The secret for issue 37 I BELIEVE is the Greg Capullo reveal. What I see on ComicHub is “Secret Artist Spoiler Variant.”
Dirty D’s Latest
See the cover prices on those Superman books…?
■■■■DC… prices getting out of control
Remember when everyone was ragging on Marvel for their $3.99 price tag and they even include a code for a digital copy if you wanted and praising DC for their price point? Tables have turned since a lot of Marvel books unless they’re hyping a book still carry the $3.99 price point and still give you a digital copy…
I’m not even picking up DC books anymore, they cost too much…
DC & Marvel cover prices are rising and getting out of control. Hard to tell if it’s greedflation or just cost of business.
Greed.
Image and the individual creators can make a profit on their books at 3.99 or less. I know there is minor controversy about McFarlane take a loss on his books but I don’t beleive it. He might not pay himself but he does have to pay all the other writers and artists across 4 books PLUS additional Spawn books launching soonish. Spawn books also have super high quality paper and cardstock covers.
The reason smaller publishers can use better paper stock is they got less people to pay for the creative process. Image gets their small cut, rest goes to who actually works on the book. Publishers like DC and Marvel have full time editors, marketing and other people involved in the whole process. Disney and DC are huge in comparison to creator owned titles being published by the smaller peeps in the industry.
Is it greed? I don’t think so at this point. They’re still producing comics for $4 on average where the distributor buys at probably a little less than $2 and retailers buy at $2 or so to sell at $4. The retailers are making the most “profit” or revenue from the books themselves. The publishers make revenue by selling by quantity… the more they produce, the more they make. Marvel is probably only making a buck or so per issue they sell when you really break down the process. Don’t forget, the people hired to print the books also get a piece of the pie from the retail price total.
If we didn’t have distributors and retailers as middle players in the whole process, publishers could sell their books for far less.
I would love to see the total breakdown of who gets what in the production of a single printed comic book.
I’m willing to bet a $3.99 book only nets Marvel at 15-30 cent profit, maybe even less. Revenue on them would probably be 50-70 cents a book. If distributors can sell these at 50% off, that means the distributor revenue and profit margins are about the same as the publisher. Then the retailer buys at $2, sells for $4 and after their own costs, probably making a $1 profit or so at max per book. But then they reap the benefits of selling ratios if they buy enough regular copies to sell at inflated prices while both the distributor are still making the same revenue/profit margins on each of those books sold for the qualification of said ratio and even the ratio variant itself.
So greed? I’m gonna say no… but since publisher/distributor and even retailers who sell these items with “retail prices printed on them” are all in the business of moving as much inventory as possible to boost profits.
Who ultimately wins in the end? The consumers who buy, hold and then sell later on on the secondary market at much higher premiums than original price. The ROI percentage winners are the consumers wiling to buy at retail prices and hope they go up in value over time (or even immediately when demand kicks in or FOMO)…
TFAW seems to be offering less and less books/covers…
I’m buying a few of each of those Dia De Los Muertos covers. Sucks that some of them are pricey, but I haven’t been buying much this year.
Kind of annoying places show she-hulk foil as sold out when FOC ain’t over yet.
Im sure TFAW will put it back up tomorrow.
But other places have it …
SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK 1 ADAM HUGHES FOIL VARIANT (10/18/2023) - $5.99 !!!
10/18/2023 SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK #1 ADAM HUGHES FOIL VARIANT – Sanctum Sanctorum Comics & Oddities LLC
https://westfieldcomics.com/comic-books/Sensational-She-Hulk-variant-foil-cover--Adam-Hughes/23080257 - $7.81
SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK 1 ADAM HUGHES FOIL VARIANT – Knowhere - $5.00 !!
Sensational She-Hulk #1 Adam Hughes Foil Var (Net) - Discount Comic Book Service - $6.88
Thanks. I checked our collector cave and they had it sold out. But now it’s available again.
This book is weird.
Actually, when I go to add it to my cart this happens.
All places charge crazy amounts for shipping (except Collector cave, which is sold out).
I don’t understand DCBS’s shipping options. If I pick “standard” does that mean they wait until the end of the month to ship them, even if they came out the first week?
That is correct. For DCBS the “standard” shipping option is generally one shipment per month so they hold all of your comics that were released from the time of your previous shipment and ship them together in one bundle. That is the option that I use.