I doubt that prices will ever drop. It doesn't matter if sales fall too much either. Marvel is a business, they are going to try and make the most money possible. If they raise prices, sure sales may fall, but that alone doesn't mean they will make less money. Some titles will probably have to be cut, but when they cut a title, they also cut a lot of jobs necessary to produce that title, which could save them in the long run. Titles that are selling well, and that are extremely popular will most likely continue to sell well, despite price increases. If you figure a comic cost $3.00, and assume Marvel isn't raising salaries, depending on how much of a percentage of that three dollars goes to the actual creation of the book adding another dollar per issue on say "Amazing Spider-Man" for example, will make that title's profits soar, and possibly cancel out a weaker title being cut like say, "Captain Britain and MI13".
The only way that prices will come down again is if sales for only the books that's prices increase drop off. So, when you go out to buy your comics, check the price tag, if it says $2.99 or less, go ahead and make the purchase, if it says $3.99 or higher, leave it alone. Even if it's a must have issue that changes the status quo for your favorite character, that's just a trick they throw at you because they think you are stupid enough to fall for it. The only way to get prices to drop, is to show the company that comics that exceed a certain price tag will not sell. This goes for events too. Sick of Marvel using gimmicky events to rope you into buying fifty tie-in comics in a week? Don't buy them. If enough people stop, they'll eventually get the hint. The real reason Marvel, and any company, can get away with high prices and bad stories is because we keep buying instead of "just saying no."
Also, on piracy: I'm against pirating comics, other things I really could care less, but there is a specific reason why comics piracy irks me; I hate digital comics. Now, I know that a lot of people will try to argue against piracy because it hurts the artist/publisher/whoever, but I don't care about them at all, and haven't seen any real data to believe that's necessarily true. The real victim of comic book piracy is the medium itself. Now, in Babs' thread from a few days ago, I posted a video about how to beat pirates companies may need to figure a way to compete with them. The theory behind that, is the pirates often have discovered a "better way" to receive whatever it is they are stealing, and as far as music goes, this is very much the case, and companies such as Apple have created means of competing with the piracy with things like iTunes. The problem with competing with pirates in comics, for me anyway, is I don't want to read comics on my computer screen, and for companies to compete with the pirates, they'll have no choice but to digitize everything. I really would prefer not to have iComics some day. Of course, I could be the minority there. If the market decides that digital comics is what it wants, then who am I to argue? I may not like it, but all things eventually evolve, but until then, I propose that comics fans who don't like comics prices just stop buying the expensive ones, because piracy will lead to a less expensive maybe, but also less interesting product.
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