Two And A Half Cents A Day

By Buddy Scalera

It may seem like the end of the world, but it really isn’t. Marvel’s price hike, that is.

Recently, Marvel implemented a 75-cent hike in the cover price of 13 titles. Not all titles were increased, just the ones selling below a certain threshold. Marvel was not making the money they needed to justify continuing publication. In the industry, this is sometimes referred to “making the numbers.”

Initially, there was a hysterical outcry by the fans and by some pros. People talked of “protesting” the price increase by dropping titles that they current buy. I think a brief discussion of the BUSINESS of publishing is important right now.

As a business, Marvel has certain “fixed overhead,” which is a fancy way to describe their day-to-day expenses. This could include taxes, phone bills, rent, electricity, debt, online service, and other non-negotiable bills. Since rent in New York City is usually calculated by square foot, Marvel incurs a huge monthly bill just to let the Evil-Price-Hiking-Editors walk through the door.

Does anyone have any idea how much it costs to rent in Manhattan? Anyone? Ok, I’ll tell ya… it starts at around $300 per square foot and shoots all the way up to about $600 per square foot.

Let’s say Marvel rents a 2,000 square foot suite in NYC. They could be looking at about $600,000 a month in rent. (I don’t know the actual rent or other expenses. This is all guesswork from research I did on the web.) That $600,000 per month is paid before anyone comes in and plugs in the phones and computers. Even before they reject your submissions.

How many comics must Marvel sell just to cover their fixed costs? Let’s do some math.

If the cover price of a single issue is $2.25, Marvel probably prints the comic for about 20 cents. If they distribute it through Diamond, then Marvel gets approximately 40% of the cover price, which is about 90 cents per issue. That amounts to a 70-cent profit per issue, right?

If an issue of Agent X sells 50,000 copies, Marvel makes about $35,000 per month. An issue of X-Men sells about 100,000 copies, so Marvel makes $70,000. Not bad, it would seem, right? Marvel covered their fixed operating expenses with a low-selling title. Good for them. Except….

Except Marvel has to pay the people who MAKE the book.

Let’s list some of them:
· Publisher (earning salary, plus benefits)
· Editor in Chief (earning salary, plus benefits)
· Editor (earning salary, plus benefits)
· Accountants (earning salary, plus benefits)
· Production manager (earning salary, plus benefits)
· Promotions manager (earning salary, plus benefits)

And then they pay the creative talent through their “variable” expenses. Variable expenses are these odd little costs that can go up and down from month to month.

In your life, you probably have fixed and variable expenses as well. For example, fixed expenses are your rent, cable television, and phone bills. You can estimate how much those bills will cost you each month. Your variable expenses include everything from what you spend on comic books to your heating and electric bills. These bills can be higher or lower depending on the personal choices you make.

So what are some of Marvel’s variable expenses?
· Writer (page rate)
· Penciler (page rate)
· Inker (page rate)
· Colorist (page rate)
· Letterer (page rate)

Every job requires a paycheck. Marvel doesn’t WANT to increase prices. Nobody in business wants to increase prices because there is a basic rule of economics: Sales go down as prices go up.

When I self-published my own comic book (Necrotic: Dead Flesh on a Living Body, see it here), I was embarrassed at how high I was forced to make my cover price, just to make a profit. (Note: I never actually made a profit on Necrotic. I didn’t know how to control my expenses, so I lost money.)

Marvel’s operating costs force them to increase the cover price of a few underperforming titles. It’s a tough decision because they know that it is inevitable that a portion of the audience will drop the book. But they cannot survive in publishing if they operate at a loss.

A comic book not making a profit has to be pushed aside for a comic book that does make money. After all, they could spend the same money per issue and publish another X-Men title. It would sell well, but you wouldn’t get any variety. Your choices would be limited only to the highest selling books. If you want something slightly different, it wouldn’t be an option.

And as a reader, I prefer they raise the price. I’m annoyed that I have to spend more money, but I am glad that they are not just canceling the books. In the past, a writer would be told, “wrap up your story line quickly; this book is cancelled next issue.” At least this way, writers are getting a little more time to wrap up their story lines, especially if they know the books will get cancelled.

As a reader, I am glad that Marvel chose to give these books a chance to go out gracefully. In my mind, I’d rather pay a 75 cents a month than to lose those stories. In my world, 75 cents a month isn’t all that much money. It comes to about 2.5 cents a day.

When I hear fans say they will “stop buying out of protest,” I know that we’ve got an audience that doesn’t appreciate how much money and work goes into each issue. Their protest hurts the publisher, the creator, and other fans… all for a lousy two and a half cents a day.

Folks, price increases suck. In fact, most publishers would like to offer their comics at a lower price, so more people will buy them. But when printers, and landlords, and phone companies increase their prices, it becomes more expensive to publish comics. Price increases are inevitable. The only way prices can go down is if more people buy comics.

If you like something, keep buying it. If you stop, then you will lose the ability to buy that title. Plain and simple, you’re hurting yourself by protesting the price increase. Marvel will cut books that don’t make a profit and concentrate on books that do. If you like Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Agent X… well, tough. You’ll get X-Men, X-Men, and more X-Men.

So if you want to limit your choices, go ahead, protest. I’ll keep buying comics that I enjoy, regardless of the price. I’ll buy the books as long as the stories are interesting and the art is good.

Oh, and let me know how you spend that two and a half cents a day.

RANDOM STUFF:

CrossGen switched over to digest size versions of their FORGE and EDGE collections. I tend to read a lot and I like my comic books to be portable. If I have to spend an hour standing in line at the DMV, I want something to read. These new digest-size comics are the perfect size for someone on the run. The digest format sort of reminds me of Apple’s new 12” G4 laptop – small, but potent.

They even managed to lower the prices. You now get seven full issues for $7.95. I’ve been reading CrossGen books since day one and I am thrilled that they are making their books available at such an amazing price point. My favorite CG title is Sojurn, but almost every book is pretty good. I hope you take this opportunity to support CrossGen’s effort to produce less-expensive comics.

Especially you people who are bitching about prices.