AoANightcrawler

August 21, 2013 2:37 am I think its fair to say LCS should be doing better today than anytime in recent years, considering the boom in so called geek culture and the huge popularity of super hero movies, not to mention televised series. I would argue the sales at LCS are not going up as high as they should. Let's face facts and acknowledge that the super hero movie bubble will eventually burst, probably soon based on consumer opinions (outside of the comic book community that is). Once Hollywood becomes unwilling to support 4 or more major super hero blockbusters a year I think you'll see a huge decline in those sales and that will likely be the final blow to the LCS. We want LCS to survive because we all love the experience of visiting them, the unfortunate reality is its simply not a sustainable model and unless they find a way to evolve they'll soon be going to way of Borders and other book warehouses.

August 21, 2013 2:26 am New digital comics currently cost me about $2 each since I use the subscription model to obtain them. If you factor in shipping you can take off roughly another .50 and while I don't know what printing costs are exactly I do know they cost more per comic than shipping does so we'll just go with knocking off another .50 and say .99 per comic isn't unreasonable. To be honest $1.50 for new comics and .99 for older ones would even be acceptable to me but anything beyond that is unfair to the consumer. I'm not sure what you would compare comics to if not another form of entertainment, but I should note producing the average mp3 comes at a much higher cost than the average comic. Also it should be noted comparing consumer demand to a chicken shortage doesn't make sense because they are two different things, supply versus demand rather than looking at supply and demand. By that same argument Nintendo should have released the Wii at $600-800 a few years ago because that's what they were selling for on ebay. The price went up because there was no supply, doesn't mean that's a fair market price.

August 21, 2013 2:13 am Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited is probably the most reasonable way to consume older comics, it would be nice however if comics were added more frequently and all things considered I still think the monthly price of the service is a little high. More importantly though if you subscribe to any 3.99 marvel title you will also get a digital code for the same issue effectively making the price of brand new issues just over $2. It would be nice if that was available for all issues not just those $3.99 and up and better yet it would be nice if the digital subscriptions were at a reduced price but for some reason "subscribing" directly to a digital comic comes with no real benefits. Also the twice weekly .99 cent sales are nice. DC has a better discount model, though they aren't as consistent with it as they pretend to be, in all other regards Marvel is ahead.

August 20, 2013 7:25 pm The case of your wife's sister aside I do not believe that's the mentality of most pirates. All of my friends that are into comics, with only 1 partial exception, pirate near exclusively now. The reason for most of them being that comics have become far too expensive. These are friends who used to pirate music and stopped when cheaper digital downloads became available and friends who used to buy comics at local comic shop but gradually stopped as titles steadily increased in price and decreased in page count. If you really break the entertainment down by time to consume over price its clear there is no other form that's even half as expensive. I do not pirate comics, but I don't believe my friends are in the wrong to do it. If you look at the history of piracy you will see it is the most effective tool consumers have to fight against price where competition is stagnant. One can always argue we can just stop buying all together but simply put that's not the way the human mind works. It is more natural to lash out than sacrifice when you feel you are being wronged and that's what most pirates are doing, fighting back. I have very little doubt if the industry continues in this way it will not still exist in another 30 years. Industry leaders continually talk about how new readers aren't being drawn in but that couldn't be further from the truth. The youth of today just find they can't afford to spend $4 for 10 minutes of entertainment and instead choose to pay something they find more reasonable, nothing. In all honesty do you think a digital comic should be closer to $0 or $4, I'd argue the former since I think a new digital comic shouldn't cost anymore than an mp3 .99 or 1.29 since it provides roughly the same equivalent amount of entertainment.

August 20, 2013 7:00 pm To support a dying business model otherwise known as the local comic book shop.

August 20, 2013 12:42 am To get their own digital copies...and in many cases they can profit from donations. I also think people underestimate the ease of "scanning" a comic. Which is to say comics are not scanned anymore but pulled digitally which can be scripted and completed in a manner of seconds.

August 20, 2013 12:38 am Piracy is absolutely still an issue and there are two main reasons why 1. Price. You have to wonder, why are digital comics more expensive then physical ones? 2. DRM. A lot of people still have issue with the fact that comixology owns the comics not you. Granted the industry has made major strides but there's still a long way to go, particularly for DC.

August 12, 2013 11:55 pm Damn, you got me Jim! I said it earlier, I hate these type of gripe articles and yet, that was the point wasn't it. Everyone hates these conflict inciting articles and that's exactly what causes the message board to light up with five times the responses you normally get. Couldn't help but play the game...enjoy the bonus Ad revenue, you win this time.

August 12, 2013 11:45 pm You can argue Super Hero fiction is filled with sexism and male fantasy, the medium itself however is not. As IthoSapien pointed out above there are comics written by women for women, by gays for gays, by minorities for minorities, I'm sure if you've ever looked in the indie section of your local comic shop you'll see that. Those specialized books do not generally sell very well even when supported by high profile talent or famous properties and that's simply because the audience isn't there, not in the same volume anyway. Despite how we treat it super hero fiction is actually a rather mature form of story telling (more than 50 years now). It has changed substantially over the years and many would argue not for the better, but as with most development in a genre it didn't come about because creators mandated it, it came about because buyers voted with their wallets. Fans of comics decided, we want more action, we want sexier women, we want more violence, etc. These may not be things everyone wants to see but we've already proven to the big two they are the things most of us want. Some fans tell themselves not me, I'm better than that, but the dollars tell a different story.

August 12, 2013 11:18 pm Exactly! Who is to decide Romance Novels are somehow less artistic than comics? All things considered I think its more likely the general populace would admit Romance Novels before comics since they generally garner more attention.