$3.99

Thanks to Rich Johnson's Bleeding Cool for pointing this out.  Blogsite Wallet Pop ran an interesting post a few weeks ago about some interesting price changes that have occurred over the past ten years.  For instance, one daytime adult ticket at Disneyland has gone from $41 in 1999 to $72 in 2009, an increase of 75.61 percent.  A ticket to view the observation deck of the Empire State Building  has seen a whopping 400 percent increase over the past 10 years, going from just $4 in 1999 to $20 in 2009.  A six-pack of Budweiser has gone from $4.01 to $5.99, an increase of 49.38 percent (which makes sense, considering it's now an import).  iMac desktops have dropped in price by just over a third, from $1499 to $999.

But perhaps the most disturbing change on the list is that of the comic book.  In 1999, an issue of Superman would set you back $1.99.  In 2009, an issue from the same Superman series costs $3.99.  Meaning the price of your average comic book has gone up 100.5 percent over the past ten years.

The price of comics is a bit of a hot-button issue right now among readers, especially Marvel and DC's decision to go from charging $2.99 to $3.99 on the majority of their titles over the last year or so.  And what the two giant gorrilias of the comic book industry do, the smaller publishers (like Dark Horse, Image, and others) are forced to eventually do as well, raising their title pricepoints by 1/3.  Both companies have offered various heavy-handed excuses as to why charging an extra buck is essential, ranging from "it's just inflation, we're just trying to make the books profitable (which is bullshit)," to "hey, you guys seem to keep buying comics in record numbers regardless to the price, so we're gonna exploit that (which is also bullshit, but at least it's honest)."

The thing that kills me the most about the rise in price is the ridiculous attempts to justify the increase within the actual comic book by adding a four page preview of some upcoming event.  I would much rather save a buck an issue than read a silly little teaser of something I was either probably going to buy anyway or don't care about in the slightest.

I think there's a direct link between the price increase and lower sales on less popular (and generally better, writing-wise) books.  Marvel and DC don't realize that they're essentially feeding off themselves at this point.  Sure, they can squeeze another buck out of me for New Avengers or Green Lantern, but that just means I won't have the budget to try out or keep up with Agents of Atlas or Adventure Comics.  The price isn't worth the cost; hopefully they'll realize that before they send their readers to the poorhouses and all their decent titles to Comic Book Heaven.