Is $2.99 Too Much To Pay For A Comic Book?

Been reading the ongoing digital comics piracy debate, and a thought popped into my mind.

Is $2.99 (or, most often, more) too much to pay for a print single-issue comic book?

It certainly isn't if the material is good.

But I've come to the conclusion that if the material is sub-par -- or merely mediocre -- it's too much money to expect the public to pay.

Let me reiterate:

In the "good old days," I used to wait on baited breath for the next issue of Morrison's "Doom Patrol" or "Love and Rockets." I mean, I would literally count down the thirty days for my fave comics to come out.

But If I buy, say, 6 comics @ $2.99 today at my comic shop, and 4 of them are mediocre reads, that means I just spent around $12.00 on mediocrity that won't even look nice on my bookshelf.

I think this is the real issue that drives the comic book pirates.

Hey, I realize not every book is gonna hit them out of the park. But I classify comics in three catagories:

1. REALLY GOOD BOOKS. Ellis's Thunderbolts, Morrison's All-Star Superman, etc.

2. "Okay" books I have a sentimental attachment to. For me that would include Iron Man & Ms. Marvel, of which I do not miss an issue.

3. Mediocre comics. They're efficient enough time-wasters, but eminently forgettable.

4. Crap.

$2.99 is too much for mediocre & crap. It's just too much money. For $9 I can go buy any number of classic movies on DVD. For $14 I can get a trade paperback that, worst-case scenario, at least can sit nice on my bookshelf or make a viable product to resell on eBay.

But what can I do with a $2.99 floppy that has sucky quality? Nobody wants to buy it from me. I usually won't give it to my friends, because I'm not in the habit of giving friends crap. Besides, they all have too many comics, anyway.

Such "filler" comics are best offered for free or a small subscription fee online. They are good comics to host ads on. They are good product to tout "exclusive comics free on this site!"

Of course, one person's crap is another person's gold. But if we had to analyze it, if we put it to a survey, certain books are going to be pointed out by the majority as either "mediocre" or "crap."

Now the whole "direct to video/DVD" movie phenomenon comes to mind. These films are not good enough to be in the movie theaters, but find a home in affordably-priced copies or Netflix.

Maybe the same principle should apply to comics. Maybe publishers should have a high bar as to the quality of all their print "floppy" books, and then just publish the rest online.

As for the argument made by many digital comics pirates that "sampling" comics for free online will actually lead to more purchases -- we all know this is not the case for mediocre & crap books. The glaring crapocity of a book becomes all the more noticeable when you downloaded an entire week's worth of books and are flipping through files.

Think about it -- you just got 30+ comics for free in one download. The choice is already overwhelming. A title that you might have, one-upon-a-time, actually purchased to "sample" is now ignored by you after glancing at a couple of digital pages.

Do you know how many comics I have purchased that I've regretted? How is this an efficient use of my time? Can I afford to keep "sampling?" Can I afford to buy 4 books a week that are just "okay?"

This is not meant to be a knock on the comics industry. I'm just literally looking at my wallet in preparation for the day's purchases and asking some questions.