The Price of Comic Books and Bittersweet Memory I went by my favorite local comic book specialty store yesterday. I go by there once a week to pick up new comic books that I have pulled for me. I can't speak for all nerds but there are quite a few of us who read (and loved) comic books when we were young.
There were a couple of boys in there--maybe 10 or 11 years old. They were asking the clerk about any "$1 comics". He had to tell them that there were no $1 comics. I could tell that they were looking to spend some money on comic books but they didn't have much more than $1. However the average comic book runs about $2.25 each now. I'm dating myself but I do remember that when I started reading comic books as a boy they were $.25 each.
Don't misunderstand. Some back issue/comic shops do have $1 bins where someone can purchase 1 (or more) back issues for $1 provided that one doesn't care about the condition of the comics. The comics in these bins are certainly readable; they're just not in a condition that a collector would be interested in. A brand-new, right off the printing presses comic book will generally run about $2.25.
I don't know all the issues involved in the pricing of comic books; certainly the price of comic books have inflated along with the price of everything else. It would be foolish to expect comic books to only cost $.25. And I certainly cannot extrapolate one experience at one comic shop into a "trend". However, since I remember spending many allowances on comic books, it made me a little bit sad to think that those two boys couldn't afford a comic book.
2:27:18 PM 
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