I understand the times but to your point of getting the creators work out there, well just delay the issues a couple more months. DC already proved they can get books out thru this when they decided not to use diamond. How are they struggling to print books now? Look DC is my alltime favorite thing and this feels like a smack in the face to someone who buys all of thier books.
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Because Terrifics probably isn’t profitable enough. I mean, there’s a reason why it’s ending. Yes, DC has found ways to print without Diamond, but I guarantee it is MUCH more expensive than it once was. They probably can’t justify printing single issues for this series. TPBs have the chance at both grabbing the attention of attentive readers and possibly new readers to a series. I know I’m much more likely to pick up a TPB for a run and start from scratch rather than searching for single issues. It has a far greater chance of bringing profit (or at least breaking even). AND it makes sure that the artists can see their work in some sort of physical manner. So that’s why. 
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By not printing the books they have to sell quite a few more digital issues. I did some math on it and based on what we know about the cost of physical and digital comics, you’d probably have to get 40-50% of the physical comic readers of those books to get them digitally to offset the loss of the physical sales (not taking any potential increase in physical trades into account)
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Maybe when Diamond was still printing. But the printing process has changed. And, once again, it’s not like this is Superman. This is the Terrifics. While I love the series, it’s simply not a popular one. So it’s not gonna be able to justify that full on physical print. Even if there was more money to be made. It would be taking up time and energy that could go towards printing more popular series.
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At the end of the day, DC has plenty of people working behind the scenes figure out how to make the most money possible. If it was really more profitable to do a physical run of these last issues, THEY WOULD DO IT! Because why would any company throw away money like that. Instead, they weighed their options chose the one that works best.
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Oh, I don’t doubt it isn’t really profitable, but that doesn’t mean your best option is not to release. Losing reader confidence is not a good thing, and if this means that people won’t try out new books out of fear that they won’t be getting the entire series, not publishing could end up being a worse decision than taking a small hit on releasing it physically.
As it is the only cost left is the printing and the shipping to Diamond (and the other two distributors). The creators have already been paid. So basically we’re talking about whether or not they will be able to recover the print costs or not. DC most likely makes about a dollar fifty per issue when you take out the distributor fee, the retailer discount. This is what goes to DC themselves, the creators (and printing).
Since the creators have already been paid and they aren’t planning on releasing print issues, there’s no money earned on the physical books. This means that those money are already written off. So for them to print the issues the loss they have to look at is the increased profit from the digital issues plus the cost of printing the books and whether or not the sales would be enough to offset that.
Even if we assume that printing is about 50 cents that means the cost of printing the final issues would be around $5,000 at a print run of 10,000 books. So, as DC take (after printing) would be $1 to get that money back they’d only have to sell 5,000 copies, which doesn’t sound impossible. That doesn’t take into account the added digital sales of course but it is doubtful you’d get everyone or even most to switch so while you’d have to sell a bit more than 5,000 to offset that as well, we’d end up with a very small difference.
Now, this is ONLY because the books are already have been done (or are being done) digitally. If we were talking about a book that was not about to be cancelled then the figures would be different.
My point is that while it isn’t a viable solution long-term, the cost of not doing it might end up outweighing the cost of doing them, as something like this will no doubt mean that fewer people are willing to take a risk on new books.
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Things are delayed already so delaying them a bit more probably wouldn’t make a huge difference. Also, considering they have slowed down their release schedule the printers probably don’t have a huge overload of work and would welcome the extra work. They too are suffering.
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Once again, I’ll just reiterate. I, nor does anyone here from what I’m aware, have inside knowledge into the functions and business of DC Comics. We can make guesses, but we’ll never know what it’ll actually cost. What we can know, is that DC has certainly considered everything you just said. If it was possible to make money (whether directly or indirectly from these comics) they would do it. After their own assessment, they made the best decision for their company. I guarantee you they thought of losing reader confidence. But, at the end of the day, when you’re talking about the The Terrifics (a small series with a small fanbase comprised almost entirely of dedicated comic fans), they don’t need to worry about losing readers in the future.
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You’re right that we don’t have inside knowledge of the inner workings of DC Comics. That doesn’t mean we don’t know something about the economics of producing them though. My calculations are based on what I do know about the cost from other publishers. DC most likely has a better deal than most so their profit on a regular book is most likely better than it is for other companies (and yet I used the numbers I have actually seen rather than make a lot of guesses). In fact I actually increased the cost of printing from the numbers I’ve seen as I know prices have gone up.
I’m sure they think it is the best decision for the company. I just don’t agree with the decision and I’m explaining my reasons for not agreeing and that going ahead and printing would only make a small dent in their earnings if at all.
And whether or not The Terrifics is small series doesn’t really mean a lot. It is not the fact that they did it to THIS series in particular, but the very fact that they did it. If readers know that this is a possibility even for series that lasted more than a dozen issues, then they might very well think twice about trying other books that aren’t sure sellers. So at the end of the day the loss of readers is not only those that picked up The Terrifics, but also all of those who are afraid whatever series they pick up might suffer the same fate.
They are even doing a book like Supergirl like this with the last two issues only going out digitally, and that’s a character who while her book might not have been setting the world on fire (especially after they started the Infected storyline) is still a book with a character who even has her own tv show.
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I’m sorry, but how could you possibly know anything in great detail about the CURRENT economics of producing comics? They’ve only just began shifting production within the last few months? Do you have any evidence to support your claims of knowing how much it costs to make physical issues right now?
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I think the argument is solid based on previous business practices, but…
Those models have gone out the window lately. What once was is no longer. It’ll likely never return. This was an industry changing event.
DC unfortunately cut a few titles from going to print with their last few issues. I’m sure this is based on new data we don’t have access to. It sucks, but I’m betting if we could see how hard the virus has hit this industry we’d be more understanding.
For a while now I’ve been expecting physical copies to go to trades in all but the highest selling titles. Digital for stuff under 25K a month. We’re going to have to give it a few months. Well have to see how many LCS don’t reopen too.
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Aside from printing costs I don’t see anything to suggest that things have really changed much. The distributor and retailer cuts haven’t changed, which leaves the printing costs and the creator costs (an overhead, but that’s spread across the entire line). The creators on the books we’re discussing here aren’t very likely to have gone up in price, which pretty much leaves only the printing costs. Shipping aside from shipping from the printer to the distributor is an expense held by the retailer so while those costs might be up it will be a limited increase and one spread across the entire output.
And as for these particular books we know that the creator costs are there no matter if the books are printed or not, so I’m curious as to which costs it is you think that have changed?
I’m sure we’re going to see changes in the business models of the publishers going forward, and like @Kon-El I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw DC doing more digital only books that’ll only be printed in trade. I think that is inevitable. The big question is when. The new digital first books (the daily ones) are probably a clue as to what we can expect in the future. Those books have for the most part been reprints of the original stories from the Giants but we are starting to see work that hasn’t yet appeared elsewhere.
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Right, but these are all assumptions though. Unless you have concrete data to support your claims, I’m gonna trust the people who have been running one of the largest comic companies for almost a century with ACTUAL insider business knowledge on how to properly handle their manufacturing. Since they actually have the data and know the costs.
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No. Not all of it is assumption. The retailer and distributor cuts haven’t changed. That’s a fact. Neither Diamond nor DC have changed their discount plateaus to the retailers (that info is available on their retailer site) and Diamond hasn’t increased their take in several years (something which Steve Geppi stated in an interview a couple of weeks ago)
That this leaves only DC’s profit, the creator cost and printing (including shipping to the distributors) is also fact. There are no other direct costs of doing comics. Especially not books like The Terrifics which doesn’t get any advertising.
As for printing I can get a quote online for 10,000 books for a standard comic at around $6,300 (same paper quality) without having any prior relationship with the printer. A big customer like DC will most definitely get a bulk discount, so my figure of 50 cents on printing for DC is most definitely not undercutting it. In fact I’d be very surprised if they aren’t getting a much better deal.
I’m not saying you have to believe me and DC most definitely had their reasons for doing it like this. I’m making my argument with the info I have and I don’t doubt they have considered these things. But that doesn’t neccesarily mean they are making the right decision. Marvel also thought they were doing the right thing when they bought Heroes World and started self-distributing back in the 90’s and that not only failed big-time, it resulted in Heroes World crashing and Diamond becoming the only distributor of the big 3.
My point is, it is perfectly ok to second-guess or disagree with the decisions made by our favorite company and in some situations we might even be right. Am I right that this is a bad decision? We’ll never know, but it seems like you’re determined to make me look like a bad guy for having a different opinion and one that I’ve actually tried explaining without resorting to a lot of assumptions.
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I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I appreciate your analysis. The last thing I’ll say is that my opinion is not based on DC being my favorite company and being a bootlicker or whatever. Just faith in the fact that if theirs a chance to make money, a company will take it. And that everything we’ve discussed is almost certainly taken into account by them.
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Personally I think this is more a case of them wanting to test the waters than anything else. Looking at the numbers I don’t see that publishing them would have made much of a difference either way, so while I personally think it is a bad idea, I CAN see a point in using books like this to see how many dedicated fans of a book they can actually get to buy digital.
That said I agree that agreeing to disagree is probably for the best.
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LCS’ are likely buying fewer comics right now, too. They were struggling before COVID, so I can only imagine how difficult it will be for them in the coming months. And stocking up on books like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman or events like Death Metal is likely to help out. Those books will sell no matter what. But books like Terrifics and Supergirl that were likely selling poorly before could be risky investments.
And it’s not all about money, either. The more books being printed the more people there are together and the more likely it is that something could be spread. They’re doing this right now to support themselves along with the likes of the printers, LCS’ etc., but trying too much could just be dangerous.
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Unless customers aren’t showing up I’m not sure I agree these are bad investments. It is not like the retailers buy a lot of these books. Most of them go directly to pull-lists rather than taking up shelf space, which means it is pretty much a guaranteed sale. The ones still hanging on to these books are the loyal fans of those books, so the risk would be minimal.
I totally agree that they shouldn’t be risking public health to get these books out. The printers are likely to have a cap on how much they can do because of the virus and that could very well mean that the books would get further delayed if they were to physically print them, but these are minor books so while a futher delay would probably lose some readers I don’t think that it would make a huge difference. We’re pretty used to delays in comics after all.
But as I get everything digitally myself, to me personally the biggest concern about them not physically printing these books is that new fringe books not featuring Batman, Superman or any of the top characters will be even harder sells in the future.
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I am not getting in the middle of this digital vs print imbroglio, I’m just sorry to see the only “FF” worth reading disappearing.
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Wow! That is a lot. I will miss The Terrifics. I know it’s not typically in the top 100 of Diamond sales but they got me back into the comic book shop. I guess I will finish up on Strange Adventures and pick up on my hiatus from the comic book shop.
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