Comics UK

I'm not sure if I can afford to continue with buying DFC when 13 weeks is up.

I thought there might be some bargains in ebay but prices seem just as high(or low) for comics 50 Buster & Jets went for £126 yesterday I was sure I would get them for £50 after seeing other sales of it in the past couple of weeks.

By failing to get a summer job ad going to a big festival i've created my own credit crunch. But i have been monitoring ebay and the prices of things i collect seem to be remaining reasonable for now

I went into manchester this morning and went into forbidden planet and i have noticed that prices have gone up in some cases by £2 to £4 the book that i went for dc archives batman volume 1 set me back £35 so yes i think it will affect my collecting in the future

dandy mad wrote:I went into manchester this morning and went into forbidden planet and i have noticed that prices have gone up in some cases by £2 to £4 the book that i went for dc archives batman volume 1 set me back £35 so yes i think it will affect my collecting in the future

Forbidden Planet book prices are generally much cheaper from their website.

it must have been the hot weather weve had today should have checked their site before i left

Sometimes those £35 ones tend to be closer to £21 on their site, if I recall correctly.

A bit, but I'm generally trying to save a bit of money rather than worrying about the credit crunch. I picked up then put down The Dandy Summer Special the other day as I realised I'm not really enough of a fan to justify buying it at £2.99 (though if you're into DC Thomson I'm sure it's well worth the cash. In fact, I might well pick it up yet). I also decided against subscribing to The DFC - a worthy project, and one that seems to be of a very high quality, but as an adult with only passing/nostalgic interest in childrens' comics, I can't justify £3 a week that could be spent towards a new kitchen, or plastering the dining room. Or 2000AD.

That's quite understandable Paul. If I wasn't working in the industry I wouldn't be buying modern children's humour comics either. I buy them to keep up with developments in style and tone, and to see what my friends and peers are doing. At 49 it's the techniques that appeal to me, not the gags.

Lew

it's hitting me- i'm down to the semi-regular beano/classics from the comics purchase and then anthologies for birthdays...

what put me off subscribing to the dfc for myself and my kids was that several of the strips don't actually seem to be that good. when you can pick up a good graphic novel/comic strip anthology for the price of a couple of issues, i can't justify the expenditure.

Maybe a few selected comics on ebay are expensive, but 95% are going cheap; cheap; cheap - virtually all (UK and USA) 1970s / 1980s / 1990s at as little as 10 for £1.

Compare this to the price of Dandy at £1.99; 2000ad £1.90; Essential X-men £2.50; Dr Who adventures £1.99.

Even the ones at 99p each are a bargain in comparison to the modern day, with most in collectable quality (Fine or better) after 25 or 30 years. It strikes me these are all too cheap for some classic story's from our childhood.

Why not try reading some of the less collectable titles

If it really does cost 2 quid a comic these days, then I doubt if I would have been able to buy the 5 comics a week I normally bought as a kid------even allowing for over 3 decades of inflation, my pocket money in the late 60s/early 70s would never have stretched to 10 quid a week for 5 comics.........

------other items, like DVDS, are better value for money, and are now cheaper than ever in many cases: sometimes as low as a disc [with surround sound ] for £1 each if you buy a boxed set that has been around for a while.

I will definately be buying more vintage comics in future, but even if I buy import DVDS from the USA, classic 'POPEYE' cartoons averaging out at less than 50p each represents better value for money than modern comics, I'm afraid.

I do buy 'CLASSICS from the COMICS' every month, though, and have never missed an issue.

Currently got the Megazine on subscription and I am struggling to justify it to myself as I only read about half of it. If I want film reviews, I buy a movie magazine, not the Meg.

The crunch has only slightly affected us at the moment, but I am considering changing from the Meg to Commando as I read all of each issue and it seems to be better value for me. Plus my 15 year old daughter enjoys it so we'd double our comic enjoyment.

Personally I haven't really worried about The Crunch since it merged with Hotspur way back in 1980!

- Phil R.

ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:If it really does cost 2 quid a comic these days, then I doubt if I would have been able to buy the 5 comics a week I normally bought as a kid------even allowing for over 3 decades of inflation, my pocket money in the late 60s/early 70s would never have stretched to 10 quid a week for 5 comics.........

I don't think today's publishers expect children to buy a pile of comics like we used to. That's one reason the comics/mags are tailored to specific tastes. If a kid wants cheeky humour and multimedia news he'll buy Toxic or Dandy Xtreme. If he just wants a humour comic he/she will buy Beano or Simpsons. If he wants an adventure comic he'll choose Doctor Who Adventures, Transformers, or Indiana Jones, depending on his tastes.

Publishers know that the days of producing a sort of "big five" line of comics that many kids would avidly buy are long gone. Now they focus on specific interests. This isn't unexpected. IPC began to focus on theme comics in the early 1970s, (Scorcher, Battle, Misty) and the mix of comics/pop media comics started then with Look-In. Today's market is a natural progression (or digression if you prefer) of those policies.

Yes, today's titles are relatively expensive. For decades comics used to be about the same price as a bar of chocolate, so today's average comic should be about 60p. Unfortunately print costs and falling sales have meant they're far higher in price. (Although today's comics do have more pages and are in full colour on quality paper.)

As I understand it, in previous instances a recession has increased the sales of comics as people seek cheap escapism. Of course, that was back when there were loads of comics to choose from, and when they were cheap.

I'm not sure today's comic/mags offer the same escapism when half the content is encouraging kids to buy expensive video games and DVDs. It's more likely that a kid from a poor family will feel resentful and sad that his cash-struck family can't afford to buy him those things, so the experience of reading such a comic becomes depressing rather than uplifting.

Lew

All them tacki toys supposed to be free are getting payed for when you buy there not free at all AND Your comic gets all torn up when you take them off I bin them anyway