why are star wars comics so expensive?

kids cant afford to buy comics anymore. I am about to write a letter to dark horse and let them know the about this tragedy. the real reason the comic world has fallen is because companies have gotten greddy. their prices are outrageous. example. 5.99 and 4.99 for a comic!! that is simply insane. kids cant keep up with these prices. i have a job, and i cant afford to buy every comic out there that is ever produced. comic collecting is a luxury. nowadays..before it used to be fun and cheap.

most of their running star wars comics are 2.99..in reality with tax. you are paying about 3.50 for a 10 page comic. its a rip off!! any toughts?

 

Most comics are 32 pages long, and they cost $2.99 or $2.50. Star Wars comics are no different. Only the double-size issues (the 64-page ones, such as Star Wars Tales) cost more, like $5.99 or something.

 

The price hike came about due to a temporary paper shortage and the falling sales of comics in general. The shortage is over, but the prices were kept. Also, Star Wars has more than the usual numbers of double issues. One week last month saw me picking up Jedi, Tales and Republic 50 for about ?20.

 

The paper shortage was a while ago, and prices have steadily increased even now that there is a surplus. I think that prices keep going up either because the fans just accept it and keep buying, or maybe the price is increased to recover from loss of volume in sales. Either way, I think it's turning more people away. Comics have definitely increased in cost faster than inflation since prices have almost tripled in about 10 years. Oddly enough, Star Wars comics have been increasing at a much slower rate for the last 10 years and are almost the same price (maybe 50 cents more), so we can't complain now, but 10 years ago they were really expensive.

 

What are comic prices like in Aust, if anyone from here knows? What would you pay for an average one now?

 

First, remember that you have to pay 5-6 people for working on a comic. Secondly, SW comics dont sell particularly well.

 

Yeah, Dark Horse was always more expensive, so I don't get mad at shelling out 3 bucks an issue. When I have to pay 2.75 for a regular DC issue, thats when I get pissed and start dropping titles. I wouldn't mind more stuff like that war machine series that was 1.50. When I started people would complain if they paid a dollar fifty, now we're happy about it

 

Excellence, basically double the US price for the Aussie one. For major chain comic shops (of which you're lucky to find nowdays), you might be lucky to pay only another 2/3rds above the US price.

I have noticed that DHC comics are more expensive that some of the other publishers, but then again, most of those have a lot of deals and/or history in place to deliberately keep the prices slightly lower.

 

Thanks, Kadue. Double, eh? Say, would prior stuff like the Rogue Squadron comics be cheaper as older stock or more expensive, as they're more difficult to prchase?

 

Also, I don't know about the pages of the comics themselves, but DHC TPBs, for the most part, tend to have nicer, glossier paper, whereas most of the DC TPBs that I own are on lower-quality paper. Personally, I don't mind paying a few dollars more for a higher-quality book.

 

I collect them all by TPB, but have looked at what single issues are floating around out there. Trust me, you're better off collecting the TPBs. They're altogether, and you don't have to sit there missing single issues. After going to multiple comic stores in 4 states, there are some that I've never seen copies of.

Actually Mas, wierdly DHC TPBs are of a comparable price to those of Marvel, who also print on that stock, and are only slightly (a couple of bucks) more than DC, who do, as you say, post on poorer quality paper.

 

I'm living in Canada, so there's a vastly ridiculous price difference here as well. I bought Republic #50 and Jedi: Mace Windu in one purchase, and it cost me about 25$. I was outraged, but, fan-craving sap that I am, I bought them anyway.

 

..oh yeah, Mark.. I feel your pain..

Actually, i mentioned the ridiculous price in my thread just a little ways down...

10 dollars for a single comicbook is RIDICULOUS!

 

DHC was, along with Image, one of the new companies of the late 80s/early 90s to challenge Marvel and DC's duopoly. This is part of the reason for the prices, plus DHC specialised in licensed or creator owned comics, each has to be paid.

Then there is the demand for comics in nice formats. If you want a dirt cheap comic, it'll be printed on dirt cheap paper and doesn't last. A comic on quality paper, with quality colour and inks is going to cost.

Add in the lower sales, the more numerous production crew and it should be obvious why comics are pricer than novels. Nor has the price gone up that much in the last few years. DHC charged $2.99 for Dark Empire and $2.50 for Classic Star Wars and Tales Of The Jedi. 48-64 pagers were always pricier and around the $4-6 mark. Especially if it is a prestige format. These have focused more on $6-7 now but even so. We are talking no more than $0.5-$1 rise in costs over a number of years. DHC abandoned the $2.50 price in 1999, that's 6 years after starting out.

Now if you were talking about the variable art/writing quality and the shipping reliability...

Jedi Ben

 

Well, I happen to fork out a lot of money on comics each month. Here's what I subscribe to:

- anything Star Wars
- anything Tomb Raider (two titles a month)
- Witchblade
- Evo
- certain miniseries and one-shots (The Magdalena)
- certain series that god only knows when they'll ship (Inferno, Aphrodite IX, Fathom)

My comic book bill each month runs me $20+, easy.

However, I'm all right with that. My income is enough that I can handle the cost.

 

BTW, if you purchase a comic book while it's a relatively new release, you shouldn't be paying tax for it. You only pay tax on back-issues.

You're not Canadian, are you? We pat taxes on pretty much everything. Hell, in provinces with provincial taxes, we pay taxes ON taxes!

But we have good beer, so it's an even trade

 

I got a great deal a few years ago when I got the entire TALES OF THE JEDI graphic novel sereis from Dark Horse Comics at a real good price on E-Bay. They covers were faded and torn, but the story was all intact which is the only thing that matters to me.

Man, if they could only adapt TALES OF THE JEDI into a TV series after the movies are complete..........

 

Currently I read:
Republic
Empire
He-Man
Thundercats
GI Joe & Frontline
Superman
Batman & Detective Comics
Robin
Nightwing
Birds of Prey
Doom Patrol
Batgirl
Xtreme X-Men
New X-Men
Uncanny X-Men
Avengers
Captain America
X-Men Unlimited
JSA
JLA
Gotham Central
Hawkman
and, since they canceled Young Justice, I probably will pick up outsiders and new titans for a few months to see which i want to stick with. So that works out to 10-20 dollars weekly.

 

One aspect you all need to remember is that DH also has to pay LFL for the license. That costs.

And, unfortunately, fewer kids read comics these days and it's not just about the price. Those that read, read Harry Potter. Comics stopped being accessible to kids a long time agao. They stopped telling a complete story in a single issue (or, sometimes, it seemed in 50 issues). They would crossover into other books which the reader was expected to buy. (This is the industry in general, not SW per se.) The stories were complicated (not necessarily the same as complex) and kids couldn't always follow them. And they stopped being fun. Kids went off and did other things, like video games.

One might argue that the publishers' primary market is not the fans but the RETAILERS. Comics are sold on a non-returnable basis. If the dealer doesn't order the book, then it won't be available to the public. So the publisher has to think as much about hooking the distributor and the retailer as they do the reader.

Part of the way you do it is price. The MAJORITY of the money coming in on a book usually goes to the retailer (which is as it should be; they're the ones taking the financial risk). On a more expensive book, the retailers going to make a little more and it occupies the same shelf space as the book on which he makes LESS per copy. Unless that other book is X-MEN or something like that where the volume MORE than makes up for it. The retailer's goal is or should be to have NO copies left of a given book by the end of the month (unless they want one or two for back issue purposes which, increasingly, is rare).

hmmm. This is going on quite a bit, isn't it? perhaps more than you cared to know.<g>

Boiled down:
a) DH has to pay LFL for the license so that's part of the price of the book;
b) a slightly higher price makes more money for the retailer which, hopefully, makes the book more attractive to stock.

hope that helps.

John

PS I remember when comics when from a dime to 15 cents. I want to tell you, I was OUTRAGED at the time! And I said many of the same things most of you say now. Deep in my heart, I think we're right. Comics SHOULD be a dime. But there's that pesky REALITY that keeps lurking around. . .

 

BTW, if you purchase a comic book while it's a relatively new release, you shouldn't be paying tax for it. You only pay tax on back-issues.

Not in Pennsylvania

I remember when comics when from a dime to 15 cents

I beleive they went to $0.12 first

I spend about $200 per month on comics

 

I live in the UK and the normal sized SW comic is £2 and the larger ones are £4 to £5.
A Sunday newspaper is about £1.50, so I think that the price is right, since we are talking a popular form of art.
Add wages, price of the SW License (and that was part of the problem with the end of WEG's SW publishing days as far as I understand it) and falling numbers of comic buyers then I don't mind paying £2.
Some of the conversions (Canada and Aussie) sound bad though. $25 is mad.

 

Sikle, you spend $200 a month? Wow. Comic stores need more of you cloned.

 

well thanks for the support guys. i clearly see that comics are really too expensive and dark horse should start looking into this..in depth. since they have the star wars license.

some of you argue that the prices are high because of the fine paper. personally, i dont care what kind of paper they use. i buy the books just to read them . sure i am a collector. but i dont really care too much about the paper. just give me a nice cover. i still have the old marvel comics and they used cheap..very cheap paper. and they are still readeble. also get a known artist. most of these artists they are using for the current star wars tittles are not what you would call the best in the bussiness. some of them you would never hear off. so basically, they are getting cheap art and making profits. dave dorman should be making every star wars cover out there. he is good. if i was to buy every tittle out there i would also be speding about 200 dlls a month. so im not buying every tittle.and im getting behind. to be fair i believe the price of a comic should be about one dollar.