What is a necessary profit for Marvel comics?
There’s an operating margin that allows us to pay our rent and keep our lights on, and keeps us a healthy company. And every book we put out needs to meet or exceed that necessary margin. But if we really wanted to, we could do all sorts of things to increase it–everything from cutting down on page counts (the books were only 17 pages long in the 1970s) to increasing cover prices even further. But we attempt to strike a balance between what we need and what’s good for the industry and the readership. Short term greed inevitably leads to long term harm, so we try to take the long view on questions like this.
