Dollar Comics

1977-1983

According to then-DC publisher Jenette Kahn, comics' price-per-page value had been declining since the "Golden Age". When superhero comics debuted in the late 1930s, they featured 64 pages of art for 10¢. As the decades passed, comparable publications like Time and Life raised their prices, while comics stayed at 10 cents and reduced their page-count. Finally in December, 1961, National Periodical Publications/DC raised its price to 12¢, a 20% increase.[1] Comparable magazines, in contrast, were by then 3.5-to-5 times their original price. By 1977, even though the typical price of a comic book was 35¢, it still lagged far behind its magazine competition, thus decreasing its appeal for newsvendors[1] (which at that point — before the generalized 1980s shift to direct market distribution — was still the dominant retailing location for comics). Thus, the idea for Dollar Comics was born.

Writing for the Silver Bullet Comic Books website, John Wells detailed Dollar Comics' history: "When Jenette Kahn took over as DC's publisher in 1976, the average comic book contained only 17 pages of story for 35¢. Nearly half of each issue was filled with advertising and editorial content. Kahn's initial response was 1977's line of Dollar Comics. In terms of content, a Dollar Comic gave readers approximately the story pages of four 35¢ comic books for the price of three. From the retailer perspective, the Dollar Comic represented a greater profit than the standard 35¢ issues.