When I was a little feller, comic books cost 12¢ each, so my $1 a week allowance had a lot of bang. In 1970 they went up to 15¢ each, and five years later made the outRAGEous jump to 25¢ a pop. And then things really got out of hand: by 1980, 40¢; 1985, 75¢; 1990, $1.75; 1995, $2.50; 2000, $2.95. Then things stayed relatively stable for a bit before taking off again around 2010, when the price rose to $3.99. They've stayed there for the most part...though it's not at all uncommon for a first issue to add a few extra pages and charge $4.99.
Well. If you love comics you put up the bucks. That's why ComiXology has been quite a relief for me. It took me awhile to accept the idea of an e-comic book, but it is pretty common for a new comic book's price on ComiXology to go from the regular $3.99 down to $1.99 after a month or so has passed. And then there are the sales. Some of these sales are just amazing.
For instance, there's one going on Right Now (so act fast if you're interested!), and I took a look at the Marvel Masterworks books that were up and decided I really needed to have a bunch of them.
I ended up spending
So the price of 3 1/2 new comic books. Which would net you about 81 pages of reading pleasure.
I got 2,925 pages of comic book. That is not a typo. 2,925 pages. Granted, there're no NEW comic books here...but there's Jim Steranko and Jack Kirby and Jim Starlin and Neal Adams and other stellar talents. Here's the buy list:
So $140 off the e-versions. And the print versions of these books go for at least $50 apiece...if you could even find them. I'll let you do the math on that, but let's just say I got one hell of a deal, and even with my dedication to reading, it's going to be a long time before I work my way through all of these pages.
Did I mention that this sale won't last long?
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