PrettyFakes

There’s been a fair amount of chatter on the comics internet in recent weeks about the possibility of many comics currently priced at $2.99 jumping up to $3.99 next year sometime. Tom Spurgeon wonders what would motivate Marvel and DC to make such a change; Sean Kleefeld weighs in with some thoughtful observations. I thought I would add my unsolicited opinion to the mix, so here are a few thoughts, followed by a title-by-title rundown of what I would keep reading for $3.99 and what I would drop like a can of Mello Yello that my dad’s first wife’s nephew had been hocking loogies into but I didn’t know and so I drank some. Which is to say, fast. (True story!) Let’s move on:

Some of the commentary I’ve seen around the web suggests that this is a move to squeeze the “Wednesday crowd” a little drier; less cynically (or maybe more naively), we could suggest that the intent is more to use the Wednesday crowd to subsidize the production of content that will eventually be collected into trades and sold to a wider audience in bookstores. If the goal is to increase TPB and graphic novel sales, then losing a few monthly buyers wouldn’t be so bad, especially since, as Sean K notes, at that price point Marvel or DC could shed a substantial readership and still increase their profits.

Sean K suggests that comics are “price inelastic” and so a one dollar price bump won’t greatly affect sales; that may be. We won’t know ‘til it happens, I guess. I suspect he’s probably right, at least for the high-profile titles at either company, and for this reason (humbly submitted): I’ve begun to believe that Marvel and DC have moved away from a model in which a monthly serial comic is in some way a complete narrative experience (even if it’s part 2 of 5) and have moved toward a model in which buying a comic isn’t about the entertainment to be derived from that comic but is rather a kind of license to participate in Marvel or DC fandom.

Maybe that’s way off—surely there are many more readers of Secret Invasion than there are people online talking about it. But Secret Invasion is a failure as pop entertainment; it seems to exist mainly to produce internet (and occasional mainstream media) “buzz”, to produce argument and chatter and discussion and revulsion and passionate defense all leading into the next event. I mean, come on: less happened in Secret Invasion than in a typical West Coast Avengers annual. (Hawkeye once cheated the Grandmaster in a simple game of chance with the fate of the universe at stake! OK, I’m probably tipping my old-fogey hand here.) Anyway, I suspect that there’s a high degree of overlap between weekly comic book buyers and people who participate (even only as observers) in online fandom, and that many of the comics readers who occupy that overlap are invested enough in fan culture that they’re willing to pay an extra dollar not to be left out of the conversation. In some ways I think online fandom has internalized this dynamic already: Geoff Klock noted that Tim Callahan’s review of Batman #681 defended the book on the spurious grounds that there’s a lot to talk about in it. Good, bad, entertaining, disappointing—these distinctions are irrelevant if the value of a given comic is judged by its ability to generate web content. This seems to me to be what Marvel is banking on when they say they’re going to make every issue of two of their ongoing Avengers titles “event” comics a la Civil War and Secret Invasion.

I see I’ve wandered. I don’t object to the occasional $3.99 special issue or mini-series, but one effect of a line-wide price hike would be to trim my already slim pull list (slim in terms of Marvel/DC output, anyway). Details on that below. But the problem is not that I would be buying fewer Marvel/DC titles. The problem is that I would be going to the comics shop less often, and that’s Bad for Business. Or it’s bad for the comics store and, as Sean K notes, for smaller publishers, though maybe not only for the reasons he suggests; its an open question whether or not it’s bad for the publishers.

To illustrate: Judged on the very narrow and subjective criteria of Taking Money from My Pockets, DC’s 52 was the biggest publishing success in years, because my trips to the comics store, which previously happened every two or three weeks, were now occurring weekly. I wanted to know what happened and follow Douglas Wolk’s annotations and participate (yes, I am among the griping herd) in the internet discussion. So I went every week, even if 52 was the only book that I was reading that came out that week. But I didn’t want to buy just one measly book—so I’d try a couple of other titles, raid the back issue boxes, maybe pick up a GN or trade collection, et cetera. As it is now, I’ve returned to my pre-52 levels of comics store visitation, which means that my box is generally more full on each trip, which means I’m less likely to look around for something else to buy. Maybe if I want a TPB I order it from Amazon for the 35% discount instead of purchasing it at the comics store in the spirit of civic mindedness and camaraderie. Etc.

52, of course, was $2.50 and co-written by one of my favorite comics scribes. At $3.99, written by someone I don’t admire as much? Pass.

So here are thoughts on whether or not I’d keep up with what I’m currently reading from the Big Two on a monthly basis at $3.99; not all of these are on my pull list, but I am picking them up regularly. (I dropped a bunch of other stuff a while back, as noted here.) These are just the ongoing titles; I’m not listing mini-series and the like. And as I say, I’m not listing titles from Dark Horse, Image, and the like, or Fanta/D+Q-style indie stuff, since Tom’s question was about Marvel/DC.

DC:

Batman. I’m pretty much ready to drop this as it is. With the exception of the JH Williams arc, I’ve found Morrison’s Batman a disappointment. I’m interested in the upcoming Neil Gaiman-penned arc and by the rumored prospect of Morrison reteaming with Frank Quitely, but you know, it’s not like the store isn’t going to order plenty of copies of Batman every month. I’ll be waiting and seeing from here on out.

Secret Six. This is what it’s come to: My favorite DC comic features Bane. As a figure of comedy. Gail Simone is firing on all cylinders and I’m really warming to Nicola Scott’s art. I’d probably stick with this as long as Simone is on the book.

So, I’m only reading two DC ongoings now. Weird. I was reading many more in the immediate aftermath of 52, but that momentum has obviously worn off. I’m reading Final Crisis and enjoying it; I’m sure there will be new titles debuting when it concludes, some of which will surely tickle my fancy.

Marvel:

Invincible Iron Man. As long as Fraction is writing it, I’m on board, even for another buck. I would also be willing to buy it for one year with another writer at the helm at the higher price point if that would mean that Fraction could get us some more Casanova. Even if that writer were, I don’t know, Jerry Jenkins.

Thunderbolts. I was a longtime fan of this title’s earlier incarnation and found myself surprised to really dig Warren Ellis’s wry piss-take on the contemporary Marvel U; I’m curious to see what Andy Diggle does with the book, but I’m probably not four dollars curious. (I may not be three dollars curious—it’s teetering.)

Uncanny X-Men. I just started picking this up when Matt Fraction joined Ed Brubaker on the writing chores. I seriously considered dropping it after several Greg Land-drawn issues, but was relieved to see Terry Dodson on board with last month’s ish. Hope the de-Landing of the book is permanent. I’m still not sure how long I’ll stick around—another couple of issues at least, almost entirely because of the Nazi hunter. At $4? Wait for the trade, probably. Maybe. It would at least be an issue-by-issue decision.

(Incidentally: The problem I have with Greg Land isn’t so much the photo-referencing—well, okay, it’s in large part the photo-referencing—as his choice of photo-references; that is, why does he choose to photo-reference dudes you instinctively hate? I don’t know who he was using for Cyclops, but man, that guy seemed to radiate assholery. Ditto Sal Larocca over on Iron Man: His Reed Richards from a couple issues back? Jack-ass. In fairness to the references, maybe Land is doing something to make otherwise pleasant people seem jerkier.)

Astonishing X-Men. Yeah, at $4 we could wait for the trade on this.

Immortal Iron Fist. I’ve been surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed Duane Swierczynski’s run on this title so far; I’d stick with it monthly for a while yet.

Incredible Hercules. I missed the most recent issue because my store got shorted on its orders. But it’s been one of the most fun Marvel comics since the early days of Dan Slott’s She-Hulk. With the current creative team in place, I’d stick with it for a while.

Captain America. Oh yes, I’d keep reading this monthly, but, as longtime readers of this site know, I’m pretty thoroughly obsessed with Captain America; I read every issue of the Dan Jurgens run and the Chuck Austen run, merely from personal investment in the character. It helps, though, that Ed Brubaker is knocking it out of the park pretty much every month.

Oh, and I dropped Peter David’s X-Factor a couple months back.

Recently canceled or re-directed comics I would (probably) have paid $3.99 for:
McDuffie/Pelletier’s FF
Priest’s Black Panther (OK, canceled like 5 years ago, but it still stings)
Simone’s BoP
Fraction/Kitson’s The Order
Vaughn’s Runaways
Morrison/Quitely’s All-Star Superman
Morrison/Ha’s Authority (yes, the one that only lasted two issues)

So—if it isn’t already clear, I guess I tend to follow writers; with a creative team I like doing work I like, I’d probably keep going monthly on a lot of these titles. Of course, I would be less inclined to experiment with new creative teams that I might like at the more expensive price, so that’s a problem—I would hate for my (Big Two) comics reading habits to calcify and for the range of what’s being published by Marvel and DC to further narrow, but that would seem inevitable with a $4 monthly comic.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Comixx, Professor Fury. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.