Another announcement has been made about DC Comics‘ big reboot in September. As we’ve mentioned, the entire DC Universe is being rebooted and started again with #1 issues across the board.
The motivation seems to be the desire for a multipass into the 21st century. As well as releasing dead tree and digital copies of all their comics, DC are going a step further and releasing combo packs. The one thing that immediately strikes me is that they’re going back to their US$3.99 price point for the comics. I’m pretty sure they had promised to move all the main titles to $2.99, but that’s the thing about reboots. You kind of start again.
I’m of two minds of how they’re approaching their pricing structure. Digital comics will have the same cover price as the print editions. That’s right, $3.99. But… after four weeks, the digital versions will drop to $1.99. So a person like me who currently orders online, and typically has to wait a month before seeing his comics anyway… well, this is no undie-ripper. Add to that my three month old stack of unread comics (and the fourth should be here next week), and I’m not always in a hurry to read my stuff. I can wait a month for the price to drop.
Oversized digital issues are stated as starting at $3.99 and dropping to $2.99 after four weeks, which makes me think there’s a misprint in their announcement. Either the regular sized digitals are going to be $2.99 or the oversized will be $4.99. Or maybe it is as stated, both start at $3.99 and drop to different price points after the month.
This is what I suspect are the real numbers for the digital comics:
Regular: $2.99 -> $1.99
Oversized: $3.99 -> $2.99
The combo packs will cost US$4.99 and will be polybagged versions of the print comics. Packed into the bag will be an individual code so you can download the digital. Doesn’t seem like a completely stupid idea, but with comics are people really going to want both? One to collect and one to read?
Or is this enough to change attitudes? I’m a collector and only tend to read issues once or twice. And I fully expect to read all of them again when I retire. I have shifted away from DC comics and just stuck with Marvel comics because I simply don’t earn enough for everything I want. I already spend several hundred dollars a month on comics. But maybe the lower digital pricing will be enough for me to primarily be a “reader” of DC comics.
Update: Not really worthy of a full post, but DC have announced their first 11 titles, along with cover art.
