Interesting, wonder what the primary reason is. Perhaps they’re thinking quality over quantity with the slumps in sales recently?
It’s that unintelligent trade war, paper from China has tariffs now. Same reason they are toying with $4.99 per comic pricing.
Doubt it’s due to that since most of DC books are printed in the U.S. or in Canada to my knowledge. A quick check shows Naomi is printed in KY by LSC Printing company while Detective Comics are by Transcontinental a Canadian printing company based out of Quebec. I didn’t check others but I doubt it’s due to Trump’s trade war with China.
“To make it a little easier on Batman fans who aren’t sure what to do with their extra money once January 2020 rolls around, DC Comics will be launching a new 12-issue miniseries, Batman/Catwoman , written by Tom King and drawn by Clay Mann. Higgins has confirmed that this new series was at least partially responsible for DC’s move away from double-shipping, saying on Twitter that "They didn’t want to lose the sales of two issues of Batman, so we get both the normal book and [ Batman/Catwoman ] by King.”
Sounds like they want King off Batman, but want him to keep his Batman/Catwoman dynamic going. Probably take those 20 or so issues that were cut short on Batman and tell them in this new series.
God help us if they come out with 100 variant covers for issue #1 like black cat.
Also, I think DC is getting ready to push $4.99 comics…and twice a month at $4.99 will loose a lot of readers.
China is the #1 producer of paper and pulp in the world now followed by the US. So most likely US but due to the increased demand for US paper products due to Chinese paper tariffs you still get price increases here.
$4.99 once a month is going to lose a bunch of readers. At least most of Marvel books are still $3.99 a month with a digital redemption code.
If DC or Marvel goes to $4.99 a book as a standard price, you can count me out for both.
But then you will miss out on Cosmic venomized immortal ghost weapon Hulk.
I’m willing to bet that’s still not the reason. If it was affecting them now, they wouldn’t wait until 2020.
This is not a horseman. From my understanding, DC is stopping double shipping, but there will be new titles to fill the ‘void’ left by no longer double shipping. As D-Rog pointed out, King isn’t technically leaving Batman. He is just being moved to a different book to finish his story. Kings new Bat/Cat series will replace Batmans double shipped book and I believe there will be a Jimmy Olson book to replace Actions double shipped book and that there will be new titles replacing the other books that are currently double shipped. All is well in comic land, folks.
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Exactly why I’m trying to tell Alana it’s not due to actual costs of production but rather something else. Honestly I think it’s not only just new titles but I think going from 2 to 1 books a month for a title makes that title a bit more special. They can meet deadlines while still providing a better quality story and product than the rush to get two books out a month on average.
I think it’s quality over quantity and yes, if they try to raise the price from $3.99 to $4.99 and claim you’re still saving $3.00 off your total month worth of Batman comics by cutting it to 1 book instead of 2, I’m still out cause 20 pages of story and art (yes, I just counted a recent Detective Comics, it was exactly 20 pages of story and art) filled with crappy advertisements is not worth $4.99. That’s 25 cents a page and if printed on front and back, that’s 50 cents per physical page. Nope, nope, nope. 
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I believe if DC was to go to $4.99 that they would also increase the pages of content from 20 to 24-26.
And I do agree that they are attempting to do the quality over quantity approach. A well written story will sell well in floppies and offer the company a good TPB for future sales.
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A lot, if not all, of comics for the big 2 are printed in Canada. It has been that way for a long time.
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Sadly 4 or 5 additional pages not worth it. Cardstock as the cover is not worth it either for me.
At that price I’d rather wait on the trade I can find at a discount for like $10 that has 4-6 issues within it for the story arc and as for Marvel, most of the titles I was once buying I just have to wait 4-6 months and it shows up on the Marvel Unlimited app that costs me just $60 a year.
Regardless if it is not ‘enough’ for you, they are still giving more content at the higher price point, which is at least something to justify the price increase. And it is in ratio to the value of your dollar. If you are now willing to pay $4 for 20 pages, it would make sense that $5 for 25 pages of content would not be that much of a turn off. But I do understand your principal, @agentpoyo. I very much enjoy reading my floppies, so, for me, more content at a higher price is not much of deal breaker. I have decreased my monthly titles from about 25 to around 10-12, but that was due to a quality thing with Marvel. I was reading way to many shitty Marvel titles (looking at you, every X title since 2017!).
I don’t even like the $4 price point for DC titles. I much preferred the $2.99 price point since they didn’t provide a digital code. That’s one thing I actually like about Marvel, sure they’re $3.99 but I also get a digital redemption code. I like this primarily because it allowed me to read the books from anywhere on the fly. I could take a break at work or elsewhere and load them in my browser, tablet or phone. No reason to break out the floppy from the bag and board, potentially damaging it, etc. It’s worth that extra dollar.
Now I do notice more DC books are including a digital redemption code. most still aren’t.
I find it unbelievable that a company would even consider a price increase from a $2.99 book to $4.99 within a year. That’s insane! I don’t care if there’s more pages or not. I’ll simply buy way less or just stop altogether and dig back issues later for $1. Canadians are already paying $5 plus on a $3.99 USD book… Let’s not forget TODD MCFARLANE’S SPAWN is still $2.99 and still making lots of profit, at least he’s respectful to his fans pockets… I’m getting tired of the greed in this industry. Let’s ALSO not forget these books were originally created for kids to be able to buy with allowances and/or part time jobs? Just saying… Be well friends… GO RAPS! 
Sadly has anyone also noticed that most Image books are $3.99 now as well. Spawn is one of the few ongoing titles still at the $2.99 price point. Saga I know still carries the normal $2.99 price as well. Walking Dead upped it’s price from $2.99 to $3.99 a while back as well, probably one of the bigger monthly Image titles yet still raised it’s price.
It’s amazing how fast people have forgotten about $2.99 books. It was pretty standard pricing in several major DC and IMAGE titles just a few short months ago… I thought it was risky going up to $3.99 for numerous reasons but I figured cost of business, inflation, etc… Now all these publishers are licking their lips at $4.99 USD!! (Which is $6.50 CDN per book for your friendly neighbours to the north.) Sure, I’m admittedly cheap, but it’s not like we get better quality paper or format! I seriously question how much extra money the artists get at that higher price point. The publishers throw in 5 more pages and cha-ching, they’ve almost doubled the price of their product in under a year… I repeat. That’s insane. It’s greedy and short sighted. It will do irreparable harm to an otherwise healthy hobby by reducing kids/parents from affording to read comics. Not cool… 
Mash-ups are so 2018…
Someone needs to do some worthless but interesting research here. When did 20/21 pg count comics jump from $1/$1.25 to $2.25 to $2.99 and why? And is the $3.99 and expected $4.99 jump way too soon compared to the length of time & reasons for the other increases?
It feels like it’s too soon for $4.99 comics. I doubt they’re going to provide better page quality, more pages or card stock covers to justify any bump.