Multiversity’s history column returns with a new installment covering events from January 1965 (Marvel’s first fan club) and 2002/2003 (rise and fall of bargain-priced comics).
Stan Lee had been working to establish a connection with readers since March 1962, when he asked letter writers sending missives to “Fantastic Four” to drop the “Dear Editor” salutation and just address comments to “Stan and Jack.” He built the Marvel brand by writing creators into the stories, by breaking the fourth wall in his captions, and by using superlative nicknames in the credit boxes. All these things worked, and none of them cost Marvel a dime. None of them generated money either.
When Stan Lee introduced Marvel’s new fan club in January 1965, it was the first attempt to capitalize on Marvel’s popularity. A full page advertisement promoted the Merry Marvel Marching Society showing examples of all the things readers would get for their $1 membership. Items included a button announcing the wearer belonged to the club, a handful of “absolutely useless” stickers (some of which opposed the club), a membership card, and a certificate signed by Stan Lee (or signed “Stan Lee” by someone else in the office). There was also a 33 rpm flexi-disc record with a five minute skit recorded by most of the regular bullpen. This was the only chance many readers would get to hear their favorite creators’ voices.
By this time Lee had already been invited to speak at a few colleges, so he knew there was a sizable number of older readers. The ad for the MMMS targeted all ages with its language, referring to clubhouses, fraternities, and attaché cases. The coupon invited members to write in the name of their school, college, or occupation.
Response was overwhelming, forcing office secretary Flo Steinberg and other staffers to come in on weekends just to open envelopes. It wasn’t as easy as opening one envelope and mailing out a response because the ad promised more surprises would come to members in future months. That meant records of subscribers had to be kept. Marvel’s owner, Martin Goodman, was frustrated by the added workload and worried the $1 fee was too low to cover the overhead costs.
The MMMS was replaced by the independently-run Marvelmania International Fan Club in 1969.
DC started 2002 with an experiment in discounting. Their “Batman: The Ten-Cent Adventure” carried the suggested retail price of $0.10, selling at a loss when most comics were making the move from $1.99 to $2.25 or more. The one-shot was the first chapter in the 25-part ‘Bruce Wayne: Murderer?’ plotline, and DC treated it as an investment that would draw in new readers who would return for the rest of the story. They pushed it hard, offering custom variant covers to comic stores that ordered more than 10k copies. It was promoted to newspaper editors, and a few ordered the issue to include as a bonus insert for subscribers. Retailers responded to DC’s excitement and ordered bigger on subsequent issues. Readers liked the story and came back for more. Long term sales of “Batman” increased, DC recouped their initial outlay, and they ultimately realized a profit.
Everyone saw that cheap issue of “Batman” at the top of Diamond’s January sales charts. The indusry hadn’t seen orders that high (~700k) for ten years. Anyone paying attention in subsequent months noticed the Batfamily books started climbing the sales ladder. Beyond that, there was anecdotal chatter in comic shops and on internet message boards. When a gimmick works, people notice. Then people copy.
When Wildstorm wanted to revive interest in “Gen13,” it canceled the low-selling series at issue 77 in May and relaunched it in July with a zero issue priced at $0.13. The low price did produce a spike in sales, but it couldn’t have been what publisher hoped. It moved a respectable 116k copies (up 682% over #77) but didn’t even top the month’s sales chart, instead coming in at #4. Subsequent issues saw a major drop, and it was back near its old sales numbers by December.
In August, Marvel offered “Fantastic Four” #60 for nine cents, very pointedly a penny cheaper than DC’s “Batman” issue. The rationale for the promotional price was to introduce the new creative team, Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo. Waid crafted the issue as a done-in-one story to give readers a more satisfying experience. This was done in direct response to “Batman” being the first part of a larger epic, which Waid felt left many first-time readers unsatisfied. (DC would probably argue that was the whole point, since it made readers want more.) “Fantastic Four” #60 moved 752k copies and was the highest-selling single issue of the 2002.
Continued belowThe next month, sales were right back to their regular baseline. It turns out retailers didn’t have confidence that the new team would generate big excitement, and the lack of to be continued… made them unsure if readers would care about what happened next.
Undeterred, both Marvel and DC tried to duplicate the success of “Batman” in January 2003. “Superman: The Ten-Cent Adventure” introduced a new creative team with a story that continued into the regular “Superman” series. Meanwhile, “Daredevil” was starting a new arc by the existing creative team with issue #41 for $0.25, followed by the regularly priced #42 just two weeks later. At the same time, Marvel was hinting that they would be reducing the price on one of their top books at least once a quarter to goose sales. However, Diamond Distribution decided to pull the plug on the manipulation of its sales charts and didn’t list either of the discounted titles in the January rankings. Also, retailer feedback indicated neither “Superman” nor “Daredevil” were anywhere near “Batman” or “Fantastic Four” numbers.
The loss of bragging rights and the diminishing returns brought an end to the bargain-priced comic trend, but it has been resurrected a few times. In 2005, IDW hit a sales record with their $0.99 introductory issue of “Transformers: Infiltration” In 2015, Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley tried to boos readership by making “Invicible” #118 a quarter.
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