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

As reported earlier this week, DC Comics has taken a very tentative step toward $3.99 pricing for a standard 32-page comic book.  Some think end days are here, and they could be right.  Talking with the powers that be earlier this year, there is a lot of concern about this issue, and not wanting to "break" the system.  Price increases are as inevitable as life, but I think my biggest objection is the size of the price increase.  What happened to incremental increases?  $3.25 or $3.50 and no one says anything.  Do it again in 18-24 months and no one says anything.  Leaping ahead with a 33% increase gets people's attention, and not in a good way.

Marvel admitted in an investor's meeting that avarice was behind the move to $3.99, and now fully two-thirds of their monthly periodical output is now priced higher, as Marvel wants to see "what the market will bear."  Now, Marvel (and Disney) is a public corporation, beholden to what's been called the "suffocating quarterly consciousness," the corporation's quarterly earnings report.  Profit is their main motive, and as retailers, it is (or had better be) ours as well.  I'll never begrudge them that.  Now that Marvel is under the Disney umbrella, I had hoped that those quarterly pressures would be eased somewhat, as they are now much smaller fish in the very large Disney pond.  And as it's been only five months since the Disney acquisition occurred, the House of Mouse's influence has yet to be felt, at least on this side of the counter.

Looking at the market share data, something very unexplainable is happening.  Marvel originally justified higher prices on their high-profile books like New Avengers by telling us the extra income on popular titles allows them to essentially "underwrite" the costs of a less popular book, therefore allowing them to publish titles that otherwise may not see the light of day.  Makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose, as the previous thinking forced the publishers to raise prices on titles with smaller print runs in an attempt to keep those titles profitable.  This usually caused circulation to drop even further, resulting in those lower-profile books being cancelled.

So, Marvel acts and DC reacts, as has been the case for oh, the last forty years or so.  A funny thing happened on the way to the price gouge, however; Marvel is keeping their very comfortable grip on first place!  Whatthehuh!?  And DC is saying the same thing.  Whatthehuh!?  Holding the line at $2.99 has gotten them NOWHERE in the market share wars.  Smaller publishers like IDW routinely price most everything at $3.99 with little to no price resistance.  If you're a Star Trek fan, you're not gonna let that $3.99 price point stop you.  For all the success DC had with Blackest Night, Marvel continues to dominate the charts with a seemingly endless number of titles, variants and incentives, all designed to keep us ordering more and more and more of their product for our shelves.  And we just keep doing it.  At this year's ComicsPRO annual meeting, I think it was Dan Didio who asked if retailers liked variant cover incentives, and I was stunned by the number of retailers who love them!  I think they're a plague, and should be wiped of the face of the Earth, personally.  But I digress, if only slightly.

Here at Up Up & Away, I see very different numbers, as DC routinely bests Marvel in unit and dollar sales.  I personally fall on the DC side of the fence, but it has to be more than that.  I read the monthly Diamond charts and JJ Miller's Comicchron reports and just scratch my head, as my results definitely vary!  Marvel jacks up prices, DC holds the line, and yet Marvel's piece share goes up.  So what's to be done?  As important as Marvel obviously is to us and the industry at large, they constantly crap all over us and tell us they're blowing us rainbow kisses.  Marvel has proven time and time again that they have no love for comic shop retailers, and they rarely hide their disdain for us, and yet we continue to reward them by buying more and more of their products.  As a retailer, I have to make sure the needs of my customers are met first and foremost, but I'm gonna favor the publishers that treat me as a partner, that respect what we do here on the front lines, and don't treat me with complete disdain.

I serve at the pleasure of my customers, and if it's more and more Marvel Comics they want, then so be it.  Historically, I've heard customers complain for decades about the price of comics, and they still are compelled to buy.  So maybe this is all much ado about nothing.  The big, high-profile titles and events will continue to sell, the mainstays like Batman or Spider-Man will hang in there, and lower-tier titles will continue to struggle to find an audience.  Pricing decisions are made by guys that get their comic books for free, and have no direct connection to those that enjoy reading, buying and collecting comics.  We see them all through births, deaths, marriages and divorces, living life and loving comics as much as they can all afford to.  I don't expect corporations to have feelings, I only expect them to remember that with pricing power comes with pricing responsibility.

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.