$1.99


As someone who has griped extensively about $3.99 comics (I had to get through two pages of more recent $3.99 moaning just to find that post in the archives) I was super pumped to see this story from Rich Johnston:

What if the comics, rather than creeping towards the $3.99 price, suddenly dropped. To $1.99. Across the board. Sales would rocket, market share would soar, other publishers would be squeezed off the shelves, plastic rings or no plastic rings, comics revenue would fall. But buzz would increase, increase, increase.

It might even just save the direct market. Or it might doom it, if certain retailers have become used to the $3.99 price point. Volume might help though…

Naturally such a publisher would need deep pockets to do this on a mass scale.

Oh, it’s Disney.

Lose a million, make a billion. This is not just speculation, I understand it is seriously being discussed at the publisher right now.

Rereading the quote, my super-pumpedness has come down a bit since starting this post upon realizing how ruthless this would be, as it likely would eliminate competitors who couldn’t compete at that loss-level. So I guess there’s a flipside to that coin.

h/t a guy named Dave that I can’t link to