Hey comic publishers, I figured out how to save your shitty industry

>>86848182
>where you order a box that gets you say 5 different single issues

It was shit when they did the "mystery bags" on newstands, and it's shit here unless they're all #1's introducing things.

Getting shit out in the middle of a run was retarded.

>>86848257
Okay how about the box has a set content, so you don't end up getting random issues. For example:
You could get the Batman Box, which includes all the different batman series in a single package each month.
Or the Batfamily Box, which would include Batgirl, Nightwing, Red Hood etc.
Or the Justice League Box, which includes all the Justice League team books.

I'd say thats a good idea but their whole Timely Comics thing doesn't really do as great as one would think, however to be fair it's like a year behind current events and I'm sure there's some cost cutting measure that lets them sell them at a buck a pop. I heard otherwise the current price minimum is due to print methods if they went cheaper they wouldn't make a profit and apparently nerds are more willing to pay for the glossy magazine shit than the newsprint.

But we keep having these threads and I'm sure there's a lot of inside info that makes our ideas shit, not to imply they're doing a great job of running things. But they seem averse to simple ideas like anthologies and advertising or making a digital version cheaper, so rather than think they're too stupid to think of it themselves maybe there's an actual reason they don't do it.

>>86848182
>Start charging $1 per single issue, $1.50 at the absolute maximum
Congratulations, you are now selling every single comic book at a loss!

>>86848182
>1) Start charging $1 per single issue, $1.50 at the absolute maximum. I want to give you my money, but you've got to meet me half way and make it worth spending.
>Hey comic publishers, why don't you try losing money on all your output?

>2) Check out this lootcrate shit
Lootcrate has put comics in there before and this did not magically enhance the comics industry

>>86848182
>he doesn't know how the industry or diamond works

Go all the way and say to drop floppies altogether and do nothing but OGNs

>>86848424
Crashing the industry with no survivors, you madman.

>>86848182
They do loot crate shit. It's how they manage to inflate new #1 sales.

>people actually buy lootcrates

It still boggles my mind, it's just grab bag of merchandise from franchises you may not even like or know. Nerd culture was a mistake.

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>>86848182
Check out this lootcrate shit. There's a whole bunch of these crappy boxes filled with cheap pop culture merchandise and people pay a monthly subscription to get them delivered to their door. How about making a ComicCrate, where you order a box that gets you say 5 different single issues plus a little figurine or t-shirt or keychain or whatever the fuck else. Pay youtubers to review them for you. It's easy money.
They already have those.

>>86848635
They're independent distributors that offload shit they can't otherwise sell though.

>>86848701
Which is exactly what Loot crate is and why they are able to make a profit. Why would DC comics sell you 5 floppies at 1.50 a piece when they made $1076271.43 off of Harley Quinn alone in August at 2.99 an isssue?

>>86848467
This gets me too. Maybe it's worth it if you always get into flavor of the month shit or if you're a nouveau nerd looking to get started on a collection to show off.

>>86848182
Ive spent ton of money in comics over the years, and I will never buy a stupid ass crate. Thats for teenagers and faggots.

>>86848182
1-1.50 bucks would make them lose over half of their profits.
They would lose a shit ton when I buy 1 or 2 a week.

>>86848800
Lootbox is the "I'm a part of nerd culture" starter pack.

>>86848355
I honestly wouldn't understand how fucking mentally retarded one must be to not see that this is the only possible way of this shit working out

>>86848785
Because they obviously want to expand their consumer base to people who currently do not buy comics. Thats why DC and Marvel (especially Marvel) keep relaunching their comics and introducing new legacy characters.

But comic books are an expensive hobby. They're wasting their time so long as they don't make them accessible to the people they want to start buying them.

>>86848970
If they're needing to expand their consumer base, trying to convert adults who don't have a history of reading comics is a lost cause. You have to be pretty dedicated to learning the capeshit storytelling style if you haven't grown up with it already.

The Big 2 should really be working on upping their efforts to snag young and YA readers early or diversifying the genres they work with, especially to attract people who grew up with manga during the boom.

>>86848970
That's retarded. Comics are in the eye of the average consumer more now than ever before. Why would they take a loss now especially when they are already getting making out great with companies like Loot Crate and Comic Bento already.

>>86849134
They should make a deal and get in on the Scholastic Book Fair. Look at what it did for Smile and Captain Underpants.

>>86848635
I got a year sub once as a gift and it was stupid. I think I have maybe 8 things that I thought were neat/useful.

And I'm counting the shoelaces that I got cause I needed some shoelaces at the time.

>>86849272
I like the idea of getting something random I might like but I don't want hot garbage. I'd rather have there be a questionnaire about what kind of comics you are looking for, like Books by the Foot, or I'd rather have a setting on Amazon that randomly picks something from my wishlist and buys that.

>>86849137
>Comics are in the eye of the average consumer more now than ever before
they used to be in supermarkets and liquor stores, anon

>>86849421
And news stands, but I'm not sure if news stands are even a thing any more.

There are multiple mystery boxes just for comics though.
Like, Lootcrate is just the tip of the iceberg for mystery boxes, that rabbit hole runs deep.

>>86849421
And now people are constantly talking about them on tv and the internet and sales are at 90's levels again.

>>86849535
lel

>>86849719
What's funny?

>>86849421
You do realize that magazines have been having circulation problems in the last five years, right?

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/magazine-circulation-takes-a-new-hit/

>>86848182
>1) Start charging $1 per single issue, $1.50 at the absolute maximum.

Yeah, that's not going to happen. Even back in the mid-90s Marvel tried making comics 99 cents, but the newsstand distributors refused to stock 99 cent comics because it'd mean the grocery stores, bookstores, etc would be taking a major loss.

$4-5 is high for a comic but there's no way they can go to $1-1.50 except maybe for one celebration issue or something.

>>86849421
>>86849447

Here's the thing about the newsstand/supermaket/etc

If they decided to drop the direct market and go solely that route again, the prices are still gonna be high. All the DC $2.99 stuff is $3.99 at non-comic shops. Marvel did this too back in the late 00's, where the newsstand stuff is raised by a dollar. Supermarkets and all that aren't willing to take losses on low price comics.

Why is it that everytime someone suggests to save the industry, it always start with this stupid "BRING BACK NEWSSTAND COPIES", magazines are doing terribly and they'll be forced to sell that shit at a higher price , no one's gonna fucking buy that shit. If people want cheaper comics, they'll wait for Comixology sales you idiot. Publishers can't sell comics for a loss
>B-buh m-muh loss in paper quality can make up for it
No, it fucking can't you faggot.

>>86850406
Invincible sold for 50cents. Checkmate

>>86850406

$2.99 is the lowest they're ever going to go in any sort of long term capacity. The cheapest comic I've ever seen was an issue of Invincible that was 25c

>>86851155

It was 25 and it was Kirkman willingly taking a massive loss to gain more readers. He was only able to do that as he answers to nobody and has to pay out of his own money. Why they choose such a boring issue and not the one with Thragg fighting Battle Beast I will never know

>>86851155
For how many issues? see >>86850406
>except maybe for one celebration issue or something.

If Kirkman had Invincible sell for 50 or 25 cents an issue for like a year, your argument would mean something. But stuff like that, the Marvel 9 cent issues and the Batman 10 cent adventure were just one issue of a series.

>>86851161
Retailers want to make money too. It's not worth it for them to regularly sell 25 cent comics, or $1 comics, or whatever. $2.99 is as low as we are going to get, and probably where it should be at. $3.99 is a little high. More than that for 20 story pages is retarded. At least the Marvel $4.99 books have extra story pages.

>>86848182
literally no comic publishers visit 4chan

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Here's all comic sales from comichron that are less than a dollar.
It works for some books, but it's generally inadvisable.

>>86848257
They're still doing those mystery bags at Walmart now. Five bucks for three issues. DC just put out some packs of Rebirth #1's.

>have to pay writer
>have to pay penciller
>have to pay inker
>have to pay colorist
>have to pay letterer
>have to pay editors
>have to pay to be printed and stapled
>have to pay to be shipped to store
>I know guys let's sell them for $1!

How about you fire all the above people except the penciller who will write and draw each issue themselves, then have them inked, colored and lettered in Comic-Sans in a studio in Korea, and finally emailed to customers for them to print out at their local Kinkos? Then they can charge a dollar per issue and your ridiculous "strategy" will work wonders!

>>86851372
I doubt DC is doing those. It's probably some company that takes all the returns and packages them up for resale. I remember seeing packs mixed with different publishers in the past.

Not like Diamond can take a returned comic from a store and resell it to another store. They do that with TPB's though which pisses my store off when they get an old trade returned from a bookstore with their big sticker on it.

>>86848355
They already do exactly this on DCBS, and you can just tell your LCS to bundle them together for you.

These threads always reek of a bunch of teenagers upset that comics cost too much of their allowance.

>>86851399
There's no reason to have inkers and letterers nowadyas. And colorists are a dying breed.

>>86851409
Well they've specifically got the DC logo smacked all over them and advertised as DC Rebirth packs. You get one Rebirth issue and two pre-Rebirth issues. I picked one up with a Superman Rebirth #1, Darkseid War Lex Luthor, and New 52 Secret Origins last night.

>>86851442
Yes, comics will suddenly magically become good just because you don't think inking or lettering or coloring is neccesary.

>>86851442
Okay, let's say they do direct from pencils. That requires tighter pencils usually, which takes more time, which costs more. Anyway, let's assume it costs the same.

Who is doing the letters in your scenario? Is the penciller just drawing them on the page? Who is doing the colors? Some hack using the paint fill tool?

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>>86851528
This is what they want the future to be.

>>86851426
Honestly the idea of a comic loot crate style thing is sort of appealing but I wouldn't want it for floppies. If a used book store was offering something like that I might do it.

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>>86851560

>>86851528
I didn't say they weren't necessary, just that they are jobs that can be folded into other positions.
>>86851533
Why can't the penciler just ink their own work? Why pay a separate person to ink? Same with colors, they're professional artists, they should be able to figure out color theory.
Even if you just have one artist and pay them more, you're still saving money because you don't have to pay 4 separate people.

>>86851600
you are a special kind of idiot. Then the penciller would just get inker and colorist credit along with their pay you dumbfuck. And most pencillers do ink their work now. Inking used to be a work of art by itself, as a matter of fact, pencillers then weren't even expected to put a huge amount of detail. Which is why they used to be called layouts, while inkers where called finishes because they fine tuned all the details

>>86851600
>Why can't the penciler just ink their own work?

Cause it would still cost more. You're paying penciling and inking rates.

>>86851600
>they're professional artists, they should be able to figure out color theory

Some people know how to actually properly color well.

>>86851442
Even if you eliminated the color, the cost of the comic would still be the same. It's not suddenly gonna drop a dollar just because there's no colorist. If that were true all the indie black-and-white stuff would've cost cheaper than Marvel and DC comics.

>>86851634
Depending on contracts, I assume it's cheaper to pay one person to pencil, ink, and color than it is to pay three separate people. If not, the people who drew up those rates are retarded.
>>86851643
Read the last sentence again.
>>86851661
Sure, but if you're looking to save money you need to make some sacrifices.
>>86851676
Can't you read? I never said to eliminate colors.

>>86851634
Not to mention it would just take the artists longer per issue, when they could be using that time to do the pencils for later issues or other books. Meaning you'd end up with more and more chances for delays.

The thing is that there are 3 parties that are perfectly happy with how things are now.

>Diamond gets to control almost all comic book traffic, they essentially have a monopoly

>Marvel and DC easily retain the top spots in DIamond sales, they have figured that comics is just an IP factory that they've been milking since the 70s with merchandising, and not TV and movie licensing, while knowing they are safe from other companies getting their spots.


So, yeah, I only buy floppies of comics I really like and want to support, but that doesn't always work. Anything else, I get either in batches, or second hand etc.

Easiest way to save the industry is to have issue numbering with a story arc numbering. Issue 999 Retcon Arc 1 of 10. Now there's an easy way to jump in and jump out.

Big 2 can't convert manga readers without entry and exit points. Especially in capes which never end

>>86851781
>>86851634
And even if it did cut costs the consumer still wouldn't see them. I mean look at how much they are selling digital comics for and they don't have to pay anything for printing them.

>>86851913
Marvel has already done this before (presumably didn't help), marvel is about to do it again, DC has done it sparingly before, and DC is doing it some with Rebirth

And a lot books already do it with solicits and have been doing it for years

>>86851872
I can't wait for Diamond to get buttfucked by an eventual anti-monopoly hearing. I don't know how they've let it go for so long.

>>86851442
Just because you are willing to read black and white pencil comics with no dialogue or sound effects doesn't mean a significant number of people are.

>>86851976
>monopoly

The top selling books sell about 100,000 copies. That isn't much to give a shit about. Also, Marvel/DC/etc. can sell outside Diamond if they want, it's just exclusive to the direct market. Publishers don't want to sell via the newsstand.

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>>86848182
>Hey comic publishers, I figured out how to save your shitty industry and am giving away the secret for free

All this translates to: HI I'M A BIG WIG THAT DOESN'T UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH IT COST TO MAKE ACTUAL COMIC BOOKS! IT'S EASY! IT WILL ONLY TAKE 10 MINUTES! I'M A DUMB MOTHERFUCKER THAT HAS NO CLUE WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!

>>86851600
>Why can't the penciler just ink their own work? Why pay a separate person to ink? Same with colors, they're professional artists, they should be able to figure out color theory.
Because not every penciller can or is willing to ink their own work?

Ethan Van Sciver inks his own work and he has mentioned that he struggles to get an issue out every month and he's had to increase his output and tweak the way he draws.
>Even if you just have one artist and pay them more, you're still saving money because you don't have to pay 4 separate people.
Did you know that all these jobs take time? If every artist were required to ink and color their own work for every issue of a book comics would either put out 4 issues a year or you'd get even less art consistency on a book. Do you think they just pop out OGNs like they're nothing? Do you think that artists would be willing to go longer between paychecks because they have to spend longer on a book? Do you think getting paid triple for doing three jobs instead of one is what artists WANT?

You don't know what you're talking about.

>>86851976
They've already tried calling Diamond a monopoly but nobody gave a shit because it's just comic books.

>>86851976
>by an eventual anti-monopoly hearing.
You mean the one they tried in 97 and was closed because they only distribute comics?

>>86851958
It needs to be standardized across all books and the publisher has to lock the artist down for the whole arc. Writer changes aren't apparent but an artist change is reading a new book.

>>86852110
It's a nice thought, but reality prevents that. Sure, you lock in the artist for a 6-issue arc and expect them to deliver an issue every month. Then shit happens. They get behind schedule. They get sick. Someone in the family dies. They die. All sorts of reasons. The publisher can't afford to just wait for that artist to get back to work every time, as the people buying the comics will lose interest if there isn't a new issue out regularly. Look at all the momentum that was lost with the Sabrina and Afterlife with Archie comics for example.

>>86848829
>>Ive spent ton of money in comics over the years.

This will lead to people not supporting independent comic creators.

Jesus fuck people. You all suck.

>>86851600
>Why can't the penciler just ink their own work? Why pay a separate person to ink? Same with colors, they're professional artists, they should be able to figure out color theory.

Because not every artist is capable of doing all of those things in a timely manner. And even if they did, they'll still have to shortcut.

Dave Sim did writing, penciling, inking, and lettering, but then he brought on a background artist. And then at times there were pages were it was primarily backgrounds only.

John Byrne did writing, penciling, inking, and lettering, and got his books out on time, but a lot of people complained that Byrne's inking himself isn't the best. The other thing is that if you look at stuff when he started doing most of the work and doing multiple books a month, you'll start seeing comics where he shortcut by eliminating backgrounds and things like that.

I personally like the Shonen Jump model. Giving new talent a chance in a monthly omnibus, and then cycling in the popular stuff into regular series rotation. Its cheap because the print is only black ink on recycled paper,so the cost stays low for mass production.

>>86852220
>Its cheap because the print is only black ink on recycled paper,so the cost stays low for mass production.

How much are the creators getting paid? And how much do the people working on the manga get paid?

>>86851758
>Read the last sentence again.

They're still doing more work you fucking idiot so you would still need to pay them more

>>86851758
>Read the last sentence again.
>Can't you read?

Maybe you should write better.

>>86848467
I got the Indie Game crate for a while. Really cool if you need some decorations real quick.
Yknow?

>>86850927
But it is half right in that comics have very little retail presence outside of specialty shops. Basically the only way to sell someone comics is if they're already looking for them.

Though it's a problem that can't even be solved by putting comics in toy stores and supermarket news stands because both of those things are failing as well.

Retail is on its way out pretty fast so the focus should be on advertising, not availability.

>>86852296

Fuck all and no westerner would work such dogshit hours either

>>86852144
Manga readers deal with hiatuses all the time. Readers do not mind waiting an extra month for the same artist.

Does different artists really bother people that much?

>>86851569
Comic Bento is exactly that. But I looked their past shipments and everything was awful.

>>86852535
The money comes later, in reprint editions, merch tie-ins, and tv series rights.

Americans have it ass-backwards, they want the money first before they even write something.

You're a genius OP, I bet car companies would sell a shit load more cars if they priced them at $100 per car.

It's true that publishers are desperately searching for new customers but their end goal is not to win a popularity contest it is profit. Selling their product for a loss will ensure they are popular but they will go bankrupt in the process.

>>86848467
I only ever found appeal in one company's "crate" and that was only because the contents were specifically limited to blurays of Japanese and Lucha wrestling videos AND every bluray was not yet released on their site AND one bluray per crate was guaranteed to never be available outside the crate.

No key chains, no stickers, no POP figurines(!), no toys, no bandanas, no useless merch. I wanted blurays and I got blurays.

That's the only way comic publishers could do this...extremely specific crates catering to what their fans likely already buy. It would be worse in fact because if the boss didn't include books in sequential order the fans would revolt, nobody collects issues 1, 4, 5 & 9 of a series.

In all honesty, I don't see this increasing the number of new comic fans, you'd just see current fans trying it out. I'm sure Diamond would put the kibosh on the deal though, not to mention LCS opposition.

>>86852854
See I don't want garbage, sure I've seen people get stuff like Fear Agent and other stuff but a lot of it looks like just crap. It would be better if it was someone picking things for you like with Books by the Foot.

>>86852535
Not to mention most of the art in manga is done by assistants that get zero credit for it, are paid garbage and expected to work until they pass out.
>>86852995
I've been looking at some of the snack crates because I like snacks.

>>86852738
I read my comics in trade format and it doesn't bother me to be honest. I liked what they did with new 52 Wonder Woman where a fill in artist (with a style that resemble Chiang's) was doing an entire arc and then it switched with the regular artist for the more important part of the runs. New52 Swamp Thing is also alright in that regard where half an issue is drawn by some guy and the other half by another guy. It would be bothersome if the two guy had distinctively different art styles but in that case, it blends well.

>>86853038
Didn't know they had "snack crates"

How does that work? Like...how do they prepare for allergies or just general preferences?

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>>86848970
>But comic books are an expensive hobby

I'd personally say the problem is way less with that and way more with how most comics just aren't fun to read.

>>86852738
>Does different artists really bother people that much?

Depends on how jarring the difference is.

I remember on Marvel how I had to drop the X-23 solo title a few years ago, because while I loved one of the artists, I hated the fuck out of the other, and they were constantly switching between the two. It was just too much to bear.

>>86854827
Don't know why you would say that.

There are fun comics, sad comics, thrilling comics, uplifting comics, trashy comics, etc. Just about every genre under the sun...

BUT all comics are fairly expensive. Most kids dont want to blow their whole allowance on 4~6 comics a week every week, they'd probably be happier saving up for a video game or something.

Try to convince a curious adult to spend $4 on a 24 page comic where 1/4 of the page count is ads. Even worse for modern comics where the dialogue is so sparse you can breeze through a comic in under 3 minutes time.

>>86848467

Same here. The idea of subscribing to a bag of random crap that you might have no use for is so far beyond the realm of what I'd do that I can't comprehend it. Only sort of "crate" that possibly might snare me is one where the domain of the items is extremely limited (ie. only contains Magic boosters and nothing else) and they're HEAVILY discounted. "Get five random comics per month" sounds like absolute god damn trash to me, since there's such a wild variety of comics that any given person is only likely to like less than 1% of them.

>>86855117
>Don't know why you would say that.

Personal experience. My problem with (non-manga) comics definitely isn't that I can't afford them, but rather the fact that I can't find comics that I'd actually want to own for any price. DC's and Marvel's output just depresses me, and indies don't fare much better.

>>86849736
Saying that current comic sales are on the level of the 90s. That's a good joke.

>>86855431
They did reach a 90s level in August thanks to Harley and All Star Batman

>According to the industry’s leading sales analyst, John Jackson Miller of Comichron, the monopolistic comics distributor Diamond shipped 10.26 million copies of comic books and graphic novels to comic-book shops in August. That’s the biggest distribution month since December of 1996.
http://www.vulture.com/2016/09/comics-circulation-just-hit-a-20-year-high.html

And then there's how trade sales have been going up and up for the past few years and helped comic sales reach a billion last year.

http://www.comicsbeat.com/comics-and-graphic-novel-sales-top-1-billion-in-2015/

So what's to stop marvel/DC from doing something ala Hulu/Netflix? I'm sure there's a ton of people who'd enjoy something like that. Offer a ton of backlogged shit for free, and new releases for premium subscribers. Physical media is dying. Those of us who enjoy the physical stuff are fewer and fewer in numbers these days, and even fewer of us actually buy floppies. Most physical copy collectors get shit like trades, hardcover releases, etc. Adapting your media to popular modus consumption is a great way to both entice consistent customers (maybe offer physical copies at large discounts for premium subs) and get a newer audience by expanding your sphere of influence

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>>86848182
You mean like this?

>>86856119
Marvel has Marvel Unlimited.

>>86856119
Marvel has marvel unlimited and DC has no reason to do something like this.

DC kills in trades and every year Image seems to get closer due to more vol 1s and more backlog.

>>86855117
Ads don't count towards page count.
If you remove all ads most big two books are still ~22 pages.

>>86848182
Things from another world does something similar with their grab bags.

It's .50 cents for a random floppie from DC/Marvel/Indies and $3 for a random dark horse or Marvel trade.

>>86852980
>Americans have it ass-backwards, they want the money first before they even write something.

That's not limited to Americans.