The Captain Marvel Price Challenge

digresssmlOriginally published March 29, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1480

AN OPEN LETTER TO BILL JEMAS AND JOE QUESADA:

Well, I gotta tell you guys: Reading that Captain Marvel was going up in price to $2.75, along with other critical favorites/fan snubs Spider-Girl and Black Panther, just gave me a warm, squishy feeling in the pit of my stomach; and that’s a considerable amount of pit.

I know, I know, I could have just called you and discussed this privately. But on the suggestion of a fan, you raised the prices without calling and discussing it with me. So I’m just going to follow your lead and air my thoughts on the matter publicly. And hey, Joe, when you challenged Todd McFarlane, you didn’t do it in a friendly phone call or a telegram. You did it on the Internet. So if Marvel’s leaders have opened the door to handling publishing affairs publicly, then I’m going to follow that lead right through the same door. And yes, at the end of this letter, there will be a challenge, so keep reading.

I’ve had a good number of fans tell me that they don’t buy Captain Marvel—never even sampled it—for three reasons. First, they have no intrinsic interest in, or even have an antipathy for, Genis-Vell, the son of Mar-Vell and our titular hero. Second, believe it or not, because the book is $2.50 rather than $2.25, I’ve been told point blank that some fans are not interested in spending the extra quarter on a character who holds no draw for them.

So learning (second hand, thanks for the heads-up, guys) that the book would be jumping yet another twenty five cents, well; that loud ringing in my head sure sounded like a death knell to me, yes indeedy.

I’ve never written a series like Captain Marvel before. I have never written a title that has been such a consistent, uniform, resounding critical success and simultaneously ignored by fans. It’s rather wearying, I have to say, to read review after review that boils down to two things: “This is one of the best books Marvel is publishing,” and “Why is no one buying it?”

Well, it’s not exactly “no one,” is it. It’s “DC numbers.” Which is kind of funny when one thinks that DC numbers include a $7.95 book pulling in the number one slot, but let’s put that aside for a moment.

How creatively uplifting do you folks think it is to have the top guys in the company singling out a title you work on as in line for the chopping block? Until now, no one had publicly been saying anything about the series being in trouble. It was Spider-Girl that had been canceled. But now Captain Marvel has been given that same near-cancellation taint, and believe me when I say it is a taint. Just as many people stop watching television shows when they hear they’ve been canceled, they will also stop buying a comic when they think that the end of the title is near. They figure, “What’s the point?”

Indeed, Marvel’s history of quick cancellations has been one of the stumbling blocks to getting people to try Captain Marvel in the first place (bet you thought I forgot all about a third reason when I mentioned it in an earlier paragraph, huh?) The reasoning is, “Why bother getting attached to a title when Marvel’s just going to cancel it anyway? If the book does wind up hanging around for a few years, Marvel will collect it in trade paperbacks, I’ll buy those, get caught up and then start buying it.”

Here you’ve got a title with a loyal readership. It can be perceived that by raising it a quarter, you are rewarding that readership by allowing the book to continue. And some of them are indeed grateful, and have the attitude that they would pay any amount of money to keep reading it.

But not all of them. There is certainly a percentage who will feel that they are getting screwed. That Marvel is rewarding their continued support by singling them out to bear an increased cost. That their devotion is effectively being punished. They’ll feel they’re being told, You like this book? Hah! Then you’ll have to pay through the nose to get it. And they’re going to resent it, and silently voice that resentment with a closed wallet. Furthermore, many fans come into stores with a set amount of money they’re going to spend. If a rise in a book’s price puts it over that set amount, they drop the title. Simple as that.

And in the meantime, will anyone new sample the book? Good lord, no. If they weren’t buying it at $2.50, they’re sure as hëll not going to start at $2.75.

So by bumping the price up, let’s see what’s been accomplished in exchange for keeping the title around for another year: You’ve stitched the scarlet “C” of cancellation on it, you’ve virtually guaranteed a drop in overall readership from people who will not want to pay the increased price, and also virtually ensured that no new fans will pick it up because they consider the title terminal or simply not worth the inflated cover price. Yes, a handful of fans are grateful. But I suspect the attrition from the fans who don’t share that gratitude and the likely lack of expanding readership will wind up causing that increased price to be a wash.

Were there other ways to help the title aside from raising it a quarter? Of course. First, advertising would have helped. There’s been none. No promotion of this book.

Second, every time I did something story-wise to give Marvel a hook into pushing the series, Marvel has not only fumbled the ball, but the ball’s never even been picked up. I custom wrote a story for #19 to take advantage of the Marvel Slashback program, a program designed to try and get readers to sample titles they weren’t already buying. Except the program was limited to Avengers and Incredible Hulk, and at the time, Hulk was ranked #55 and Avengers was ranked at #6. These needed help? And then the program was scuttled right before Captain Marvel, buried in the low 80s ranking-wise, could take advantage of it. Then I developed a four-part time travel storyline featuring characters from 2099 and Future Imperfect. Not only was there no promotion of it—not so much as a store flier or in-house ad—but the solicitation info didn’t even make mention of Spider-Man 2099 being in the series.

Third, the retailer at my favorite local store, Fourth World Comics in Smithtown, New York, came up with a simple suggestion: Instead of jacking up the prices twenty five cents on three books not selling well, which will likely cost sales, why not raise the prices fifteen cents on three books that are selling great and won’t even notice. Yes, that’s right, bump up the price on the X-Men titles. For crying out loud, X-Treme X-Men is priced at $2.99 and it sells comparably to the other titles at $2.25. Use the increased profits from those books to float critically acclaimed titles that still need time to find their audiences.

Fourth, you could display faith by saying, “You know, we feel so strongly that people should be buying Captain Marvel that we’re going to knock the price down to $2.25 to encourage people to pick it up, and heavily promote it to boot.” But I suspect you won’t do that because, in business terms, it would be perceived as “throwing good money after bad.” You’ve decided the series will never sell better than bottom rung, and are simply going to help it limp along for a while so that you’re not the bad guys canceling a critically acclaimed book.

Well, guys: I don’t like to limp. I don’t like to see fans penalized an extra quarter just for supporting the book. Young Justice has been on a consistent sales upswing lately, and I’ve got plans afoot for Supergirl that I think are going to pull people in by the carload. But Captain Marvel has an albatross around its neck that you hung there, so I think a different and more drastic approach is called for.

I did the math. When we multiply the book’s circulation by twenty five cents, and then subtract the distributor discount, we’re really only talking a few thousand more dollars in the coffers.

Fine. I have faith in the book and faith, as foolish as it may sound, that quality—given enough time—will pull in readership. There are books that I do more for love and interest than money, since the publishers can’t afford my normal page rate. Soulsearchers and Company has been one. The Haunted is another. I’m prepared to put Captain Marvel into that category; and hopefully my work on those lowly DC titles you diss will help offset the sacrifice.

If Marvel does not raise the price on Captain Marvel, then I in turn will effectively write the book for free. Not completely; we all know that if I don’t get paid, that jeopardizes the book’s “work-for-hire” status. So I will write the book for .95 cents a page, for a total of (get this) $20.99 per issue. The difference between that and what I presently earn should offset the increase of 25 cents that you would have charged the fans. And I will continue to write the book for $20.99 an issue until such time that the book breaks into Diamond’s top 50 or sells over 25,000 copies an issue, whichever comes first.

And in addition, there’s got to be some serious promotion for the title. House ads, at the very least. Ads in CBG or Wizard. Another trade paperback collection would be great. In short, act as if the acclaim the book’s been receiving is something you’re genuinely proud of and want to run with, instead of simply a cross to bear that requires you to keep the title around in some fashion.

On the surface, this seems an insane offer. But I don’t see it that way. See, I’m convinced that if you bump the series up to $2.75, we’re dead in a year. So the income will stop anyway. But I think the book, if given time, will eventually attract the audience that critics and Wizard Magazine have been screaming it deserves, so in two years I’ll still have a book to write and with any luck I’ll be back to getting paid for it.

So that’s the offer. I don’t want to see the fans who have been supportive up until now be singled out for a price increase just because they’ve been enjoying the series that the Captain Marvel creative team has been producing. And if Marvel feels that the book simply can’t be profitable enough to continue publishing under the current P&L situation, I can respect that. So I’ll change the P&L, cutting out my P to offset your L. In short, I’m willing to put my money, rather than the fans’ money, where my mouth is.

Over to you.

Best regards,

Peter David

13 comments on “The Captain Marvel Price Challenge

  1. I’m pretty confident that Marvel not only didn’t take you upon this, but never even read it seriously. Because it’s not about producing good comics… it’s about selling product, period. Selling the SAME product, period.

    And another reason they may not have read this at all… if they’re going to keep shooting themselves in the foot, it takes constant dedication and effort to keep that footgun aimed properly. Sigh.

      1. Yeah, the fallout from this one made the column (and the comics internet in general) pretty interesting for a while.

      1. Wow… I sure got THAT one wrong! I’m kind of amazed that Marvel would have actually given someone a chance like that – even you, Mr. David. It just doesn’t seem like their management style. Glad to see you got some respect.

      2. Respect? They almost fired me before Joe Q. managed to come to terms with the fact that I was simply adopting the same tactics that he and Jemas had been using and decided to seize the promotional possibilities instead of just cutting me loose from the company.

        PAD

  2. “I’m pretty confident that Marvel not only didn’t take you upon this, but never even read it seriously.”

    Though they didn’t take him up on the offer, I’m pretty sure that this article is what kicked off U-Decide.

  3. “Why bother getting attached to a title when Marvel’s just going to cancel it anyway?”

    I can appreciate how frustrating this point of view can be from the creators’ (writers/artists) point of view. It does not make the customers’ any less so, however. Twice I’ve made the mistake of buying DVD sets of an anime series as they came out, only to be left high and dry when the company decided to stop putting them out well before the end of the series. Now, if I can’t buy the series in one go, I don’t bother. Not and risk being left high and dry with only part of the product to show for the cash investment and the rest nowhere in sight. The comic book equivalent of being left in the lurch partway through a story arc, rather than waiting for a trade to come out with the entire set in one shot is enough to deter potential buyers.

    Which can then lead to a self fulfilling prophecy of early cancellation as you put it. Talk about lose-lose.

    1. The current attitude I take when reading/viewing serialized story lines is that my enjoyment is in the journey and not the destination. A lot of my favorite comics, books, TV shows and movie series had (in my humble opinion) very disappointing endings but I still remember them fondly because how they made me feel at different points along the way. The excitement and anticipation after a cliffhanger ending or a story developments that changed it all and opens the door to new story possibilities is something I enjoy having even with the disappointment that comes when a series gets cancelled.

      1. Fair enough and, yes, there are times where this holds true for me as well. However, in the instances I cite, there’s the annoying frustration factor at having invested time and money to follow a story and not finding out how it ends … in spite of knowing there IS an ending, remember we’re talking about translated material from a completed series, but that the company couldn’t be bothered to make it available to its customers.

  4. I can honestly say that I would pay any reasonable amount for All-New X-Factor to continue. I love it that much.

    When the cover price of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (volume 4) went up to $10.00, I bought both issues that were produce after the price jump.

    Actually, I paid $15 apiece, since I didn’t buy them right away and they were already rare when I eventually did.

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