The Price of Comics Keeps Creeping Up

That $4.99 though...

There was once a man who ran for mayor of New York City as well as Governor. His name was Jimmy McMillan. He was a third-party candidate for the, "Rent is Too Damn High Party," and he often would exclaim, "The rent is too damn high!" He was spoofed by Saturday Night Live's Kenan Thompson and was a bit of a meme for a while. Sometimes I feel like Mr. McMillan when I look at the price of comics. I see news reports that DC is thinking of trying to charge in the realm of $4.99 for a 30-page comic and $5.99 for a 40-page book and I want to scream, "The price of comics is too damn high!"

I already don't read a ton of DC as only a handful of titles have appealed to me lately--the more off-kilter ones such as, "Man-Bat," "Strange Adventures," and, "Far Sector." Seeing that they may very well keep their prices creeping up makes me want to read even less or basically none of DC, however. I remember when almost any comic was barely $2, then $2.99 was the standard. After that, we saw a slow creep to $3.99 for almost everything. Eventually, we may see comic-books price almost everyone out of reading them at this rate. I read a report once somehow about how the price of comics is multiple times above the regular inflation level, they're just getting absurdly costly. I'm lucky as someone with a long-running website to get press access to a number of titles from various publishers, but I still have to pay for a chunk of stuff I want to read. At this rate, I'll be buying less and less.