A 1923 Silver CertificateThe price of a monthly comic book was first established in January, 1922. In that month, Embee Distribution Company of New York City published Comics Monthly #1, which reprinted stories from the previous year of the comic strop Polly and Her Pals. The price of the magazine was 10 cents.
Marvel Comics and DC Comics, the two largest American comic book publishers, both of New York City, currently suggest a price of 3.99 dollars for each monthly issue of their major series. This price is generally considered too high. Is it, in historical terms?
The 1922 dollar was worth 4.79 dollars in 2008, the most recent year in which the suggested monthly price rose. Conveniently, Comics Monthly #1, unlike the expansive, and highly popular, magazines that followed it in the Golden Age, contained 24 pages in each issue. Modern comic books usually offer 22 pages of story, slightly fewer than Comics Monthly #1, but the comparison is, fortunately, close enough to be useful.
If comic book prices had remained constant since their inception, the suggested price of a monthly magazine would have risen to 4.79 dollars in 2008, not to 3.99 dollars. In historical terms, the modern comic book is moderately economic.
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