The Federal minimum wage started in 1938 and was $0.25 per hour. So your 64 page colour comic book was 40 percent of your hourly minimum wage.

To do a proper comparison, we should do it based on pages (i.e. you need at least two comic books today would equal 64 pages of content). So what took half an hour of your time to earn the purchase price in 1938 would take more than an hour to earn the purchase price today.
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Looking at it that way, 22 pages of Action Comics #1 would have cost approximately 13.75% of an hours worth of work.

When looking at profit margins, you have to factor in production costs. Comics back in the day were a way to keep the presses running, so there was a lower economics of scale for printing, even for the higher print runs. Additionally, page rates and royalties for creative talent are likely significantly higher today than in 1938, even after being adjusted for inflation. Finally, there certainly is a much higher administrative overhead with the dozens of corporate types in the head office.

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Conversely, the 64 pages took you an hour to read in 1938, but now takes much less than a half hour.

I am constantly baffled at how the younger generation(s) can not stand to watch old tv shows because of the slow pacing, and yet they prefer the decompression of comics. It seems counter-intuitive to me. Coupled with the sporadic publishing schedule of many "monthly" stories, and I wonder where this surge in attention span is coming from.

Brian,

It would be accurate to look at it this way: if you use the link in my earlier note, you'll see that the 1938 minimum wage had a equivalent purchasing power of roughly $3.75 in 2007 dollars. So a 10 cent 64-page comic book rising at the same rate as the minimum wage should have cost $1.50 in 2007 dollars.

Instead, a 32 page comic book (including 10 pages of ads) cost you $2.25 to $2.50 in 2007.

Wayde,

Individual decompressed comics read faster: less words per panel, less panels per page.

Case in point: my youngest daughter (12) was reading a Chris Claremont / John Byrne X-Men over the weekend, and she looked at me with exhaustion and complained "That's a lot of words on every page!"

It wasn't the reading -- she loves reading and plows through thick books -- but the fact a very wordy comic book was something quite foreign to her.

I have begun to notice that the majority of ads in Marvel books lately has been in house ads too.  Out of the maybe 8 or 9 ads I see, 2 are external ads.  The rest are in house ads for $2.99 or $3.99.  I was thinking how interesting that was considering whether or not they are having issues selling external ads, or whether they just don't care one way or another.  I would think extra ad revenue is never a bad thing, but what do I know?  Comic books sure don't reach a very big target audience anymore I suppose.