It seems like it would be a good idea to allow you to subscribe to comic books and have them sent directly to your home. So why do almost none of them do this? I think a few indies have subscriptions, but not the major players. (Now watch, it’ll turn out there is a subsciption form in comic books that I’ve somehow missed for the past sixteen years.) It might hurt the comic book shops a bit, but we still have magazine shops even though you can subscribe to magazines; and if they really want to sell the most comics efficiently, I’d think subscriptions would be the way to go. So why don’t they?
They may have discontinued the practice, but the comic book companies used to offer subscriptions (I was a subscriber to the original run of Sandman comics, for instance). The subscription rate, if any, used to be in fine print at the bottom of the first page, though occasionally they’d push for subscriptions in house ads. However, they never were able to attract very many subscribers. There were a bunch of reasons for this.
First of all, for many years, subscription comics were folded for mailing, which meant no collectors would subscribe. Also, the price wasn’t all that great, and the issues were mailed out later than those sold in the stores. And people just like to look and hold the comics before they buy them.
A lot of comic book shops began offering their own subscription services (not mailed, but you’d have a reserved copy waiting for you when the book came out). That probably cut into subscription sales.
Finally, you can now order mail subscriptions from various services. That may have convinced the publishers to drop subscriptions (if indeed they have).
Couple of reasons:
Most comic books, being cheap to produce, try to keep expenses down. It’s much easier to deal with a few distributors than thousands of subscribers. When People Magazine started, it also was only available at newsstands.
Some publishers don’t want to go through the time and expense of getting a 2nd Class (magazine) mailing permit. IIRC there are requirements to be classed as a “magazine” that not all comics would qualify for. If you don’t get the 2nd class permit, you’d either have to mail 3rd class (no forwarding or extra attempts to deliver) or 1st class (way too expensive).
The cost of getting a subscriber is high, and keeping one is just about as high. Having a base of subscribers only makes sense if you’re trying to guarantee circulation to advertisers, and most comics don’t have much advertising to worry about.
When I was a kid, DC Comics offered subscriptions, but they didn’t promote them.
Embarrassed to be seen walking into comic book shops, huh?
Do what I do…false nose, big dark glasses, ski cap.
(I have a phone call in to a buddy in the comic book business…watch this space for a SERIOUS answer within the next hour or two.)
A few theories
[ul]
[li]Comic books are lower cost & profit margin than magazine, it wouldn’t be worth the cost of the mailing.[/li][li]Magazines are considered impulse purchases, a subscription increases sales. Most people buy their favorite comic books every month without a subscription.[/li][li]If they get slightly bent in the mail they are worthless to a collector.[/li][li]Mailing label same as above.[/li][li]Most (?) comic book collectors are kids who don’t usually buy their own subscriptions, A “gift” subscription is usually a little more educational.[/li][li]When your in the store you might buy other comics that have a guest appearance of your favorite hero, or just buy another title that looks interesting and get hooked.[/li][/ul]
A quick trip to both the Marvel and DC websites shows that both offer subscriptions. I recall seeing the ads nearly every month in the books I used to buy, but that was years ago, I don’t know how often they run them now. The last DC comic I bought (a Vertigo title about 6 months ago), does indeed have a subscription ad in it, though.
Maybe having the subsciption in fine print may have had something to do with it…? 
I did this for a while. However, it still means that I have to get out of my apartment and travel to the comic book store fairly frequently, and I ended out shelling out more money than I really should and then giving up on the whole thing entirely. Having to pay for a year’s worth of comics at once would result in more sensible budgeting, and I wouldn’t have to go anywhere to get them.
Yes, but that won’t hide my voluptuous female form. The only other girl I’ve ever seen in the store I go to was obviously dragged there by her boyfriend, and he actually ditched her to ask for my number while I flipped through the graphic novels. Not enough to keep me out of there, but it is rather uncomfortable to be the recipient of a great deal of underage male attention when I just want to rummage through some flippin’ comics!
Thanks, Uke!
How the hell did I miss that? I swear to god I was at the Marvel site a little while ago and that link wasn’t there!! And I went there specifically looking for a subsciption form.
Gaudere:
I don’t know where you live, but here in downtown NYC, I’ve always seen females in St. Mark’s Comics, one of a number of establishments I’ve visited recently. Of course, if you wish to blend in with them, it helps to have an average of three piercings per body part, and hair dyed a color that cannot be found in nature, but I’m pretty certain they’re female, and (incredibly) they’re not looked at oddly.
Just checked the most recent DC books I have that aren’t hidden in a box (Lucifer, and the Tangents JLA - March 99 and Sept 98 respectively) and both had big full page subscription forms in them…
Admittedly, cutting a page out of your books isn’t likely to be a good option, but they do have a 1-800 number to call for the subscription.
Have DC and Marvel stopped doing that in the last year?
Gaudere,
WARNING - the following post is not intended to be a commercial.
I built a web-store for kicks… we sell magazine subscriptions and some comics are available. If you email me, I will be happy to send you the URL and you can check out the prices. Or, email (or IM) me the titles you are interested in and I can check the prices for you specifically.
Without going into detail, the prices we offer on magazine subs (and comics too, I guess) are absurdly low.
Send me the titles, why not give it a try.
RE-WARNING - This post was not intended to be an advertisement; that’s why I did not post the web address. Thank you. Carry on. Please disperse… there is nothing to see here…
Hee hee…you’ve got THAT place nailed, Chaim. Whenever I go in in a tweed jacket, jeans, and open-collar shirt, I feel woefully overdressed.
Okay, my friend (exec editor of Paradox Press, also a senior editor at DC) called back. To paraphrase:
**"All-purpose bullshit answer: if we pushed subscriptions, the retailers and direct market people [newsstands, drugstores, and other non-comics shop purveyors of comics] would bitch and moan and complain. And if we stuck to our guns, they’d cut back on their orders to teach us a lesson. So we’d be hurting the main part of our business without being sure that the subscription idea would benefit our overall sales.
“Real answer: most of the over-15-year-old market does not see comics as entertainment, or even as magazines, but as COLLECTABLES. They read them once, carefully, then bag them and file them away for the next millenium or some fucking thing. So the folding thing comes into play. These guys wouldn’t trust the mails to get them their stuff in pristine condition.”**
Luckily for you, Gaudere, we’ve hit mid-November. As a Chicago resident, your voluptuous feminine form will be swathed in yards of crocheted wool and down-stuffed polythyrene for the next five months at least, protecting you from the yearning gaze of comicbook-loving pubescents.
You can find an on-line subscribtion forms for DC titles at http://www.dccomics.com. Click on the button “Get Comics.”
For Marvel comics, go to http://www.marvel.com/shop/subscriptions/direct.html
Dark Horse Comics does not have a subscription plan, but they do have links to on-line and off-line sources for single issue purchases at http://www.darkhorse.com/index.html
Fantagraphics (http://www.fantagraphics.com/) also doesn’t have subscriptions, but you can shop on line.
Although you can subscribe to alot of DC and Marvel comics (as somebody else mentioned, you can do it through their websites), both companies have a fair amount of titles that don’t have subscriptions.
I think one of the big reasons is that a lot of the newer titles don’t sell very well after, say, the first year. Often the title is cancelled, creating problems with the companies’ bookkeeping as all of the unfulfilled subscriptions need to be handled.
So, not offering subscriptions saves the companies the hassle of dealing with refunds.
Well, I have no visible unusual piercings and normal colored hair, so that’s probably part of my problem. Although the longer I snowboard and work in web design, the more I start to think that dyeing my forelock magenta and yellow would be really kewl. Chicago just doesn’t apparently have a very large female comic reader demographic; I was more comfortable at my college’s comic stores. It’s not a big deal, but given my tendency to be lazy and not go to the store anyhow (which gets you in trouble if you’re trying to follow a storyline), and a tendency to overspend while I’m there, I’d prefer subscribing. 'Sides, the store closest to me doesn’t have the greatest indie selection.
It’s possible I just missed it, although they do seem to not encourage subsciptions very much. They also don’t allow subscriptions for all the comics from the looks of it, so perhaps it’s just that I’ve been reading the more obscure titles from the big comics companies, and so they don’t have subscription offers in those.
Ooh, pet peeve of mine. To a certain degree I understand the collectible viewpoint, but it annoys me because art is meant to be looked at, not sealed away. It’s like buying a painting and then sealing it up and storing it in a closet. Admittedly, some comics aren’t the greatest art, but there is some very innovative sequential art and some exceptional storytelling out there too.
Have you checked out the brand-new Art Spiegelman/Francoise Mouly book, Little Lit: Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies, yet?
They got together a group of their old cronies from Raw, added folks like David Mazzucchelli, Bruce McCall, Chris Ware, Walt Kelly (!), Daniel Clowes, William Joyce, and David Macaulay, and produced a terrific little genre-bender indeed.
Buy it for a niece or nephew for Xmas, then swipe it back for yourself.
I know Marvel offers subscriptions because I’ve had one for years. Now that they’ve raised the prices it’s much cheaper to get them that way.
The only thing you should know is that the books are shipped to subscribers two to four weeks after the release date. Be sure to avoid message boards and newsgroups where people don’t use spoiler warnings.
No, I haven’t. I will, though, thanks for mentioning it. Spiegelman is always a good choice.
I don’t hang out at places where I’m likely to get spoilers, fortunately. It does seem odd, though; I get the magazines I subscribe to shortly before they hit the stands. Maybe it is intended to discourage people from subscribing.
Mile High Comics has a subscription club (“N.I.C.E.”) which may be what you’re looking for, Gaudere. Apparently you can “subscribe” to a comic with them instead of Marvel or DC and they deduct its cost from an account that you create.
(This would, I presume, eliminate the heinous delay you normally see in a DC or Marvel subscription.)
I’ve been meaning to give it a go – DC (at least to my knowledge) will let you subscribe to any of the Batman or Superman books on-line but not JLA. Seeing how the Justice League comic has been cancelled and rebooted like fifty times, if it happened again I’d rather be able to tell Mile High to switch me to something else than get some credit back from DC or see my subscription switched to “The Torrid Adventures of Bat-Mite” or something.
Archie Comics offers subscriptions.
Yeah. I read Sonic The Hedgehog.
Ya wanna make sumpin’ of it? :mad: 
Gaudere, please! Don’t leave me in suspense. I, for one, am very curious to know which titles our illustrious moderator would consider subscribing to.