As we already know, most monthly comic books cost either $2.99 or $3.99. What was somewhat disconcerting to me is that from the $2 level to $3, prices climbed about a quarter at a time, whereas now they jumped a full dollar to the $4 mark. Could we be seeing a benchmark price of $5 an issue in 5 years or so?

For the last 10 years or so, I have bought on average between between 8 and 15 comics a month, and was always able to handle price increases easily. If the price went up a quarter, it meant I was paying an extra $2-4 a month. I have only ever dropped comics due to interest,, not expense.

That's probably going to change. My employer was not able to pay out annual raises this year, nor was the state of Minnesota (who funds my employer) able to give a cost-of-living increase, and like for so many other people, the purse strings are getting a lot tighter for me this year. I still have not reached the point where I will have to drop any comics for money reasons, but it's going to come. Even when I get my raise again, I can't see myself paying $5 an issue for 15 comics a month.

How about you folks, those of you still buying current monthly comics from the big two? At what price will you have to cut back, or have you already reached that point (completely setting aside the issues of interest and quality)?

I stopped actively buying comic books a few years back when I finished reading three books in one sitting on the can. I only buy trades now, except SD.

The jump to 3.99 had had me take a serious look at redefining what comics interest me. I never did that before. So I think the dollar hike was too much all at once. More gradual an increase probably would have kept my support on more series. The interesting thing is I cut across the board, Individual Price was not a consideration but total spend was.

The only thing keeping me reading montlies is Savage Dragon. I buy a few Marvel books a month just to make my box worth having, but if they were $5 a pop, I'd drop 'em.

The price on painted books doesn't bug me as much...

$3.99 with a whole dollar jump was the breaking point for me. I'll pay that much if the comic goes to 40 pages and includes a back-up feature maybe, but not for a standard issue. I'll wait for reviews and if the $3.99 comics sound good, I will wait further for a tpb, and only then will I purchase if the price point is more reasonable.

One wonders how much they will start charging for trades. They are getting pretty expensive too.

This increase was a huge mistake. They have me considering dropping, and I'm the customer that shouldn't' be worried about prices.

They should have lowered salaries, done whatever it took. There is such a thing as a price too high to sustain.

I'm almost all DC except for Daredevil, and the whole back-up feature thing is an irritant for me. About a third of my DC pull list has the back-ups, and while I enjoy some of them (I read them as long as they're there and I've paid for them), none of them is a feature I would buy in its own magazine. I hate having to pay a dollar more for something I don't want.

Don't you use a service?

I switched over starting in November to save money.
My latest DCBS order was for $37.65 plus $5.95 shipping for a total of $43.60.
I ordered 19 books, so it works out to $2.30 a book.

Yup I use Westfield - and I am still at over $100/month.

Don't buy them anymore; they are too expensive, and new comics have no replay value for me. I get plenty of new trades out of the library every couple of months, which keeps me up to date on the titles I care about. Still have a TON of old collected stuff I never read yet at home and more on the horizon (but refusing to allow myself more buying until I read what I have).

I stopped being able to afford new comics on a regular basis in the early 1990s. Most of what I've bought since then has been purchased used out of the cheap bins. To be honest, given how comics have developed in recent years I don't always feel I've missed out on too much. But I do wish I'd been able to buy more. Now the purse strings are a bit looser--hence that "Brave & Bold" trade I got the other day. Before I'd pretty much never been able to buy a trade brand new. But as you see, it's trades I'm buying, not individual issues. That format seems to have just about reached the end of its viability. It's a shame to see it go.

A floppie shouldn't cost as much as a meal.

I'm starting to drop books because it is getting expensive. Walking Dead is going back to trades, Incredible Hercules may be a Trade pickup as well, I can see me buying less after Blackest Night is over as well.

Price turned me away a while back. I just couldn't justify what I was spending when compared to normal expenses. Sure, those other expenses have gone up over the years, but not at the same rate. I limit myself to trades now and some titles here and there that catch my eye when I am out and about.

This thread has reminded me to do a major cut-down. Time to weed out.

I've killed the comic book industry. My bad.

No, they've killed it with pricing. I truly believe that. A dollar jump? When they were already way too high?

It's being priced like a crack habit now. I want to enjoy weekly stories like an ongoing soap opera. I want to learn how they're bringing back Captain AMerica when it happens. But it's just too much.

And web comics will not save us. One of the reasons they're having such a problem (I believe) is that the market is going to be shocked at how much they still need to charge for an online read -- a lot of the money is going to the creators right now.

I do believe that the $3.99 price is what we are paying because of the transition from floppies to trades.

Don't you ever do that again.

I still have to wonder if going back to standard newsprint and traditional 4-color printing would save comics...if you figure they can sell a 500 page black and white Essential for around $15, I figure they could sell a 30 page color comic for around $1.50...if they did that, I would go back to buying and reading all the comics I want to read...