What is the cheapest / most expensive Disney comic?

[That Duckfan]

Here's another trivia thread. What are the cheapest / most expensive Disney comics ever printed? I don't mean what they go for on the collector's market, I mean what price did they originally go on sale for?

The most expensive Disney comic book I can think of is The Complete Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Deluxe Edition (Fantagraphics 2021), which went on sale for 250 US dollars.

That's not to say that it had the highest denomination ever put on a Disney comic. A 2005 issue of Donald Amca, the Turkish Donald Duck magazine, went for as much as 3 million Turkish lira. At the time, the lira was the most inflated currency, and the price actually amounted to 'only' 2.25 dollars or 1.50 euros. There might be even higher denominations out there.

It's harder to figure out what the cheapest Disney comic is. The UK Mickey Mouse Weekly initially sold for 2 pence, which was the equivalent of 1/120th of a pound in pre-decimal currency. But the British pound was strong indeed, so the equivalent price today would be about 0.75 pounds (or 1 USD). That's clearly cheaper than what a comic would sell for today, but is it the cheapest?

Due to inflation, prices change over time. When Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #1 went on sale for $0.10 in 1940, its equivalent today would be $2.17. However, by the time it raised the price to 15 cents in 1960, that dime was only worth the equivalent of one dollar in 2023 money.

Do you know of any other comics? Freebies don't count, obviously. Let me know!

[Ramapith]

Consider the paper differences, too: WDCS 1, priced at 10¢ in 1940, had 64 fairly wide, early Golden Age-type interior pages, almost all of them comics or other features.

Fifteen years later (1955), a typical issue had 32 slightly narrower pages for 10¢; that was already a cost difference, even if not visible through a change in price. Another fifteen years (1970): the price was 15¢, the issues had much narrower pages (the modern comics width), and the 32 pages now included a fair number of ads.

Shooting ahead another 35 years to when—gulp—I was one of the editors, I witnessed the same kinds of cost changes.

During the Gemstone run, when the magazine was consistently squarebound with 64 interior pages, the price changed from USD $6.95 to $7.95 due to paper costs rising. And there were other invisible costs: toward the start, we recolored most stories to get rid of odd (to us) Nordic and Italian color choices, like hot red roofs on almost all buildings (Egmont) and yellow shoes on almost all characters (Italy). Later on, forced to save money, we left many more of those colors unchanged.

Another ten years on... during the IDW run, WDCS had floppy covers and started at $4 with 38 to 40 comics and editorial pages in most issues. Several years later, while WDCS was still priced at $4, it was down to 30-32 comics and editorial pages, plus a lot of ads, often for other IDW products; paper costs were rising, and raising awareness of the company's other products was one way we found to boost revenue...

[Ramapith]

(Also: the most expensive Disney comic, since you're counting hardback books like the Life of Scrooge Deluxe Edition, is really Another Rainbow's Mickey Mouse in Color deluxe edition from 1988, which cost USD $250 *then*: in today's money, that's $618! It was marketed as a limited edition, but with 3000 copies made, it had the same press run as a typical deluxe hardback today.)

[That Duckfan]

Jun 9, 2023 13:22:49 GMT Ramapith said:

Consider the paper differences, too: WDCS 1, priced at 10¢ in 1940, had 64 fairly wide, early Golden Age-type interior pages, almost all of them comics or other features.

Fifteen years later (1955), a typical issue had 32 slightly narrower pages for 10¢; that was already a cost difference, even if not visible through a change in price. Another fifteen years (1970): the price was 15¢, the issues had much narrower pages (the modern comics width), and the 32 pages now included a fair number of ads.

Shooting ahead another 35 years to when—gulp—I was one of the editors, I witnessed the same kinds of cost changes.

During the Gemstone run, when the magazine was consistently squarebound with 64 interior pages, the price changed from USD $6.95 to $7.95 due to paper costs rising. And there were other invisible costs: toward the start, we recolored most stories to get rid of odd (to us) Nordic and Italian color choices, like hot red roofs on almost all buildings (Egmont) and yellow shoes on almost all characters (Italy). Later on, forced to save money, we left many more of those colors unchanged.

Another ten years on... during the IDW run, WDCS had floppy covers and started at $4 with 38 to 40 comics and editorial pages in most issues. Several years later, while WDCS was still priced at $4, it was down to 30-32 comics and editorial pages, plus a lot of ads, often for other IDW products; paper costs were rising, and raising awareness of the company's other products was one way we found to boost revenue...

When I was a kid collecting comics, I once threw a fit about rising comics prices, since they seemed to rise faster than my allowance. I'm (slightly!) more levelheaded nowadays, but it's interesting how the rising price of comics still seems to outstrip the pace of inflation (given the price of those 1940s/50s comics). Some things get cheaper over time, but publishing in general seems to be getting more expensive and I wonder what the additional factors are. A decline in readership, I guess.

And no doubt consumers have changed their spending habits, and are willing to pay comparatively more for luxury goods like entertainment. Perhaps if you compare the price of that 1940 issue to the median disposable income of the era, you might see a totally different figure.

Plus, the average American comic reader skews much older today than in 1940. The percentage of US Disney comics readers that have an allowance has changed since 1940, I suspect.

Ugh. Economics is hard.

[cacou]

Inducks says a certain version of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck (deluxe album) from 1996 was sold for 299 USD. That's 587 of today's USD.

[That Duckfan]

Apparently the German Don Rosa Collection was sold in as a package for 525 euros in 2011. That comes to 657 euros today. But of course, that's not one indiviual book.