Among other announcements made at WizardWorld Long Beach, DC made a bunch of statements during their first major panel. Some are intriguing, some kind of no-brainers and one in particular is just flat out counterproductive.
No trades of “52″ will be released until after issue “52″ hits the stands, Wayne said.
Yeah, this is smart – try to punish the readers who need to be a little frugal in their purchases by delaying the collections a full year after the huge, continuity-laying series starts. I was planning on reading “52″ in trade, figuring it’d be running 3, maybe 4 months behind at most. In a year, I’m not really sure I’ll be at all interested in what happened the year prior, so unless some seriously groundbreaking shit happens that I gotta see, I’m figuring that I’m just one lost sale. I’ve talked about this with a few friends who were in similar situations and came to similar solutions, so I’m curious – how are you planning to attack the whole “52″ mess?
I assumed they were going to do a monthly or bi-monthly trade collecting the issues, but it seems DC is too canny — they’ll probably make more money this way, so what can you do.
Hey, if I hear it’s worth a read, I’ll just get the trades in a year. No big whoop. It’s like waiting to watch a TV show on DVD.
The difference between waiting to watch a show on DVD and this is that the whole time I’m waiting for “52,” the titles I’m still reading will be filling me in on the information I need from “52.” I know DC will still make mad bank from the TPB end of things, but I don’t think it’s the brightest move, nor the most profitable.
But aren’t the titles one year after 52 or something? So maybe you don’t exactly need the backstory…?
Man, all I know is this whole thing (Infinite Crisis, 52, etc) is the single most elaborate crossover/superhero-gasm I’ve ever seen. Completely insane.
Actually, this is the more profitable move for DC. Take Batman Hush — vol. 1 sold something like 28,000 copies to date. Not a huge number. But I’m guessing the single issues sold north of 150,000 each. 52 will be similar, especially since they’re $2.50, which is lower than most “special” issues or series these days.
I don’t understand – how does waiting a year to begin releasing collections end up putting more money in DC’s pocket? Wouldn’t getting the TPBs out while the buzz is hot and immediate translate into stronger initial sales with the potential for stronger long term market potential?
(disclaimer: I have no practical experience in the book selling market, just comic selling)
For starters 52 will probably be VERY expensive.
Smaller TPBs would be cheaper. They would sell more. But I think they are gonna take the Lucas approach on this one.
I’ll likely still get all the issues. DCBS had issue #1 for $0.75 and the subsequent ones for $1.25. I can handle that.
Murray, what is that in Canadian dollars?
At today’s exchange rate, $0.875 and $1.458 CDN. I’ve now been buying all my new books exclusively in US dollars for going on 4 years, so I couldn’t even tell you the CDN cover price of a comic book anymore!