http://13thdimension.com/exclusive-archie-launching-new-classic-digest-series/ (http://13thdimension.com/exclusive-archie-launching-new-classic-digest-series/)
Another digest title coming soon.
Really? $6.99 for 128 pages? Good luck with that Archie Comics.
If you preorder it from Midtown Comics. It will be 35% off. So I will definitely get it from them.
Quote from: Vegan Jughead on July 08, 2017, 10:52:33 PM
Really? $6.99 for 128 pages? Good luck with that Archie Comics.
And yet Archie Comics still manages to hoodwink people into spending $3.99 for a comic book with 20 pages of story (that's
20 cents a page, in case nobody's doing the math). Or $7.98 for 40 pages of story in 2 issues of the same comic book. Go figure!
Even a regular ("Double") digest issue has 164 pages, out of which about 16-18 are advertising. Let's assume that a 128-page digest also has 16 pages of ads. That leaves 112 pages of story. If you paid $6.99 for those 112 pages of story, then you paid approximately 6.25 cents for each page of story. But let's be generous and say that another 12 pages of those digests are made up of "superfluous" 1-page puzzle pages, single or half-page gags, or pinups, so they don't count as "stories". That still works out to only about 7 cents per page, my friend.
I guess it's up to the individual Archie Comics reader to determine whether or not they're really getting three times the entertainment value from every page of a new ACP floppy comic, as compared to the classic-style Archie stories in the digests. For me, I figure that if at least 40 pages of that ARCHIE AND ME COMICS DIGEST contain stories that I hadn't read and enjoyed reading, then I came out ahead financially by almost $1, rather than spending my money on 2 issues of an ACP floppy comic. Of course, the math changes a little if you're getting your comics at some kind of discount off cover price, and it seems likely that I may subscribe to the new digest, which would make the price per page of those digest stories significantly cheaper.
Quote from: Vegan Jughead on July 08, 2017, 10:52:33 PM
Really? $6.99 for 128 pages? Good luck with that Archie Comics.
There's a sucker born every minute. ;D
Quote from: Vegan Jughead on July 08, 2017, 10:52:33 PM
Really? $6.99 for 128 pages? Good luck with that Archie Comics.
It'll be even more expensive in Canada, Archie's largest market. I think they may end up paying eight or nine dollars for a digest.
Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 09, 2017, 12:52:03 AM
And yet Archie Comics still manages to hoodwink people into spending $3.99 for a comic book with 20 pages of story (that's 20 cents a page, in case nobody's doing the math).
I used to pay less than that when buying the floppies at TFAW, but then there was the shipping on top of that. I'd end up paying around $7 for a floppy issue. After November, I just quit buying comics.
Maybe the first issue has a lot more new material than normal and thus costs more. I can hope, anyway.
I get all of my new comics at 35% off and I get enough other stuff that the shipping is negligible. It only comes out to a few cents per book. So a $3.99 comic ends up costing me around $2.60. I can live with that.
Quote from: rusty on July 10, 2017, 09:18:41 AM
Maybe the first issue has a lot more new material than normal and thus costs more. I can hope, anyway.
I had the very same thought. It does seem a little
too good to be true, but as you say, we always can hope. I've been saying that they should have been doing this right along, as the floppy format Archie titles started being cancelled one by one -- move those same pages of new stories into the digest titles. They should have started doing that a decade ago.
Sure, they all have new 5-page stories now, but 5 pages of new material just isn't
enough, to make a difference in motivating someone to buy digests that cost between 5 and 8 dollars. Twenty pages pages of new material, maybe... if the potential customer is at least slightly interested in the reprinted stories. Maybe someone at ACP is willing to experiment a little bit to see whether NEW Archie stories in the classic style can attract more readers
outside of the direct market.
On further reflection though -- if they're not ballyhooing the fact that it contains a significant number of pages of new material, it does seem unlikely. The other thing that I just remembered is that there
was a brief time when some of the digests had a significant amount of new pages, and when that was the case they also had covers that showed a scene from the new story, and since ARCHIE AND ME COMICS DIGEST #1 has the more generic-type cover illustration, I'm going to say it looks even less likely that there may be a long new story in it.
It also occurs that this is the first we've seen of October's solicitations, and who knows if other ACP titles might not turn out to reflect a similar rise in cover prices. I've been expecting the standard floppy comic to go to a $5 cover price any time now. Another possibility is that either the cover price or the page count cited in that news story might turn out to be a typo.
Quote from: Tuxedo Mark on July 10, 2017, 08:26:33 AM
Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 09, 2017, 12:52:03 AM
And yet Archie Comics still manages to hoodwink people into spending $3.99 for a comic book with 20 pages of story (that's 20 cents a page, in case nobody's doing the math).
I used to pay less than that when buying the floppies at TFAW, but then there was the shipping on top of that. I'd end up paying around $7 for a floppy issue. After November, I just quit buying comics.
I don't blame you. If you can't get to a comic shop in your area that carries them, it's asking too much. I quit getting cable TV and going to movies (mostly) because they cost so much. But honestly, part of the reason was to save that money for comics instead. Most people would just give up the comics.