Question:
I was reading the business section of the El Paso Times newspaper, and I
came across an interesting article.
It said that "Marvel Enterprises hopes to zap slumping sales by printing
its comic books in a conventional size, 7 1/4 by 10 7/8 inches. That
should please newstand owners fed up with the special wire racks needed
for traditional 6 1/2 by 10 inch comoc books."
It also mentioned that having to put comics in "old wire racks" has
"helped to bash comic industry sales to about $265 million in 20000 from
$850 million in 1993."
Just mainly wanted to know what others thought about this. I don't know
if I like jumping up that much in size. It seems to m that this will
cause another costly increase in price, and will be difficult to store
with current methods.
Comments?
Answer:
-Sounds like a garbled mainstream report of the Ultimate Marvel
Magazine, which is apparently that size according to the six people
who could find a copy.
-I'm pretty sure they were only talking about ULTIMATE MARVEL MAGAZINE.
The actual comics are getting smaller, not bigger in proportion.
-I knew comic book sales had declined, but I wasn't aware it was that
bad. I think the fact that the price of a comic book has doubled since
the early '90s has done more harm than the size of comic books which
hasn't changed much over the decades.
Ten years ago you could find at least a dozen different Marvel books,
plus the most popular DC, Archies, Disney and others at just about any
grocery store or convienence store. Now the only place I can buy them
is a comic book store and even in a major city there's only a few of
them. My guess is these non-specialty stores can't sell enough comics to
the average customer because they're not cheap reads any more.
The problem is, Marvel and the others probably can't afford to sell them
for less than $2 any more.
