Did You See What They Did There?

DC Comics issued a press release today, saying that starting in January they would no longer be charging $3.99 for a regular-sized comic; $2.99 will be the standard price across the line. In addition, they will be removing co-features from most of their extra-length $3.99 titles to bring them back to standard size at $2.99.

But in the fine print, you'll notice that a standard-sized comic will be "$2.99 for 32 pages/ 20 story pages." The rub is that a standard-sized DC comic is currently 22 story pages. So while they are normalizing prices at $2.99, they're also giving us 2 pages less, even for comics that are currently at $2.99.

This is nothing new; historically comics publishers have avoided price increases in the past by reducing page counts (even infamously going from 50¢ for 25 pages to 40¢ for 17 pages during the DC Implosion in the 70s).