Nobody, not even ad-supported mags, charges only $2.95 for a 250-page package. Try $4.95. The cover price, on an ad-supported package, has to pay for the distribution costs...and $2.95 won't pay them for a package that size. Check out the newsstands. Anything that costs under $3 has a page count in the 100 range, not the 250 range.

And, of course, Maxim isn't publishing fiction, but articles and photo features. It makes a difference to the reader.



Based on conversations and research, the price difference between the paper being used in most comics today and newsprint is less than 10%. Furthermore, newsprint is rising in price at a steeper curve.

This is from a column in the Philadelphia Inquirer earlier this week:

"A 17-percent rise in newsprint prices has hit at the same time...."

One more point: Newsprint worked when comics were printed in flat color on letter-press. They aren't anymore and haven't been for more than a decade. If you wanted a printer to run newsprint and letter-press today, you couldn't find it. The technology has been outmoded and taken out of service.

tony asserted that, "Contrary to popular belief, MOST fans don't give a rat's ass about the paper quality."

One wonders when you polled most fans. It stikes that people vote with their wallets and they have shown a marked propensity to buy more comics when thry are printed on better paper.

Further, Tony offers, "When it comes right down to it, fans are being pushed out of this medium because finding their comics is too hard and purchasing them costs WAY too much money."

Why can't I help repeating the line from Annie Hall: "The food here is so terrible. And such small portions."

Pat:

While I don't disagree with your assertion that newspaper print is probably going up in price. The fact of the matter is, this: When this industry was making money in the early nineties, it had an opportunity to improve its products. Rather than increase the page count, publishers opted to increase the quality of the paper so they could use more sophisicated, computer coloring techniques. Did readership expand because of this?

No. It dropped because it was just another case of "smoke and mirrors". While I'll grant this may have been a sleigth improvement for some comics, it has given some the excuse to airbrush over poor quality art and sell it as some sort of "high-end" product.

Last time I checked (today) Brenner was still printing on newsprint and it was still cheaper than higher quality paper. And, while you certainly cannot do blur effects, lens flares and other flashy effects on newsprint, you can do color.

If paper is not a factor, then why did Marvel comics trim 1/2" off their comics? They did it to save money and hold their cover prices. It was the smartest move they've made in years. (They should've gone a 2 inches, if you ask me.)

Look at how well the Lone Wolf and Cub digest-sized comics are selling. How can you not buy on when they're that cheap?

Jim:

I would strongly disagree that fans are buying one paperstock vs. another. As a matter of fact, it was right after this industry started noticing slipping sales that the paper changed. That coincided with price increases, once the sales slipped enough.

The fans that are left buy what's available and most of that is on glossy paper, so what choice do they have? Most of it is expensive, so what choice do they have? If you want to buy color comics, they have no other choice.

I'm not saying the paper is the answer, far from it. It's what the fans are getting for their money. Right now, I believe, its very little. And, every day, there are fewer and fewer fans that disagree with me.

Despite the expensive paper, however, major publishers CAN afford to print larger comics, but it would require a major shift in overhead and priorities.

And speaking of priorities, my new comic THE FIX, will be in Previews in May and in stores in July. I will have to swing by for another signing this summer Jim.

-Tony D
SJRP http://www.netcom.com/~thefix/sjrp.html

This is a total aside, but I hate to see it bandied about so much. You CAN print anything on news print including fancy gradients and effects. It just doesn't look as cool, the ink is absorbed by the paper too much and if it's an off white then the white space eats into the gradients. Plus newsprint is generally run with a wider screen which may result in some banding (I've never personally tried it but that's the results I've seen.). However, it doesn't stop my local paper from using all kinds of gradients on thier front page.

...but as I said, that's besides the point.

Tony Quothe:
"While I don't disagree with your assertion that newspaper print is probably going up in price. The fact of the matter is, this: When this industry was making money in the early nineties, it had an opportunity to improve its products. Rather than increase the page count, publishers opted to increase the quality of the paper so they could use more sophisicated, computer coloring techniques. Did readership expand because of this?"

This is not how it happened. What happened was that paper prices were increasing at an alarming rate. And that was PAPER that was increasing in price, the base pulp, not any of the fancy add-ons. The price of the add-ons, like glossy-ness or brightening, was not really increasing (any more than the standard inflation rate). So, it came down to the point where the difference in price between the fancy papers and the plain newsprint was very small. The publishers were going to have to raise the price anyway, to cover the additional costs. They did some surveys, which I seriously questioned at the time and still do, to find that customers would tolerate a slightly larger price increase if it came with better paper. That is what really happened.

It STILL comes down to the fact that switching to newsprint would save no more than $.10 per comic, probably less. So, $2.25 for nice paper, or $2.15 for junky paper, which would you choose?

"Last time I checked (today) Brenner was still printing on newsprint and it was still cheaper than higher quality paper. And, while you certainly cannot do blur effects, lens flares and other flashy effects on newsprint, you can do color."

I just now checked Brenner and the lowest quality paper they list is 35 lb. HiBrite. Is that some fancy word for newsprint? Did you check on the price difference with them?

"Look at how well the Lone Wolf and Cub digest-sized comics are selling. How can you not buy on when they're that cheap?"

I think it is more because they are amazing books, not because of the size or price. Also, the size has NOTHING to do with pricing by Dark Horse. Dark Horse priced them that way because that is the preferred size by the original creator, Kazuo Koike. Dark Horse did not make them that size just to keep the price down.

"I would strongly disagree that fans are buying one paperstock vs. another. As a matter of fact, it was right after this industry started noticing slipping sales that the paper changed. That coincided with price increases, once the sales slipped enough."

See my above explanation. The paper changes were not done because of slipping sales. Most of the price increases were also done because of paper price increases (again, across the board, not just the fancy papers).

"I'm not saying the paper is the answer, far from it. It's what the fans are getting for their money. Right now, I believe, its very little. And, every day, there are fewer and fewer fans that disagree with me."

Umm... so, why are we discussing paper??? I completely agree with this. The paper quality has almost nothing to do with it. It is all about how good the book is.

"Despite the expensive paper, however, major publishers CAN afford to print larger comics, but it would require a major shift in overhead and priorities."

And it is the major shift that they cannot afford. Changing your business style is tremendously expensive. Sometimes it is necessary, and I'm not disagreeing with you on that. I'm just disagreeing with you on their ability to do so.

Heck, even the biggest proponent of the change, Warren Ellis, has not gone all the way, yet (as was so painfully pointed out to me on another board).

$.015,


------------------
James Echols
Festival Producer - UncommonCon, www.uncommoncon.com
Business Coach - Uncommon Solutions
ride the revolution

Back to the original point, Carlton asked if larger, groupings of titles might not be better. I think Jim Hanley answered it best: "Maybe."

He went on to say:
"I haven't been able to buy comics for years-- I live in a small town where no one sells them. In any neighboring cities-- 60 miles away and further-- if you can find a comic-shop, comics are sold subscription only-- you have to reserve them in advance because it costs too much for the store to buy copies it might not be able to sell."

Umm... Carlton, how does this relate to your original point? And, how about mail order? There are several really good comic book mail order companies that could fill all your needs. Any particular reason you have not utilized that?

Later on, he said:
"Plus, by having such a small set of titles, you'd save money: Covers are the most expensive part of printing, and their price remains constant no matter the page-count."

Again, printing is such a small part of the total cost that it would make no more than a 5% difference in price ($4.95 or $5.20, who cares?).

"This would revitalize the concept of a "Marvel Checklist," because with such a relatively small number of titles, you could more realistically push for readers to "collect 'em all!""

Unfortunately, nobody WANTS to. There are X-Men fans, there are Spider-Man fans, there ar Avengers fans, and while some of these overlap, many do not. I don't think we would ever go back to the Marvel Zombie days. Besides, it is just plain bizaare to collect by publisher. I mean, collecting by creator, or collecting by character, that, at least, makes a little sense. But, who cares who published it? And, your idea of collecting characters/teams actually puts off all the creator and character collectors.

"Finally, by having a small number of highly desirable comics-- not a loser in the bunch-- each with a higher price-point, you could more easily put this entire line into more markets. You couldn't possibly get a newstand to carry every title you currently publish. But if you only had 10-12 titles TOTAL, then it's very easy to see that you might get them all carried everywhere."

Why do you assume that you would not have a loser in the bunch. Actually, reducing the number of titles INCREASES your risk, not decreases it. As it is now, with about 40 titles, if Marvel has a loser it affects their bottom line much less than if they only have 12 titles.

The unfortunate thing is that I don't disagree with you. I think anthology magazines would be great. But, you did ask why nobody does it. The realities are too strong against them. The industry just can't handle the change right now. We just have to hope that the industry will be able to make what changes are needed before it is too late. Of course, if more people would just listen to Jim...

$.015,


------------------
James Echols
Festival Producer - UncommonCon, www.uncommoncon.com
Business Coach - Uncommon Solutions
ride the revolution

<>

I've said this before, but I'll say it again: This is true only if you consider "page rates to creative people" as a component of "overhead." If you're willing to slash creative people's rates, you can indeed publish significantly cheaper comics. That's why Marvel's recent newsstand books carry lower prices -- they're reprinted material, with the consequent lower costs. It's also why a small-press book has significantly lower costs up-front than a DC or Marvel title -- the creative people don't make as much, at least up front.

And while the same may not hold for DC, I can't really see how Marvel could publish as many comics as it does with much less staff. After several rounds of layoffs in recent years, it's a pretty lean operation. (And we couldn't have done what we're doing at all, with this few people, in the pre-computer age.)

As for paper costs, they took a big jump about six or seven years ago, and were the cause of a significant price hike across the board at that time. One consequence of that was that newsprint went up the most; there's less difference in cost between paper grades than there used to be. Yes, you can still save money by using cheaper paper, and some comics from both DC and Marvel do. But it's not the answer.

Best,
Stuart

Stuart, is it feasible to make trades for cheaper comics with the creators? More creative freedom, perhaps more back-end money to make up for cheaper front-end deals? Or motions to the smaller press, who don't expect for their work. Say, reprinting an already existing James Kolchaka or Matt Feazell strip as a back-up feature in this or that Marvel book. A small fee, the comics are already made, so creative freedom is safe, the creators get publicity, Marvel and the fans get a little extra feature for the comic, which they most likely haven't already seen.
Just wondering.
Oh, and maybe you should put that part about creator expenses being the biggest overhead on your computer, so you don't have to type it on every new thread that comes up. No sense wasting your fingers repeating yourself.

Just noticed I never replied to this. It's an interesting idea -- three thoughts:

1) You have to consider what audience you're reaching. I like James Kolchaka's and Matt Feazell's work quite a bit, but I'm not sure if the majority of PUNISHER readers would or not. That doesn't invalidate the basic concept, of course -- it just means you'd have to be careful what material you chose to use. There's a certain...I don't know how to say it except "gloss and sheen" to DC's and Marvel's books (lettering of a certain standard, types of coloring, slickness of inking) that runs counter to the rough-and-tumble look of a lot of indies. I'm generalizing wildly, of course, and as I say I like both, depending on what mood I'm in. But you have to be careful matching them up, or you wind up with something like Jimi Hendrix opening for the Monkees (a mad crowd and an insulted band).

DC has occasionally made less-money-for-less rights deals (I won't say with whom, because it's really only the individual creators' business) for stand-alone projects. If you have a publishing program that allows for experimental work, that makes more sense to me; you're more likely to reach the work's true audience.

2) A lot of indy creators, when they start working with DC and Marvel, EXPECT more money -- that's one of the reasons you give up a certain amount of control over the manner in which your work is published. And you do want to be fair to people; DC in particular is very careful about keeping page rates at parity for certain types of work.

3) This won't sound like a good answer, but -- for completely different reasons, it's a complex process at both companies to draw up a creator-owned contract. It's tough to go through the hassle for an eight-page story. Sounds silly, I know, but it's true.

Best,
Stuart

Thanks for responding. I don't like Kolchaka's work myself, those were just the only two names I could think of, and it was the easiest example to hand. [I'm embarassed at how long it took me to think of Feazell for a back-up strip] I was sure you'd see other sides to it, such as appropriateness of the material in quality and subject matter, and you did. I hadn't thought that the creators would expect more money, but I guess if they're any good, they'd want some sort of compensation (besides the exposure). And it doesn't take an idiot to see how creator-owned contracts might be huge hassles to negotiate, but I do.