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Jason Czeskleba
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004
Posts: 4565
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| Posted: 13 April 2013 at 11:45am | IP Logged | 1
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I remember in the 70s when I was a kid living in a small town in northern Minnesota, population of about 7500. There were a dozen stores in town that sold comics (grocery stores, drugstores, and even a full-on newsstand) and I would make the rounds of all of them on my bike. When I went back to visit in 1996, there were three stores left that still sold comics there. When I went back four years ago, there were no stores selling comics (unless you count the handful of old Harvey Comics I saw at the antique store) and the nearest comic shop is about 50 miles away.
Stephen Churay wrote:
| I do agree that a lower price point would be needed for the newsstand market. |
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Not necessarily. One of the main reasons comics were disappearing from newsstands and grocery stores in the 70's was the low profit margin for the dealer, because of the low cover price. Witness all the attempts by Marvel and DC to market larger-sized, higher-priced books during that decade (100-page Super Spectaculars, Giant-Size Marvels, tabloids, dollar comics). Unfortunately, the larger-sized formats failed because the kids buying the books choose the lower-priced alternatives. At this point it would be extremely difficult to get dealers to stock comics if they didn't offer at least as much return as a magazine.
I think it would be better to go the other way... rather than lowering the price, increase the value of what you get for the existing price, by raising page count and by printing non-decompressed stories that take longer than 2 or 3 minutes to read.
But I also think the window of opportunity may have closed. Everywhere I look, I see periodical print media dying off. Magazines are disappearing from stores in this area, and the stores that still sell them are shrinking their racks and decreasing the amount of things they stock. It's hard to imagine comics making any real inroads in such a marketplace.
Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 13 April 2013 at 11:46am
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132611
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| Posted: 13 April 2013 at 11:58am | IP Logged | 2
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I do agree that a lower price point would be needed for the newsstand market.+++ Not necessarily. One of the main reasons comics were disappearing from newsstands and grocery stores in the 70's was the low profit margin for the dealer, because of the low cover price. •• One of the smaller ironies of the pre-DSM days, when the price went up, many readers would stop buying comics -- but that extra bit of profit would encourage many newsstands and other such venues to take another look at comics, and our distribution base would grow. So we would lose readers at one level, gain them at another. +++ I think it would be better to go the other way... rather than lowering the price, increase the value of what you get for the existing price, by raising page count and by printing non-decompressed stories that take longer than 2 or 3 minutes to read. •• There are so many ships that have sailed. McFarlane and his ilk have trained a couple of "generations" of idiots to think books that ship on time are automatically inferior. "Decompressed" stories are considered better, even if it just means the reader is paying a high cover price for less and less. So many of the costs, tho, are basically out of the hands of the publishers. Printing, paper, distribution -- they all set their own prices, and there's not a whole lot the publishers can do to lower the cover price without cutting into their profits, small as they may be already! Take a look at my IDW stuff. As most of you know, I waived my page rate and first publication royalties, to make it easier on them, but it's had no effect on the cover price of my books. My "salary" was really a small part of the overall costs. A more healthy industry can really only be achieved by breaking the stranglehold of the DSM. (Hear that? That growling, grumbling sound is retailers crying "That Bastard Byrne! He wants to put us all out of business!!" Well, no. You're doing that quite well without my help.) Comics need to be sold where other magazines are sold, where people can find them without a special trip, where impulse buying can once again become a factor.
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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186
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| Posted: 13 April 2013 at 2:04pm | IP Logged | 3
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Over time on this forum, many people, including Mr. Byrne, have come up with great ideas for how to improve the industry. Sadly, and I apologize for the pessimism, I think some things are irreversible.
Things can change in this world. Things do change. However, whether it's politics, the state of the industry, the decline of PPV numbers in wrestling or many other things, it seems that some things have gone so far and changed so much, that there's no chance of reversing decline. I mean, there are so many factors which would prevent comics returning to the days of spinner racks and the like.
What I don't envy in young people today is the lack of serendipity. Gosh, to think I discovered some books by accident whilst my mother was out shopping for fruit or I was checking timetables at the railway station. If they were doing the Superman/Spider-Man crossover today, you'd have to be a reader of PREVIEWS, first and foremost, then actually seek it out, with spoilers all the way. It's a shame.
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Brandon Frye
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 November 2004
Posts: 1319
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| Posted: 13 April 2013 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | 4
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QUOTE:
| Comics need to be sold where other magazines are sold, where people can find them without a special trip, where impulse buying can once again become a factor. |
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I've never been able to understand why retailers can't seem to grasp this so-simple piece of logic. How can they be that short-sighted, yet be business owners? More comics on other venues would ultimately send more business their way, yet they fight agaisnt it tooth and nail. It boggles the mind that they would rather lose the wealth than share it?
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Jeffrey Rice
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 September 2011
Location: United States
Posts: 1161
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| Posted: 13 April 2013 at 7:59pm | IP Logged | 5
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I see comics in Toys R Us, CVS Pharmacy, and the Hudson News magazine shops located all over NY Penn Station, PA Bus Terminal, etc. So maybe there is hope.
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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
Posts: 443
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| Posted: 13 April 2013 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | 6
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Comics need to be sold where other magazines are sold, where people can find them without a special trip, where impulse buying can once again become a factor.
The only thing preventing it is the newsstand distributors. Marvel and DC aim dozens of books at the newsstand each and every month. They've never stopped aiming books at the newsstand.
The newsstand vendors don't order the books.
Archie buys shelf space and here's how well they're doing. Their best selling digests have lost nearly half their audience since 2007, selling fewer than 50,000 copies in 2012. The comic line is down to three on-going titles and only one of them is monthly. That book is Archie which has dropped from 30,000 a month in 2007 to 15,000 a month in 2012.
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Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 13 April 2013 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | 7
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It would be reasonable to assume that an Iron Man or Batman comic aimed at a general readership would do better than Archie, given the recognition and popularity of the movies. How much better these comics would do than Archie would be up to the efforts of the producers of comics!
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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
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| Posted: 13 April 2013 at 10:32pm | IP Logged | 8
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It would be reasonable to assume that an Iron Man or Batman comic aimed at a general readership would do better than Archie, given the recognition and popularity of the movies. How much better these comics would do than Archie would be up to the efforts of the producers of comics!
Which would still require the newsstand vendors to order the books.
The newsstand is the ultimate Bad Retailer. They have very little interest in ordering anything comic related regardless of the content.
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Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 13 April 2013 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | 9
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I'm ignorant of how the newsstand industry works. Is there just a few newsstand distributors? Is it the distributor who determines what is ordered, or is it the news seller?
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7690
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 12:38am | IP Logged | 10
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Robbie wrote: It's the same here in England.
------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------- While it may be slightly different there is still a decent representation of comics in the UK - there are loads of children's comics available at supermarkets like Asda (Wallmart) - most of these are derived from TV shows but you can still get the Panini reprints of DC and Marvel comics - which is effectively exactly how it was when I was a kid. Couldn't get the American comics in local stores until the '80's. During the '70's it was pretty much UK reprints from local newsagents.
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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11264
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 1:04am | IP Logged | 11
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James,the `Distributed` U.S. comics,mainly Marvel were widely available in local newsagents where i live in the 70`s,literally round the corner on the estate where i live.I can name 3 newsagent shops within a mile,that used to stock them,i got my first J.B. X-Men # 113 a 2 minute walk from where i currently live.It does sadden me that today`s kids can`t stumble upon some little gem like that virtually on their doorstep.
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Richard White
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 August 2009
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1058
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 3:15am | IP Logged | 12
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In the 90's, in my home town of Great Yarmouth, pretty much every newsagent had Marvel and DC comics, the actual U.S. editions and every month I could pick from 30 or 40 titles. It's what really got me into comics and eventually to seek out dedicated outlets (my first being the sadly departed Mephisto Comics in Norwich).
Going into W H Smiths (a national newsagent chain) these days, there are about 7 or 8 Marvel and DC titles, which are UK reprint editions and a section dedicated to the trades and manga books.
So at least there is some presence here, though it isn't what it used to be.
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