Saw This Little Doozy At The Grocery Store
Went grocery shopping with the wife yesterday and as I get in line my jaw drops, a Green Lantern comic on the magazine rack.
The issue is officially solicited as Green Lantern Spectacular #1. I had seen it in my local shops – and was curious why it was given a magazine format, guess I know why now – but this was the first time I’ve seen a comic in a long time (other than Archie) featured anywhere near a grocery or gas station magazine rack. I was so excited! Not only to see DC actually pushing their print comics outside of local shops but that it wasn’t a Green Lantern movie tie-in slapped with a Ryan Reynolds movie poster cover. This was the real deal. Darwyn Cooke and Ethan Van Sciver art, Geoff Johns and Alan Moore writing!
I was so excited that I decided to pick it up. Having flipped through it I could tell I probably owned several of the contained issues at home but I couldn’t pass up the novelty of owning a comic I bought from the magazine rack at my grocery store. Plus, I saw it as my little thank you or reward to the efforts of the DC/Warner Bros. marketing team.
But alas, I did not pick it up.
I don’t mean to turn a post-of-hope into a rant but Green Lantern Spectacular #1 costs $9.99. Granted it’s a 4-issue collection (one of which is an annual) and it’s 96 pages, so nearly the size of a trade paperback (and $9.99 is a good price for a trade), but your really going to sell a Green Lantern magazine for $9.99 next to all the other popular magazines that are selling for $3.99 – $4.99? The logic here falls short of what makes sense to me. I quickly went from excited to disspointed. I felt bad for all the kids who potentially might beg their parents to buy it for them, just to be turned down for a magazine costing more than most their food items.
The price discussion could go on and on, so I’ll restrain and leave with just this; if someone with a comic collection at home thought $9.99 was too much I can’t imagine a new reader thinking any differently.
Perhaps I’m wrong though. From photos it looks like a couple of issues had been grabbed.
Either way, it was nice to see some comics outside of my comic shop.
1 Comment
I agree. I hear DC and Marvel talk a lot about a need to get younger readers involved in buying comics, but let’s be honest, how many teenagers can afford to get into a habit of buying comics, which will likely lead them to buy 15 or 20 books a month when each issue costs $4 ($3 for DC right now, but likely to change with the relaunch) I mean, when I was a teenager I paid less than a single dollar for a comic book, and while that was a long time ago, I have to groan when I look at some of the comics that are being sold for $4 and sometimes include as few as 18 pages of story plus some crap backup.
If I wasn’t a grown man with a job, I can assure you, I would not be buying comics for those prices.