[scarletneedle]

Source Comic Book Resources

L'interview de Tom Brevoort du 24/06 : ici.

	Citation:
	Speaking of arguments, I wanted to ask you this week about a topic that's been hot on the boards of late: the idea of price versus page count. We've had readers wondering why some books seem to be at $3.99 for less that 22 pages and others asking why some books seem to be headed in DC's direction of 20 pages for $2.99. Overall, is there anything you perceive as a decision made in terms of overall pages to price point, or is there something people aren't seeing about how this all comes together? Brevoort: First off, our page counts tend to fluctuate depending upon story more than anything else, and that was true before the current price wars. The reality is that like everybody else, we're tightening our belts some. We're looking at a down economy and a down marketplace. It's not an absolute thing where we're cutting page counts down to the bone, but we are looking at our spend versus the revenue we're generating and making decision based on that. I'm sort of the wrong guy to talk to about this in a sense because I grew up in the '70s, and in the '70s comics were 17 pages. Going back to the '60s, for a great deal of what we think of as the classic Marvel Age, Marvel books were 20 pages. 22 pages is where things shook out after a bunch of expansions and deflations. Prices in those days tended to go up a nickel, and occasionally people would try to up their page counts to increase by more than a nickel, whether it be DC going to $0.25 for 52 pages or $0.50 with eight-page backups. Eventually everything stabilized at 22 pages an issue. That's as arbitrary a number as anything else. I certainly can understand that people are trying to get value for money, but I don't think a story's quality can be counted simply in terms of the number of pages it has. An excellent 20-page story can be just as or more satisfying than a mediocre to okay 22-page story. If you're just counting widgets, then yes a 22-page story is a better buy for your money. But you're not. You're paying for a reading experience. The reader as a consumer gets to decide what to do with their disposable cash, just as a $2.99 book is more affordable than a $3.99 book. I'm not saying our $3.99 books aren't as good as a non-$3.99 book. I'm just saying that's what it costs. If "Avengers" is worth $3.99 to you, then you can buy it at that price point. If not, maybe you wait for the trade or get it digitally through the Marvel App or on the MDCU eventually. Maybe you wait until a local comic shop is closing down and get it out of their quarter bins. Whatever the case may be, each individual reader is the master of their own destiny in terms of what they believe these comics are worth to them. We make our decisions based on our own fiscal needs. And honestly, some of this too is scheduling. As we're ramping up and trying to produce more of our core titles over the course of a year, it's a lot easier to get particularly our better and slower artists through 21 pages than it is through 22. That's common sense. It's one less page than they have to do. We make the decision to scale back here or there in order to get more releases more often onto the racks. It's not an overall policy I'd say. It's just a shift we have to go through to accommodate all these various elements. Does that make sense?

Langue de bois qu'il aurait encore dû tourner 7 fois dans sa bouche, ça s'appelle le retour de bâton...