What Shall We Do?

[Lew Stringer]

If DCT was to work its magic then it would have to be something special to counter the already saturated market of plastic bags and cheap plastic toys they give away week in week out....

It's a shame you haven't followed The Dandy for a while then, dandy mad, because since its 2010 relaunch cover mounts and bagged issues have been in the minority. (Something like 10% of the issues have featured gifts. I think one issue was bagged. If memory serves me right there have been no gifts since the Christmas issue.) One of the whole points of the relaunch was to go back to basics and produce a weekly comic that didn't rely on gifts.

Likewise, The Beano has also considerably cut down on its gifts and bagged issues this year. Why not try the comics? You might like them now.

[Digifiend]

The marketing team is almost irrelevant as long as the supermarkets and WHS keep overcharging to actually stock the magazines and thus loading the market - the result is high prices, low demand, bad distribution, lower demand, worse distribution...

There's a reason why the subscriptions are well below the cover price - I reckon that the subscriptions for the weeklies at £17 per quarter (ongoing, not new subscriptions) are half cover price or less plus postage.

That goes for the digital edition too. Some pricing history: Back in the 80s and 90s, the Beano and Dandy's price increases were usually 2 or 3p a year (24p, 26p, 28p, 30p, 32p, 35p, 38p, 40p, 42p, 45p). In 1998, they went up by 5p, to 50p, which is still fair enough and did have the excuse of covering a pagination increase. From there, the price increases were 5p a time (50p, 55p, 60p, 65p, 70p, 75p). 2004 is where the rot starts to set in. That year, the Beano went up by the usual 5p, to 80p. The Dandy increased it's page count, went glossy, and increased the price to £1.20. I always thought that they should've kept it at the introductory price of 99p. 2005, the comics were 85p and £1.20 (the Dandy cut it's page count instead of upping the price) and in 2006, 99p (in some regions only, in others it stayed at 85p, though it went to 99p for all eventually) and £1.30. It's at this point that they start charging for the previously free covermount gifts, meaning that the Dandy's price fluctuated throughout the Xtreme era, when it always had them. The Beano also went glossy at that time, but that doesn't justify how steep two of the next three price increases were (£1.25, £1.35 and £1.50). The Dandy also relaunched at £1.50, later increasing to £1.99 presumably due to printing less copies. If they'd carried on increasing by 5p a year (which seems to be more than enough to cover inflation), the comics would now be £1.20 - and I see the iPad versions are only 99p, which seems fair enough if the remaining 21p would've covered the printing and distribution costs.

While the Beano and Dandy are the cheapest comics, you're right that if not for the chain stores, they could be even cheaper.

[AndyB]

By rights you expect to pay more for subscriptions, and if you look back at the single panel subscriptions of the 1980s, I think the subscriptions were indeed dearer than the cover price, to pay for postage.

Meter posting for second class large letters is now 59p for the Beano or the Dandy, although they both usually use TNT mail, who are cheaper, due to the Government making Royal Mail subsidise their bulk mail distribution by undercharging for the actual delivery to your house.

Taking the Beano, it's £17 per quarter, or £1.30 an issue. That suggests that DCT is happy to settle for 80-90p income for every subscription issue (which of course is a guaranteed sale) - that suggests to me that WHS and the supermarkets could be taking 60p+ just to put it in their stores, allowing for DCT's own distribution costs.

[DavidKW]

I always think there should be a monthly/bi-monthly of a best of...Dc Thompson/Fleetway meg with an "on this day..." theme (ie reprint the strips from editions published on a particular day). Also aim it at adults & don't worry too much about political correctness (ie reprint ones with spankings at the end).

Would be great if they could do mags for each individual title (ie best of Beezer, Topper etc), but it wouldn't be financially viabale perhaps.

Would be good if also were monthly mags with best of say, football & motor racing strips from boys' comics & best of girls' comics (should be seperate punblications - one for best of darker Misty/Jinty/Tammy strips & ones for the more upbeat stuff of June & SF?Princess Tina/Sally).

Must say shame there's never a yearly compilation annual for best of Roy of Rovers/Bunty & DC thompson's others (Beezer, Sparky etc) and for likes of TV21 & for Look-In (ones that came out a few years back flew off shelves) & june & SF (I heard a book vendor saying hoe surprised she was that this sold so well).

[Tin Can Tommy]

I always think there should be a monthly/bi-monthly of a best of...Dc Thompson/Fleetway meg with an "on this day..." theme (ie reprint the strips from editions published on a particular day). Also aim it at adults & don't worry too much about political correctness (ie reprint ones with spankings at the end).

I dont know why DC Thomson never bought the rights to Fleetway then they could have reprinted pretty much any British Humour comic stuff and add Fleetway's most popular characters to their own comics many of whom wouldn't feel out of place in the Beano or the Dandy.

[Digifiend]

Probably because of Buster's low sales. No e-books 12 years ago, so the route they're taking with Dandy wasn't an option.

[stevezodiac]

Further to my suggestion of making the Sunday Post a four page comic with Desperate Dan here is the reply from the SP. (I should point out that Desperate Dan reprints did feature in the Fun Section for a while in the 80s I think).

Steve,

Thanks for the idea. We'll consider this when planning for the future of the Fun Section.

[Lew Stringer]

I dont know why DC Thomson never bought the rights to Fleetway then they could have reprinted pretty much any British Humour comic stuff and add Fleetway's most popular characters to their own comics many of whom wouldn't feel out of place in the Beano or the Dandy.

I don't think DCT even had the option of buying them. Egmont own the Fleetway characters from 1970 onwards, and IPC (or Time-Warner since they bought IPC Media) own the material prior to that.

[starscape]

Further to my suggestion of making the Sunday Post a four page comic with Desperate Dan here is the reply from the SP. (I should point out that Desperate Dan reprints did feature in the Fun Section for a while in the 80s I think).

Steve,

Thanks for the idea. We'll consider this when planning for the future of the Fun Section.

It's a great idea. Kudos to you for thinking of it.

[Digifiend]

I dont know why DC Thomson never bought the rights to Fleetway then they could have reprinted pretty much any British Humour comic stuff and add Fleetway's most popular characters to their own comics many of whom wouldn't feel out of place in the Beano or the Dandy.

I don't think DCT even had the option of buying them. Egmont own the Fleetway characters from 1970 onwards, and IPC (or Time-Warner since they bought IPC Media) own the material prior to that.

What about when Robert Maxwell owned Fleetway, 21 years ago? He sold them to Egmont in 1991. If DCT were interested that was their chance. I don't think they wanted it (perhaps 2000AD didn't fit their image).

[Marionette]

and I see the iPad versions are only 99p, which seems fair enough if the remaining 21p would've covered the printing and distribution costs.

That surprised me. In America the digital rollout has been stifled by a commitment to the retailers, so digital copies cost the same as paper ones. I'm sure Marvel and DC are crying over all the extra profit they are making.

[AndyB]

It may well be that they maximised contribution towards costs around that mark based on estimated sales.

If the retailers here hadn't insisted on charging so much to stock the comics in the first place, the differential may have been less - you could say that the iPad price here reflects the commitment the retailers have towards the comics! It also reflects the fact that every iPad subscription is a pre-paid guaranteed sale - they know before they place it on the Apple Newsstand precisely how much money that edition is going to make, but they don't know how many will shift in the shops.

Going back to Digi's point, I can see at least two possibilities. First, DCT may not have foreseen Buster going down the tubes (unlikely - poorer production values than the DCT comics, eg colour on the cheap, poor sales etc). Second, they might exactly have foreseen Buster going down the tubes and didn't want to be lumbered with it.

[dandy mad]

If DCT was to work its magic then it would have to be something special to counter the already saturated market of plastic bags and cheap plastic toys they give away week in week out....

It's a shame you haven't followed The Dandy for a while then, dandy mad, because since its 2010 relaunch cover mounts and bagged issues have been in the minority. (Something like 10% of the issues have featured gifts. I think one issue was bagged. If memory serves me right there have been no gifts since the Christmas issue.) One of the whole points of the relaunch was to go back to basics and produce a weekly comic that didn't rely on gifts.

Likewise, The Beano has also considerably cut down on its gifts and bagged issues this year. Why not try the comics? You might like them now.

I have bought a few Beanos and it's not really changed much since the last time I bought it 5/6 years ago (not on a regular basis though) as for the Dandy I got this weeks (after going to 4 shops/supermarkets to find one!) and it still has an edge not much of one tbh but it's still there maybe if it was better distributed it may have survived but that's just hindsight now I suppose