Will The Pricing Change Get Me Buying More?

About this pricing thing Marvel and DC are doing. If I'm following it, DC's dropping the price on all their single issues back to $2.99, but also cutting two pages from each issue, so down to 20 pages from 22. I'm less clear on what Marvel's up to, but it sounds like they aren't doing the $4 first issue for series that are normally going to be $3, and maybe aren't releasing any new ongoings at $4 an issue. But series that are at $4 an issue currently (the big Avengers books, for example) are staying there.

I doubt DC's plan is going to expand my pull list, since it's never been price that's prevented me from buying one of their ongoings. Rather, it's always been lack of interest, which tends to render the cost irrelevant. I am curious to see what the page decrease is going to do. Writing for the trade still seems common, so I wonder if losing 12 pages over 6 issues will cause writers to move stories along faster, or if they'll stretch stories out over more issues, have them go 7 issues to get back those pages. It could be interesting to see if panel count per page goes up as page count declines.

As for Marvel, they'll still need to release more ongoings I'm actually interested in for it to matter much. Of course, there have been 8 ongoings from Marvel I was buying that were canceled since the start of 2009, so marketing comics to me is clearly not a good strategy, but perhaps a few more bones tossed my way?

Just dumping the $4 first issue might help, because I know there have been titles in just the last few Previews (and probably other farther back) where I was considering ordering them until I saw the extra dollar for the first issue. If it's something like Heroes for Hire, where Abnett and Lanning have built up plenty of goodwill with me, then I'll deal with it. They're pretty much the only writers or artists with that much cachet with me (and maybe Jeff Parker), so for everything else, there's going to have to be something else - me being really fond of the starring characters, for example - for me to bite. Once I skip the first issue, I'm in essence telling myself I'm not that interested in the book, so why bother to buy #2? At $3, I'm more likely to say, "Sure, I'll give it a whirl."