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I really think this is at the heart of why Brevoort posted what he did.
We post ideas that we believe will help monthly comic book sales. We
don't always discuss what it would take to implement these ideas. I
generally think any idea that we've suggested will wind up costing
Marvel in the short term. The benefit will be in the long term gains.
When discussing ideas here, I just assume that most everybody
commenting here is smart enough to know that, so that discussion
isn't needed. To someone trolling the forum, they seem like easy
instant fixes.

Take distribution for example. A lot of us agree that monthly books
should be found in other places than a comic shop, ( grocery stores,
pharmacies, convenient stores, etc...). This isn't easy to do under the
current contract with Diamond. Some do get out, you find them in the
major book stores along with the collected trades. So, you either have
to wait out the Diamond contract or break it. Most of us wish they
could just break it, but that gets expensive. How expensive? I don't
know what Diamond's profits are off of Marvel comics each month or
how much longer the contract has. Then there the Mark Waid theory.
As best as I can figure, he believes that comics as a monthly
periodical is going to all but fade away. Monthlies will go strictly online
via digital apps. or subscriptions and only see paper when collected
for trades. If that forecasting is accurate, is it worth the push to put
monthlies back in every corner market? I believe in a few years, he
may very well be right, but portable readers, like the iPad need to
become more common place for it to really work.

So, where does Marvel make it's push? Printed or digital? Or, do they
just hold the fort until the digital comic becomes a viable source of
revenue and hope the bottom doesn't fall out in between. Marvel
appears to be doing the ladder.    

So, where does Marvel make it's push? Printed or digital? Or, do they
just hold the fort until the digital comic becomes a viable source of
revenue and hope the bottom doesn't fall out in between. Marvel
appears to be doing the ladder.

Well, Marvel/DC says they basically lose money on the printed crap, so why would they even entertain a notion of anything but digital.

Oh by the way at which point I never read another new Marvel/DC comic again?

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Bacause digital being the only way to get monthly titles is still probably
3-4years away. There are not enough portable reader tablets, ie
iPads, on the market yet. Plus at this point, it would almost be to
Marvel's advantage that a PC based tablet becomes available. Right
now they are supporting two different digital platforms. There online
subscription service is FLASH based which APPLE products will not
support. The other is the iPad/iPod app. Right now,the app reader
works better than there online service reader. So, which do you
support?

It all boils down to this. When there are as many iPads and a
competitiors tablets on the streets as there are cell phones, you'll
more than likely never see a printed monthly again, accept maybe as
a small batch run, sort of like record albums now are.

(BTW, can the NOOK and KINDLE run comics?)

Edited by Stephen Churay on 02 November 2010 at 11:06pm

Panini sell reprints in newsstands in the UK as well. We also have a range of younger readers material that cntains new stories for younger kids.

I have no idea as to sales figures for either type but certainly the reprints have been going for years and cost considerably less per issue than a first run American version (Each issue contains 3 issues of reprints)

What would be the cost reduction if they stopped printing altogether? You'd ahve writers, artists, but with no printing or distribution, what would the cost of a comic drop to?

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Right now the Marvel app charges $1.99 per issue in most cases,
same with DC. I'd be very surprised if that ever dropped. If you're
referring to Marvel's cost, I don't know. To my understanding, average
printing cost per issue range from .75 cents to $1.00 depending on the
print run. Digital monthlies would also cut out Diamond who also takes
a good chunk of the pie.

Edited by Stephen Churay on 03 November 2010 at 12:59am