The bottom line is, we want to keep doing TF comics, and we can only do so on a long-term basis--in order to satisfy the terms of our agreement and keep costs where we need them to be--by going with our normal pricing. We tried it at a reduced price (for us--we're not "the big four") and if we'd put up sales similar to those publishers, we could have kept on as we were. But this is a superhero-driven industry, and for smaller publishers selling 20K copies of books with high licensing fees to make it in this world, it necessitates different strategies.
So as much as I wish these books were selling 100,000 copies and allowing us to keep things as they were, that's just not realistic for an indie publisher. So these books fall in line with all of our others now. I've tried to give more content for the bucks, in the form of letters pages and previews and other things that aren't just print ads, so hopefully the people who like what we're doing appreciate the fact that this is simple comic book industry economics, and not anything else.