Padded Marvel Books

I just noticed something very strange.  

I just read Generation M #1.  I good story about the fallout of the “No More Mutants” storyline.  A book devoted to those who survived, such as Chamber.  The story running through the book is that there is someone killing those who had powers saying that not enough died.  Interesting idea and the main character is strong and well written.  I have enjoyed Paul Jenkins work previously and he did not disappoint.  I will continue to read this mini-series.

That’s not the strange thing.  This is.

As I was holding the book, it felt thick.  I looked back at the cover and saw $2.99.  OK, Marvel is giving me some value for my money, I thought.  Then the story ended and I still has a bunch of pages to go.  12 in fact.  1 was a “Here’s what is coming next page, followed by 7 ad pages and 4 house ad pages.  So I decided to start counting.  48 interior pages, 22 pages of story.  I “letter page”, so that means 25 ad pages.  Add the insides of the covers and the back cover, that is 28 pages of ads.  Lets get silly and say the cover and letter pages are “story” and that is a 24 to 28 ratio.  I realize that they need to sell space to cover some costs, but let’s get real here.

Here are some random and completely made up numbers that don’t seem too far off.
According to Comics & Games Retailer, House of M sold (ordered) 134,300 issues.  Being that this is a spin-off mini, let’s cut that number in half for Generation M, so 67,000 issues.  I do not know what ad pages cost, but I assume that it has to be a lot, say $5000 for an entire page in a books.  Probably more, but this amount will work.  28 ad pages =  $140,000 in ad revenue.  Granted some of those are house ads, but they aren’t free.  So $140,000 =  $2.09 per issue.  Plus, let’s say 35% of cover from Diamond and that’s another $1.05 per book.  Not bad.  $3.14 for each book.

My big problem is the added pages.  I don’t mind the 13 ad pages interspersed with the story.  I’m used to that.  I just don’t like paying for pages padded on to the back.  And no, I would not be happy if they were merged into the story.  It would be tough finding the actual story pages among the ads.  Brian Hibbs, in Tilting at Windmills talked about the frustration for having to pay extra shipping costs because of additions to books like this.  He specifically mentioned polybagging and a Spider-Man anti-drug story that was put into issues.  I am slowly working on my business plan and margins are razor thin.  Extra shipping costs are hard to figure in.  I realize that the point of house ads is to increase business, but padding a page count doesn’t seem right.  As a consumer, I am not happy that I am getting more ad than story for my $3.  

If you are going to add pages and charge more, I had better be getting more story.  (And not the Bendis padded storyline either).  If you are tacking on extra ad pages, cut the price.

Just a thought.