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I feel compelled to respond to the remarks you made at the beginning of your "Tony's Tips" column in CBG #1596 [posted online July 31, 2004]. I have stopped collecting comics because I felt I was no longer getting a good "value" for the amount of money I was shelling out each month for my comics "fix.".

Until last year, I had been collecting comics steadily since the early 1970's. I have amassed a rather huge collection over the years, and most of those comics were bought out my love for them, not for speculation or in some misguided attempt to make money in the future.

I've loved comics since I was a kid, and it would please me to no end to keep collecting comics, but the financial reality is that I just can't afford to collect comics anymore. At $2.99 a copy for a mere 20-22 pages of story each month, I'm not getting good value. Most of today's comics don't have letters pages, so they even have a page or two less of editorial content on that score.

The comics of today may be printed on higher quality paper, and the coloring may be state of the art, but oftentimes I find the artwork and story mediocre to terrible. There's also a tendency by today's creators to simply ignore what has gone before, or simply "wipe it out" and do everything over again. After awhile a person gets tired of such constant "rebooting." This has contributed to my current unhappiness with the comics industry.

I want more "bang" for my money. If I spend $2.99 for a comic book, I want at least 40 pages of editorial content. If I have to shell out such an outrageously high price for a comic, I want it to feature multiple strips.

With the current crop of people running the comics industry that isn't going to happen, so I did what I always do when I feel I'm not getting good value for the money I spend...I quit spending it on that item.

Last year in May, I quit buying comics.

It isn't just comics I stopped buying. I think magazines have also become ridiculously expensive, so I've stopped buying most of them as well. I still subscribe to one or two magazines, but, with renewal rates of over $100 annually, I can't justify spending that kind of money for a "quick read" that, 90% of the time, will end up in the trash when I finish it. I didn't renew my subscriptions to Entertainment Weekly, Macworld, PC Magazine, Scientific American, Sky & Telescope, and Time. Now I only subscribe to CBG & Astronomy magazine; if their rates get too expensive I'll stop subscribing to them as well.

I stopped buying paperback books when they reached an average price of $9.99 a copy. Many sell for $14.99 or more, and, guess what, I don't buy them...no matter how much I might want to read a particular book.

When CDs hit $16.99 a copy, I stopped buying them. The music industry got the message, because I wasn't the only one to stop buying CD's at that price. CD's are back down to a more affordable $9.99-$12.99 price range, and, guess what, I'm back buying CDs again.

If and when the comics industry gets the message, and if they begin to give me more pages for the money spent on their comics, then and only then will I start buying comics again. Otherwise, tough. They dug their own grave as far as I'm concerned.

As you wrote in your column, Viz routinely prints SHONEN JUMP at 300 pages for $5.00 each month...and it's not a sales failure. Marvel and DC should take a lesson from that. If that means you get a combination of new and old material, fine...as long as you get more than one new strip. If that means the comics are printed on cheaper quality paper, that's fine, too.

Where is it written that every new comic has to be printed on "high quality" paper anyway? Save those high quality formats for special projects that deserve it...and give readers and collectors more "bang" for their bucks.

If Marvel and DC were to go to a format of 40 pages per title each month for the current cover price, with three strips per title (a 20 page lead and two 10 page back-up features), I would probably continue to buy one or two titles a month.

But, at $2.99 a copy for 20-22 pages each month, sorry, guys I'm done. Finished. Kaput. I'll spend what little money I have these days on something else.

I guess I pretty much said what I wanted to say, so take care and keep reminding the publishers in your column that many of us out here are dissatisfied with their product. Feel free to print all or part of this letter in your column.