Yesterday, DC Comics announced that moving forward, all of their mainline DC Universe comics, both in physical and digital, would be priced at $3.99. While a large number of their single issues saw their prices raised last year, their bi-weekly titles such as Batman, Wonder Woman, and Detective Comics remained at the lower $2.99 price point. That is no longer the case.
Per Newsarama, this price increase will affect Batman, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman Detective Comics, Green Lanterns, The Flash, Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, Harley Quinn, and Injustice. It follows reports last week that DC would stop providing complimentary digital codes in their $3.99 physical comics.
Unaffected by this price increase are the “New Age of Heroes” comics, including Curse of Brimstone, Damage, Immortal Men, New Challengers, Sideways, Silencer, The Terrifics, and The Unexpected. They remain at $2.99 for the foreseeable future.
This move comes courtesy of the big usual suspect: reader attrition. Per Todd Allen’s sales analysis earlier this month, the vast majority of DC’s titles (with the exceptions of Action Comics #1000 and the biggest Batman titles) are selling under 50,000, with many even falling under 30,000. Thus, it’s apparent that there’s a need to tighten the budget belt at the DC offices.
That said, one can’t help but wonder whether increasing the cost on bi-weekly books will hurt more than it helps. Batman saw a bump in April as its story cruises towards the much-anticipated Batman/Catwoman wedding. There have also been a number of creative refreshes on many DC books recently as new teams take the reins, with more rumored to come. And Justice League also just started its big relaunch with this week’s No Justice #1. Will an increase from $6 to $8 a month cause some more casual Batman readers to drop the title? Will fans be more wary of trying the new directions for books they’ve fallen off on given the higher cost of admission?
These are questions DC surely has already predicted answers to internally, but it will be interested to see how the effects of this change play out in the real world marketplace.
If I weren’t already dropping the remaining titles in my DC pull due to the stealth end of the digital download codes… Well, then I’d pick and choose, but yeah. Breaks my heart, but there’s no value for the consumer in this.
Aaaaaaaaand….. Drop!
Bad call, Ripley, bad call.
Hey Beat, you do realize that “Drawing the Line at $2.99” pledge was made way back in 2010, right? You can’t really expect a published to actually stick to this after 8 long years.
Basically, as long as they roll back to a monthly schedule (like Action and and Superman, I don’t mind a price increase. But if they try to sell me two issues at $3.99 each month, I’ll drop that book just like I’ve dropped plenty of Marvel books for the same offense.
I emailed my shop today and said I’m out. My pull has zero books now. Freedom!!!
Of those books I only have Wonder Woman and The Flash so not a huge drain and I like both books so I’ll keep them. Good to know that The Terrifics, the only book of that group that I buy is staying at 2.99. I still buy more DC than Marvel at this point.
They used to reduce the digital price by 1 dollar before Rebirth, after a period of 2 months. Most publishers are reducing the price after a certain period. Is there any chance that DC will do the same?
The prices keep going up, my income does not. Pile on constant universe reboots, character retcons that I don’t like and that leads me ultimately to only watch the storylines from the sidelines via review/news sights and waiting a year or two to pick up the issues out out the discount bins. Maybe. Not happy about it, I used to really love keeping up by reading the titles, but comics are just plain too expensive right now. Maybe the people making the price decision aren’t aware of that.
The $2.99 price break for their bi-weekly comics was a big selling point for me. Granted, I’m down to just Wonder Woman on my pull list, but Steve Orlando and whoever follows him better be serving up something a hell of a lot better than James Robinson has on his run to keep me at an $8/month price point. Jenny Frison’s variants are the only thing that have kept me coming back since Robinson took over anyway.
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