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Posted by Don MacPherson on March 16th, 2008
It finally happened. Last week, DC Comics announced it would revise the pricing of its comics to better reflect the value of the Canadian dollar as compared to its weakening U.S. counterpart. The publisher is just, oh, six or seven months behind currency markets and its biggest competitor, Marvel Comics. Of course, Marvel’s current Canadian price is a shade higher than the American cover price, even though the dollar here in the Great White North is stronger than the Yankee Greenback. (This is an issue Eye on Comics has explored in the past. You can find previous articles on the subject here and here.)
So DC’s announcement, though incredibly late, is welcome news for retailers and customers, yes? Well, not really. The manager at my local comic shop, for example, is annoyed at the development; his preference would be that U.S. publishers leave the Canadian price off their comics and graphic novels altogether, allowing for easier adaptation to fluctuations in currency values. That’s what Dark Horse does and many others as well. Anecdotally, what I’ve been hearing is that many Canadian comics retailers have been disregarding the Canadian price for some time, even before the loonie achieved parity with the U.S. buck.
DC made its announcement in its March 11 “DC Comics Direct Channel” digital mailout. Here’s the full text of the applicable item from the e-newsletter to retailers:
“UPDATE ON CANADIAN PRICES
“Please note that beginning with items arriving in Direct Market stores on March 19, DC Comics periodicals will feature a single price for both U.S. and Canada.
“As an example, the price on the cover of ACTION COMICS #863, scheduled to arrive in stores on March 26, reads ‘$2.99 US/Can.’”
It sounds all well and good, and it even seems to one-up Marvel a little (given that Marvel’s $2.99 US titles are priced at $3.05 CAN at the moment). But what caught my eye about the news was what DC didn’t say. The item specifically refers to DC’s “periodicals” — i.e., its comics. What about the trade paperbacks and graphic novels? A message to a DC public-relations staffer yielded no answer to this question.
The last DC book I picked up was Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold Batman Team-Ups Vol. 2, released a couple of months ago. It’s priced at $16.99 US/$20.99 CAN. Given exchange rates at the moment, the Canadian price should really be about 35 cents cheaper. Hell, it should be listed at par at the very least, not four bucks more.
According to its website, DC and its imprints have seven collected editions/books scheduled to ship March 19. They are Batman: The Killing Joke Special Edition, The Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century Vol. 1: Tomorrow’s Heroes, Outsiders: Five of a Kind, Sandman Mystery Theatre Vol. 6: The Hourman and the Python, Moon Child Vol. 10, Musashi #9 Vol. 14 and Young Magician Vol. 11 (the latter three are manga releases from DC’s CMX line).
It’ll be interesting to see what prices grace the covers of those books, what retailers’ and customers’ reactions might be and what DC’s response might be.
Of course, there’s another player to consider, and that’s Diamond Comics. As the foremost distributor of comics in the industry, Diamond has the ability to direct its publisher clients regarding what’s required of the products it carries. If Diamond were to decree that Canadian pricing ought to be history, it’s a move that its retailer customer base would no doubt applaud. And the larger American retail sector? There’s no reason for it to give a damn one way or the other (save for solidarity with its hoser brother).
Hell, dropping the Canadian price from Marvel, DC and other comics would even save a little bit of ink.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Don wrote:
As the foremost distributor of comics in the industry, Diamond has the ability to direct its publisher clients regarding what’s required of the products it carries.
Unfortunately, in the case of the larger, “brokered” publishers, Diamond doesn’t really the leverage to dictate those terms.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Stores in my area have switched their TPBs to the US price listed – so I’ve been buying a lot more trades because it’s a substantial bargain.
But at the same time, I hear rumblings that some stores may go out of business because the effectively-lowered prices are destroying their profits.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Michael wrote:
But at the same time, I hear rumblings that some stores may go out of business because the effectively-lowered prices are destroying their profits.
I think most business people who import or export product across international lines will acknowledge they’re vulnerable to shifts in currency rates. Canadian retailers may bring in less Canadian dollars for their comics now, but they’re also paying less. Canadian retailers are billed in U.S. dollars for each unit, and the total for the week is then converted into Canadian funds. The conversion rate is far kinder today than it was years ago.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Realize that printing books usually takes a longer lead time than printing saddle-stitched comics, so even if DC intends to switch how it presents pricing on the squarebound material, you might not see it in the books that ship the same week as the periodical comics.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Thanks for that experienced perspective, Nat. I guess DC will get the benefit of the doubt for a few weeks.
What’s the About Comics policy re: international pricing of comics and books?
March 19th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
There’s a reason I only buy TPBs online. And I always hear that I should buy them in the comic shop to support my retailer, but I spend way too much on singles there to feel any guilt.
March 20th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I agree with Conor. All my TPB purchases come from online sources. My LCS sells EVERYTHING at the American price, including TPBs, but I still find online purchases to be significantly cheaper for them.
March 21st, 2008 at 1:17 am
Oh, to be clear, I didn’t mean I spent too much in terms of what they charge, just in sheer volume.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Don wrote:
I think most business people who import or export product across international lines will acknowledge they’re vulnerable to shifts in currency rates. Canadian retailers may bring in less Canadian dollars for their comics now, but they’re also paying less.
The issue is books already on the shelves- they paid in low canadian dollars, and now are pressured to sell in HIGH canadian dollars, which in some cases would be at a loss. Some stores have lowered the CDN price of existing stock but can’t lower it to the US stock, since they actually paid MORE than that in CDN.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:27 am
You Canadians can count yourselves lucky that you aren’t paying 2 1/2 X US cover price, which is what we here in New Zealand have been paying for years. The US dollar would have to fall a lot more before we get even to 2X US, and given freight costs down here I doubt it would go much lower.
To give you an idea of PPP (purchasing power parity), a US $2.99 would be NZ$7.50, the equivalent of 62% of the pre-tax minimum hourly wage.
But talking about high prices on back stock TPBs, around the time of the Asian financial crisis, 1997-1999, the NZ dollar was at 45 US cents, (and single issues went to 3X US) the prices on TPBs imported then are horrendous