A lot has been said lately on the seemingly never ending price increase with comic books. What was once a fairly cheap medium has now become an expensive one.
Or has it?
Columnist Rich Johnson in a recent Lying in the Gutters column posted a chart showing the price of Amazing Spider-Man from 1977 to the present. In 1977 a single issue of Amazing Spider-Man cost 30 cents. An issue currently costs $2.99 and the price is rumored to be rising to $3.99 sometime next year.
How would this compare to price increases seen in mass market paperbacks during the same period?
Looking though my own mass market paperbacks, the oldest book I have is The Crystal Shard, a fantasy adventure novel based in the Forgotten Realms series written by R.A. Salvatore. It was published in 1988 and it was priced at $4.95. I have paperbacks in the same series that were published much more recently. Siege of Darkness, also written by R.A. Salvatore was published in 2006 and it was priced at $7.99.
If my math is correct, the price increase for a R.A. Salvatore fantasy adventure paperback from 1988 to 2006 was 61.4%. The price increase for an Amazing Spider-Man comic from 1988 to 2006 was 233.3%. Worse, though the price of a paperback has not changed from 2006, the price for a comic book has by nearly 50 cents. That brings the price increase for comic books to 298.6%.
I compare the two mediums because I used to regularly buy both comics and paperbacks. I noticed after a while that I was getting a lot more enjoyment from the science fiction, fantasy adventure, and horror paperbacks I was buying then the similar genre comics I was buying. I could spent $9 for three comics and have them all read in less then 30 minutes. When I spent the same amount of money (even less) on a paperback, It would take me hours to read it. I realized I was getting a lot more bang for my buck with paperbacks then I was with comics.
So yes, comic books are just too exspensive.
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