Comic Reviews by Walt

I posted on this subject a few weeks ago, but have noticed it again a couple times recently.

The pricing—all publishers are guilty, but I’ve mostly noticed it with Marvel books—just seems so out of proportion when books are compared to each other.

Where I’d thought it fairly standard that a six-issue “standard size” TPB would be $14.99 or so…I found that the first volume of Ultimate Comics Avengers, collecting the first six issues of that series, carries a PAPERBACK cover price of $19.99.

As shown to the left of this text, the huge, quasi-omnibus sized Civil War: Spider-Man volume carries a $39.99 cover price. Next to it, the SIGNIFICANTLY smaller in physical dimensions/thickness Deadpool & Cable volume…is also $39.99.

Granted, both volumes contain roughly 18 issues of content, from presumably regularly-sized issues of ongoing series (at the time the series were published). But that hardcover collection is made up of pages enlarged—taller and wider than “standard comic size”…and it’s a hardcover collection. And it’s got the same price as the scrawney-by-comparison paperback.

Really makes the paperback seem like not only an inferior product, but a bad value by comparison, phsyically.

I’ve gotta imagine it’s much cheaper to produce a paperback edition than hardcover. Factor in the extra paper involved by the larger physical dimensions, and honestly…I just don’t “get” it.

$40 is a lotta money…and it’s one thing to drop it on a huge, heavy hardcover. But to see it as the price on a thin little paperback…geez.

Of course, even within the line…the volume containing the only-7-issues Civil War main event itself is also $39.99…and much more comparably sized, at least physically.

These also put the $50 Starman Omnibus volume to shame.

And this is why I buy from Amazon or Half-Price Books, or wait for 33% and 40% coupons from Borders (not even getting into the developing fate of Borders).

Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: book pricing, book value, books, borders, cable, civil war: spider-man, comics, comics pricing, Deadpool, graphic novels, value |