel can get away with higher prices, and there are obviously many moving parts involved, it is a fact that Marvel's overall sales are down significantly in the past 2 year since they jacked up their prices (as are everyone's, but as market leader, I think Marvel driving people out of comics has a ripple effect).

People who want to read Thor, but don't want to pay $3.99 will generally just walk away, they are not going to suddenly decide to read Firestorm for $2.99 instead.

I'm personally buying less than half the # of Marvel books that I was 2 years ago, and I know that personally, the $3.99 price had a decent impact on what titles I dropped. I don't believe I'm the only person who is in that boat.

spid · Post by **spid** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 9:49 am

I imagine there are also a lot of people in my boat when it comes to DC. I went from zero DC books to around 10 or titles a month counting trades. Little by little, mostly due to editorial decisions, my total of books shrank to around 1 or two books a month. I know this is case because DC has tossed one thing after another to try to get people back. Most of those things have failed, and they have continued to shrink, to be fair so has the rest of the industry.

I think the biggest thing that came out of dropping the price was the wholesale rejection of DC's product content. For me content is king which is why my Marvel, Image, and IDW purchases went up while my DC purchases went down drastically.

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 10:15 am

spid wrote: I think the biggest thing that came out of dropping the price was the wholesale rejection of DC's product content.

Not quite wholesale (Batman & GL franchises were consistently in the Top 10-20 titles), but I'd agree that in general, DC titles were not resonating with people outside their hardcore existing fanbase.

A BIG shake-up seemed to be needed, and that's what DC is trying.

Mixed reviews so far from "comics insiders". The real results will lie on gaining & keeping new readers.

abysslord · Post by **abysslord** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 10:40 am

Since I collect Spider-Man, they got me for whatever price they set. Even if I stopped reading I'd probably keep buying to keep up my collection.

That's probably true for a lot of people with other Marvel titles so they're actually smart in doing that .... but as we've said all along, the long-term may prove harmful. But since when do most Americans care about long-term?

J. Farrell · Post by **J. Farrell** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 11:22 am

I didn't know that Men of War and All Star Western were $3.99. It's almost like DC doesn't want to sell non superhero books anymore... Only a handful of the 52 are non superhero titles, and two of them are more expensive. It all makes me feel very tired.

Is there a page count justification for the higher price? I think I've read somewhere that there are backup stories in those books...do they have a higher page count than all of the $2.99 titles?

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 11:39 am

J. Farrell wrote: Is there a page count justification for the higher price? I think I've read somewhere that there are backup stories in those books...do they have a higher page count than all of the $2.99 titles?

Yes. I've not seen the War/Western books yet, but JL #1 was 24 pages with 4 more pages of sketchbook material & Action #1 was 29 pages instead of the 20 pages in the $2.99 books...

abysslord · Post by **abysslord** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 1:12 pm

I don't know averages but is it true DC is usually 20 pages a book, Marvel is 32? Or that does totally depend on the title?

Using 20 pages at $2.99 gives us 15 cents a page. 32 pages at 3.99 is 12 cents a page. So since I'm not on a budget, I'd rather pay $3.99 to get more story and a cheaper per page price. 20 pages just seems slim.

Of course, 32 pages for $2.99 would be great. How many pages were in the silver age books? I know they used a lot more panels and narration so it was easier to tell more story in the book, but maybe they had more pages too.

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 5:40 pm

abysslord wrote:I don't know averages but is it true DC is usually 20 pages a book, Marvel is 32? Or that does totally depend on the title?

Not true at all. The "32 pages" you see in a solicit are total pages in a comic, not story pages.

Earlier this year, DC cut back to 20 pages of story in their $2.99 books. Marvel is right now at the same 20 pages in their $2.99 books.

For their $3.99 books (counting pages in Amazing Spider-Man #668 that I have right here) you get 22 pages of story.

NOTE: I do not count the story recap page in Marvel books as a story page.

abysslord wrote: Using 20 pages at $2.99 gives us 15 cents a page. 32 pages at 3.99 is 12 cents a page. So since I'm not on a budget, I'd rather pay $3.99 to get more story and a cheaper per page price. 20 pages just seems slim.

20 page books for Marvel & DC have the exact same "price per page". A DC $3.99 book is at least 24 pages (in the case of JL #1) which would be 16.6 cents per page or 29 pages (for Action #1) which would be 13.8 cents per page. Marvel $3.99 books are 18 cents per page

abysslord wrote: Of course, 32 pages for $2.99 would be great. How many pages were in the silver age books? I know they used a lot more panels and narration so it was easier to tell more story in the book, but maybe they had more pages too.

Silver age page counts were all over the place. And prices changed all the time too. At one point, Marvel comics were down to 17 or 18 pages of story per issue, but at other points had 22 to 24 pages.

abysslord · Post by **abysslord** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 7:09 pm

Thanks for that info. I was thinking 32 pages meant story. Well in that case, yeah ... screw Marvel

But hey, if it works they'll keep doing it.

I'll have to pay more attention to other publishers for page counts, I know BOOM titles always seem like a very fast read.

Paul Nolan · Post by **Paul Nolan** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 11:14 am

BobBretall wrote:
J. Farrell wrote: Is there a page count justification for the higher price? I think I've read somewhere that there are backup stories in those books...do they have a higher page count than all of the $2.99 titles?
Yes. I've not seen the War/Western books yet, but JL #1 was 24 pages with 4 more pages of sketchbook material & Action #1 was 29 pages instead of the 20 pages in the $2.99 books...

Men of War, had 28 original story pages. 20 in the Brandon / Tom Derenick story. 8 in the Vankin / Winslade story.

abysslord wrote:Thanks for that info. I was thinking 32 pages meant story. Well in that case, yeah ... screw Marvel But hey, if it works they'll keep doing it.

I'll have to pay more attention to other publishers for page counts, I know BOOM titles always seem like a very fast read.

quite often the Boom! books solicited at 24 pages have 22 pages of story.

J. Farrell · Post by **J. Farrell** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 11:31 am

BobBretall wrote: Yes. I've not seen the War/Western books yet, but JL #1 was 24 pages with 4 more pages of sketchbook material & Action #1 was 29 pages instead of the 20 pages in the $2.99 books...

Paul Nolan wrote:Men of War, had 28 original story pages. 20 in the Brandon / Tom Derenick story. 8 in the Vankin / Winslade story.

Thanks for the info.