Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk is a weekly column by Kendall Swafford of Up Up Away! in Cincinnati, Ohio.  This week, Kendall looks at $3.99 comics.

I learned something interesting this week.  It should have been obvious to me, but wasn't.  With two-thirds of Marvel's periodical line now priced at $3.99, our customers have become remarkably risk-averse.  And while Marvel is not the only guilty party, they have to shoulder most of the blame.

How do smaller publishers get away with higher prices than the big two?  IDW has had their entire line priced at $3.99 for as long as I can remember, and there's no outcry, no backlash at all.  Heavily reliant upon licensed properties, IDW (and others) can count on the faithful, dedicated Star Trek, Transformers or GI Joe fan to pony up the extra coin, with overall higher sales as a result.  I'm guessing IDW (and others) would argue that licensing fees for these books require a higher price-point, and that makes sense.  And clearly, IDW (and others) have managed high enough sales to maintain profitability, so what's the problem?

Selling a $4 comic book to a Stephen King or Orson Scott Card fan is no big deal.  They're fans of those authors, and King's last novel was thirty-five bucks at retail, so four bucks is no big deal.  But no comic book is an island.  To our typical, regular customers, multiply that four bucks times 6 (or 9, or more) if you're an Avengers fan, times 20 if you follow the X-Men or Batman, and you begin to see the problem.  Adding a new title to that already bourgeoning stack of comics is quickly becoming the impossible dream!

Marvel is pimping this latest X-Men title as the first "#1" in twenty years.  Gimme a break!  Twenty years ago, the X-Men hadn't been franchised to death, and a new, second ongoing title was a big damn deal.  Can any of us imagine only having two X-Men titles on the shelves!?  When Marvel announced earlier this year the Avengers titles were all ending, to be replaced by a new book simply titled "The Avengers," I foolishly thought we would only have one Avengers title clogging the arteries of my store.  I knew it couldn't last, but I had hope.  Stupid human!  Before the ink was dry on the press release, the Avengers became New, Secret, Prime, Academy, Children's Crusade and Tartar Control!

Marvel is clearly hoping that the Avengers fan will drop some borderline DC title to buy that seventh Avengers title, but it ain't happenin.'  Another $4 X-Men book?  The X-Men as vampires!?  So far in my store, this book has been greeted by a collective yawn.  While many were initially interested in the new, adjective-less Avengers title, they've not been impressed enough to continue to pay four bucks to indulge Brian Michael Bendis.  Which leads me to my initial thought that sparked this week's column; at $4 for a single issue of a new comic book, no one is willing to give a new book a chance past the first issue, maybe two.  They will jump ship faster than ever before, even if they jumped on with enthusiasm.  The financial risk has become too high.  The days of completing that mediocre miniseries because you bought the first two have come and gone.  The X-Men completist doesn't exist anymore, he went bankrupt.

What's to be done about it?  Vertigo takes a refreshing approach, down-pricing both the first issue of a series and the first volume of many of their trade paperbacks in an effort to encourage sampling.  DC needs to extend this to DCU titles and especially Wildstorm.  When Vertigo does this, many times I give away the first issue, and the payoff is usually compelling enough to want to do it again.  Our sales on Unwritten are way above average for a Vertigo title, partly because we gave away dozens and dozens of copies to potential readers.  We've also begun testing a rollback of prices on select $3.99 titles to $3.50, as a goodwill gesture.  We have a loyalty card program which rebates merchandise after reaching certain purchasing plateaus, but this is a specific effort to say to our customers that ridiculous price increases hurt all of us, and we're trying to help.

In the comic book supply chain, retailers are the least risk-averse of all.  We spends thousands of dollars every week on a gamble; we're betting the rent or the payroll that our customers will continue to like what's being served up; if one Hulk title tasted good, then let us feast of seven!  And if we bet wrong, we're flushing two dollar bills down the crapper, at least until next week.

A customer's budget is largely fixed, and frustration over exorbitant prices won't cause them to cut back, but it will cause them to give up, leaving the industry to continue to circle the bowl.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely  those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.