1968 is around the time that the newsstand started to die. And the death of the newsstand is why there's a direct comics market. And the attrition of the direct comics market is why there's a push into bookstores and digital markets. Lemme explain.
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Comics sales had been slipping to varying degrees since Fredric Wertham and his Crazy Cronies on Capitol Hill (my new band name) tried to censor the heck out of the comics industry during the 1950's Pervy Comics Content scare. Another great band name.
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Superhero comics, for better or worse, were the main survivors of the Great Comics Purge (I am all about the great band names). But even though sales managed to remain in the hundreds of thousands for major titles, the world changed around the market.
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Comic books were cheap & distributed at mom & pop shops all over the country most of which no longer exist-slowly replaced by chains like 7-11. I never bought a comic in a mom & pop shop, because even though I'm a crusty comics veteran...
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mom & pop shops were going the way of the soda jerk and the egg cream, which a significant portion of my audience here will now run and look up, because these are new terms to you. It's not that comics didn't have an audience, it's that they didn't PAY...AND-
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They had new competition for attention: you know, TV. We only had three channels, but it was free. Also, comics just didn't make the big bucks. Remember when Martin Goodman, head honcho of Marvel, wanted to shut it all down and just do mags about golf?
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And soft core porn, but we don't judge. Anyway, back to those mom & pop shops. Here's something a lot of folks don't get: you gotta make a profit on this stuff, folks. And in 1968, the cover price of a comic was around 12 cents.
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Now, adjusted for inflation, that's, maybe $1, but here's what you have to consider: to make a profit, the store has to sell enough volume of the 12 cent product to justify the shelf space. And that store isn't getting 12 cents, they're getting about 30-40%.
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OK, now how many comics do you have to sell at a take of about 3.5 cents per copy in order to justify the rent on the rack space in your store? Answer: a lot. Especially when that rack space could be going to higher priced magazines.
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Now, unsold copies are returnable, so you can get credit, but factor in the cost of doing business of reserving the space for product, then sending back the unsold product. Returnable product gets a higher discount (direct market product is sold at 60%-70%)
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if you're Midtown Comics or Forbidden Planet. the small fry get closer to 50%
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