Is the comic book industry dying?

I think Comic Books might be a dying industry.

Now let me clarify, I just feel like actual paper comics are in the processes of dying out right now.

I mean think about it, No longer sold in news stands. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal but it is.

Comics are now only sold in specialty stores at pretty incredulous prices for individual issues

This is causing major comic companies (The big two) to cancel their books left and right if they don't sell sell sell copies. And we're talking books that are super popular not making an arbitrary quota so they get canceled after 4 issues. Which I sympathies with, they're in the business of selling books but still it creates a president where writers can't write long form series any more cause every 5 issues the book get's rebutted in to a new issue 1.

Marvel comics right now is a mess. They are literally imploding right before our eyes and it's kind of funny how they don't seem to care. So long as their movies are selling tickets, the comics and just shrivel up and die.

DC seems to be making a come back in terms of comics but we have to wait and see on that front.

Indie comics have never been more popular but that's mostly because they don't have big corporate margins to meet and usually can survive on cult followings alone.

I don't know, what does Sup Forums think. Are comics dying?

Other urls found in this thread:

medialifemagazine.com/magazine-circulation-takes-a-new-hit/
cnbc.com/2016/06/05/comic-books-buck-trend-as-print-and-digital-sales-flourish.html
comichron.com/yearlycomicssales.html
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

>Comics are now only sold in specialty stores at pretty incredulous prices for individual issues
not true, lurk moar

It's stagnant right now.
It won't die because of the Big Two but remove them and everything falls apart.
There's variety and there's quality but it doesn't get promoted or advertised and Diamond's shitty distribution system doesn't help
However, comics that don't come in traditional floppies like Smile are huge successes and reach the traditional reading audience

Minor upswing the past couple of years. Marvel is also doing really despite whatever lie you were fed.

MIDF spotted

You sound like a semi-retarded person who has no idea what he's talking about..

literally nothing you've listed off as "truth" is true.

do you even buy comics yourself or are you just trying to stir up a bunch of bullshit argument?

Pic related: The 'H' is for KILL YOURSELF.

Okay, before you say anything else OP, are you aware of any of the following:

-Newsstand market also refers to wherever monthly magazines are sold, so that includes supermarkets bookstores like Barnes and Noble
-Newsstand market returns stuff, which was why the comic industry tried to get into the direct market
-A lot of magazine circulation (and I don't mean comics here) have taken huge hits over the past eight years:
medialifemagazine.com/magazine-circulation-takes-a-new-hit/
-Marvel already bailed on the newsstand market completely five years ago and barely anyone noticed (maybe because they were too busy complaining about comics not being sold on newsstands)
-Aside from newsstand market the other markets are direct (comic shops; so sales are tracked through Diamond and in turn Comichron does those charts), digital (although there's no sales figures you can follow the charts to see what's most popular for the week), and bookstore (Bookscan covers TPB sales from bookstores and other non-comic shops annually; Brian Hibbs usually analyzes those charts)

Cause every time I see one of these threads I usually notice whoever's complaining is ignorant of one or two of the above.

Did this thread trigger your autism or are you just an asshole?

These are some good points I hadn't considered.

Mainly my concern lies with the ever raising price of comics as well as the constant turnover of stories and books for low sales.

I suppose 5 dollars for a 40 page comic (Secret Empire Issue 0) seems fair. Again I don't know the market.

I always felt as though Marvel and or DC should take a page out of Shonin Jumps book and publish monthly Magazines featuring several comic issues in it.

Hopefully.
I want this entire joke of a medium to die already.

anthologies are shit

$2-$2.50 would be an amazing price point for floppies tho

no, it's just smaller

It all depends on how the transition from print to digital goes. The industry wasn't doing grwat last I checked, but it was still making money. If they can convince people to become fans and buy digital subscriptions then they can build a sustainable model for a while. Nothing lasts forever, but I'm sure a Batman comic is going to be published digitally even in a recession.

What is needed are anthologies like Shonen Jump or 2000AD, printed on toilet paper in black and white, and laden with coupons and crossword puzzles to keep people from collecting them. Save coloring and good paper for the TPB. People will read their monthly or weekly Batman, and actually look at the other material because they paid for it.

Then there need to be more comics for girls aged 10-20, seriously cheesy ones about romance and melodrama (carefully keeping SJW subjects far away, it's HFCS to writing). The age 0-10 is covered by ponies and princesses, but girls need to keep reading during the period their lives revolve entirely around sex. They will be reliable customers once their hormones settle down. If you look at Japan, all the big adventure/sports series are propped up by women needing their emotional boy fix. It's a long-term investment that will result in a lot of Bat/Supes fanzines, but ultimately worth it.

>anthologies are shit
pleb

Let's say that hypothetically you have the money to get a dedicated crew of artists and writers to make that sort of content.

How do you market and distribute that?

I think a lot of people over value newspaper stands, when even newspapers don't sell anymore. However, something that IS desperately under represented is direct delivery. Which is actually easier to do as a startup now with stuff like amazon, I asume. I hear 2000 ad has a dedicated distribution branch, but I'm mot too informed on it.

So you get the crew together to make the editorial, you've got the direct distribution through amazon, and I asume you can either invest in getting a printing team together or you can go to whatever print stores are out there and figure that out, so that's another money investment, but much less as its mitigated by the lower cost of distribution if it's solely a direct one.

Now the question is how to market comics, and thst part stumps me. Does anyone know how to directly market comics anymore? I mean, it's telling that the most well selling comics are shit at kids book fairs that only they know about, so maybe it's worth looking into that.

I hear the frenchies do animated ads for their comics. But surely that isn't enough. And if it's s direct market it's not like it matters if you out ads on snickers bars or whatever. And with the slow death if tv I don't think even buying adspace would inform people.

Maybe in that case you'd just pay a bunch of popular youtube curators to shill? Make a youtube channel in and of itself? And make alternative content to lure people in, Alex Jones water filter style? Like what kind of guerrilla marketing exists for comics.

I'm more surprised they haven't thrown themselves fully into online distribution yet.

Define dying. In very specific terms.

Because frankly, it seems more or less dead to me already. Marginal sales, the entire medium being used as little more than a workshop/launchpad for multimedia IP, a nigh-insignificant presence in the portfolio of characters who ORIGINATED in the comics format...

I mean really, how much worse can it get? The publishing arms of Marvel and DC shutting down? You'd still have scrappy little(ish) guys like Image and Dark Horse and Oni and Fantagraphics and whatnot who are dedicated to the form past the point of financial sense.

I don't want to say comic books have hit rock bottom, but really, I can't see things going significantly lower without some sort of cross-market catastrophe like a major war or a pandemic or some shit

I disagree with your view on anthologies. However, it would have to be one "guaranteed seller" character with lesser characters as side features. Much like Marvel Tales was a Spider-Man reprint series, first and foremost. Or how Detective Comics had a Batman story, and Manhunter/Martian Manhunter/Slam Bradley/whoever.
While it's definitely an older-style notion, it worked in the past by virtue of lead title brand recognition, and if done in a digest format, could be viable in supermarkets/department stores.

Newsstands in supermarkets (along with the obligatory candy department next to the cashiers) seem to work fairly well in countries with almost no population. (There are several US. cities with more people than my whole country.) Grab something to keep the kids shut. You have them there primarily to get people to subscribe, and eventually buy everything else you have at hand.

This does depend on the anthology being thick (not necessarily large, just thick) to waste enough of the reader's time.

$3.99 for 20 Pages of story that takes half a shit to finish isn't much value for money. That's what people mean when we say comics are over priced.

Now 50-60 Pages for $3.99 is a good deal. I'd love to see the Big Two try this. Instead of twice a month, put out a single 40 page story. Then add a 16 page back up with something related to the main story, or something that they're trying to launch. I feel that with the merchandise from TV, underwear, toys and movies, they Big Two can get away with this. They just need to rework their financial structures.

I'm not sure Image or other Indies can handle that, but most people accept that a small publisher needs to charge more since that's literally the only money the creators will see unless there's a TV or movie deal. In the 80s B&W boom, we all accepted that a TMNT had to charge $1.50 or $2 for a 32 page black and white comic before there were cartoons and toys. It's how the creators made their living. Amazing Spider-Man could get away with being 65ยข because it was sold in 1000 drug stores, groceries, book stores.

We need to get back to newsstands. We need to get back in front of people's faces with the source material. Not just the TV shows and movies.

Comic sales hit their worst after the 90s bubble burst. The period now isn't nearly as bad. It's a near billion dollar industry. Yeah, is it not as good as the 90s boon? No, but that's hardly any reason to prognosticate doom and gloom. If the early aughts didn't kill comics, then this period now won't either. People just get spoiled on boom periods and for some silly reason assume that that's the norm.

I'm surprised with how big "nerd culture" has gotten in the past two decades, you'd think it would help with the industry dying but the impact of movies hasn't helped one bit.

>DUDE NEWS STANDS AND GROCERIES LMAO

okay first off, unless you're in new York news stands don't fucking exist no more. Get the fuck outta here, only places you get newspapers from is tiny fucking coin boxes that get robbed every day or fucking subscriptions.

Second the only shit that sells in grocery stores is shit aimed at kids and moms, shit like archie, family shit with a female slant. Spider man won't sell dick in a grocery store, let alone any actual good adult comics.

If comics would make money there, don't you think companies like dc and marvel run by some jew bastards wouldn't be all over it? Fuck no, shit that might have worked thirty years ago isn't gonna work now you stupid fucking paisanos.

>comics = us of a

topkek

The print industry worldwide is almost dead.

Comics aren't coming back to news stands, and digital releases are risky since they get 0day pirated.

Only way you will see comics back at newsstands are with massive subsidies via advertising (like in Japan with the telephone monthlies having ads plastered in them like a magazine), but the primary audience won't buy some shit like that because it ruins immersion.

While most I agree with most of this, bur comics biggest drawback is that they cost a lot for 22 pages of content a month. Also, fuck comic book shops, you won't get new readers unless you start selling it everywhere again.

Isn't the situation something like this:

>Floppies sell relatively poorly, are expensive to produce. For the consumer, 3.99$ for 20-26 pages is rather expensive. Monthly format doesn't appeal to people born after 2000 or even earlier.
>TPB's sell better than ever, are cheap for the amount the consumer get. But they require the on goings from which they come to generate interest. Strong TPB rarely means an on going survive because floppies are expensive to make.
>The strong sales of TPB do not make up for the production costs of floppies.

All kinds of fucked really. Still, merchandise is the real breadwinner.

>I think Comic Books might be a dying industry.

This is why manga is over taking US comics, you could pay $5 for a shounen Jump manga that is over 200 or so pages whereas a typical DC or manga floppy is usually $2 and only thirty or so pages. Floppies need to be done away with and comic companies need to focus solely on trades.

Floppies don't really have any value outside of being the first appearance of some character for novelty and bragging rights if you're a collector but it's also largely why the industry is dying since Marvel is focusing far too much on variant covers to trick retards into buying them claiming they'll shoot up in value like they did in the 90s by slapping collector's edition on everything.

>I don't know the market.
That was fucking obvious from your first post, OP.

>Marvel and or DC should [...] publish monthly Magazines featuring several comic issues in it.
Anthologies sell shit in the west and Big Two anthologies in particular have a history of failing.

Why do we act like this is some serious discussion that deserves any replies?

We have these threads time after time and it's generally just a Captain Obvious like OP saying some painfully obvious shit without even linking to the numbers that don't mean a thing.

Yes, OP print media of ALLLLLL kinds is dying. Digital media is a push, some make it some don't.

Comics as an art form are not dying ever. It's been there since they scratched graffito into walls during ancient times.

Unless you have some leaked numbers we actually don't know what the sales figures are and it seems like you aren't very familiar with the history of publication if you think comics not being in news stands and grocery stores is recent. It's likely a change that happened before you were born if you don't know about it.

And that's to say nothing of fucking shit like 1:1000 variants
Floppies are cancer, who the fuck is stupid enough to pay four dollars for a inferior format riddled with ads?

Marvel and DC used to do direct deliveru with annual subscription services, much like with other magazines. You'd pay for a year's worth, often with a discount, and they'd ship them all out to you on a monthly basis. They really should consider something like that again, especially with digital distribution because digital would have almost no shipping costs.

Paper backs are for normies and faggots.

Floppies are for patricians.

Last I checked SJ paper backs were like 7.99 and that was like 10 years ago when I was reading them. And they were only around 180 pages of non colored newspaper print.

American comics use wide variety of colors, are printed on better paper (floppies and TPBs) and many of us actually like ads. They're time capsule of sorts. If you actually liked comics and read back issues you might appreciate that.

They do that with digital. They just charge a sub fee and thus make NO money per comic.

Floppies have a ton of ads in them already, and it's only smaller publishers that tend to have house ads only, grouped in the back. Marvel and DC have had all kinds of ads spread out in their floppies for decades, now.

>Only way you will see comics back at newsstands are with massive subsidies via advertising

Another kid that doesn't read comics. When's the last time you bought a floppy 1982? I assume you're 12 so have you ever bought a floppy?

Last week, at Barns and Nobles

I'm not talking about their current sub options, like Marvel Unlimited. The sub service is great for back issues, but moving forward they should consider direct scripts for new issues. Comixology does sell, even if they never release the numbers, and I don't see why companies can't bypass the middle man to do direct digital releases on their own.

B&N sells floppies? When did this happen?

Oh wow, it's this thread a-fucking-gain.

Fuck off back to Sup Forums

agreed. I am buying floppies cause I'm a retard who doesn't want to wait. But i prefer trades in nearly everything.

>many of us actually like ads
ok, now we know you are trolling

Really not dude. It's sincerely one of my favorite parts of reading a back issue; seeing the old wrestling and Big League Chew ads.

Like the other user said since when?

You can buy Asterix and Donald Duck pocketbooks in grocery stores in Germany, the latter hits 250,000 sells on average.

I think that would actually be interesting. Could do like an email link thing each NCBD. "Here's your weekly pulls" would be a cool thing to wake up to.

I just think digital, especially for current runs, is a difficult sell because you don't "own" anything. When I buy my floppies I can read them at any time (if I feel like carrying them with me). With digital it seems because of piracy (which is already unstoppable anyway) they refuse to give you a download.

>I mean think about it
Stop this.

>I just think digital, especially for current runs, is a difficult sell because you don't "own" anything. When I buy my floppies I can read them at any time (if I feel like carrying them with me). With digital it seems because of piracy (which is already unstoppable anyway) they refuse to give you a download.
This is just Marvel and DC.

Other companies give you DRM-free downloads.

Don't waste your money on DC or Marvel. They are the past, not the future.

I don't give a fuck about non-big-2 books to be honest.

I'm sure you think you're better than me but I read capeshit, not indieshit.

Also, how is it a waste of money? I like floppies and don't like digital.

>Also, how is it a waste of money?
In addition to the DRM argument, there's also the issue of supporting creators. Creators are paid a fixed and pre-determined amount at Marvel/DC. They don't make more money if you pick up a title and they don't make less money if you drop it. With creator-owned comics, every single sale matters, because a portion of every single sale goes directly to the creators.

Well, I guess now you can tell me that you don't give a fuck about supporting creators either.

This.

It's not dying, in fact it's getting better, with non-capes actually being incredibly viable and a much bigger part of the market.

Thing is, the direct market is not going anywhere fast and is just there for hobbyists. And that's OK.

The money is in trades now. That's how you reach the non-hobbyists and longterm sales, and everyone knows it. DC has been very smart about going after that. Marvel seems to kind of get it, which is why they're pushing characters that appeal to non-hobbyists like Moon Girl and Ms. Marvel, but whoever is in charge of printing trades just doesn't get it, with ridiculous prices and long waits between releases. They're fucking themselves over.

thread should actually be
>Are American comics dying
everywhere else they are fine. In france they are still a big deal. And aren't looked at as something ment for kids

america is fucking shit at selling comics. in europe i can get a new mickey mouse magazine every week for 2 euros with 125 pages of new comics. and they are sold everywhere. there's no reason for direct market and $4+ dollar price tag bullshit.

Thank you for telling me what I know. Another indiefag thinking he smarter than a capefag. Great. Stop assuming you know more than anyone.

I don't care about supporting a creator who's work I don't care about. That's not wrong in anyway. It's wrong for anyone to deem indies better than the Big 2 simply because you like the pay structure. I'm here for stories not for some faggot I don't know and who doesn't care about me in any way.

That's like saying if you listen to music you should only listen to Bandcamp artists whom you support directly. Fuck off.

Since always?
On the magazine roller.


I'm in Evanston IL though

Marvel and DC offer reprint series that go on magazine racks. But nobody buys them because people barely buy anything off the magazine racks as it is. Most magazine sellers don't bother ordering them. You can see them at places like Barnes and Noble, though they only carry the most popular ones.

Print media has been in an absolute freefall for the past few years, magazines are going out of business left and right. Comics actually have the advantage of having a dedicated audience.

This actually pissed me off that I'll go further.

This is the same thinking that leads people to say stupid shit like "support small local businesses" when they cost more for the same product. No. It's nobody's right to own a small business. If you can't compete fuck off.

Why should I subsidize some faggot's "right", who's book I don't read or like, to not work 9-5? Does he agree to write the story as I demand? What does he provide for me that the Big 2 don't?

I don't know why people think it's any better to support one person rather than a company that provides jobs and paychecks to many people. I get that you think per-contract work fucks creators but it really doesn't. They're providing a service to a company. Without the contract work the Big 2 give to many creators they would be forced to work a desk job and would likely be putting out 2 issues a year of some shitty fucking webcomic with an artist or writer they don't really like or want to work with.

Stop buying big two completely and we're left with an even further decimated industry where it's all no-names with a few good titles and issues here and there. I, personally, appreciate where DC is at the moment at least. Why wouldn't I support that?

Especially if I appreciate physical copies instead of 200mB of fucking jpegs.

Maybe in real life people know you as _the_ comics expert, but here on Sup Forums you're just another anonymous nobody. You shouldn't let yourself be offended that someone explained a financial model to you, because no one except for you knows that you're IRL an acclaimed and reknowned expert in financial models. Furthermore, you asked a question about finances, so it's absurd to see you acting shocked and insulted upon receiving an answer. It's not an assumption that you know less than anybody else, it's an assumption that you asked a question and therefore you want an answer, and that it's not a trick question because you're not looking for an opportunity to go on the offensive and call people fags just because their tastes in this hobby are differen than yours.

Oh well.

Fuck off autist, he gave you a reason why supporting Indi actually helps you AND the industry. No reason for you to spurg out.

My question was "How is it a waste of money".

You didn't answer that, faggot. You explained the financials. Of which I didn't ask about because I know them.

So maybe you can try again. Why is buying something I like a waste of money?

you realize Marvel charges more than most indi books. So even that argument is invalid.

Your kind is cancer to the comicbook industry

He told me common information in response to a completely different question faggot.

Why do indiefags think they're superior to anyone for spending their money on a specific type of good? I'm not even saying you shouldn't like indies, I'm simply pushing back against the air of superiority you faggots have about you simply for "supporting" an "indie".

>air of superiority
You should screencap your posts and look at them again in a month or a year. Once you've cooled off and calmed down, you might be able to reflect and see that, ultimately, you're only describing yourself.

No, the only cancer to the industry is trade-waiters and faggots who refuse to support the "BIG BAG BIG 2 CAUSE THEY'RE EVIL".

I buy what I like. How does refusing to buy something you might like because it's corporate support an industry?

I'm not saying capes are superior though. You look down your nose at people who don't buy indies.

That's very fucking implicit in your posts.

You can blame it on a lack of diversity in content and the horribly myopic distribution/retail structure

holy shit you are insecure. Did an indi comic writer beat you up in school. He didn't say indi comics are better they are, he just pointed out the financial benefit to the industry and to you.
by being a corporate shill that you obviously are

Marvel doesn't get any money from the movies. And some shit happened in Marvel so they all walked out and got hired by DC. Marvel filled their writer positions with randoms in their staff, hence the SJW shit for awhile. Heck, I was talking to a my local comic book store owner and he said Marvel has """accendently""" placed extra comics in each shipment.

Not cape readers, but you personally are superior to everyone else. You already know everything there is to know about comics. If someone tries to explain something to you, then they must be trying to insult you, because everybody on Earth should know that you already know everything.

Never mind that you asked the question. You're a world-famous poster, so it should have immediately been recognized that you already knew the answer, and you were only asking for a laugh. Giving a genuine answer as if it was a genuine question is surely a grave and grievious insult to your grand and superior person.

I'm sorry for not givng you the respect you deserved.

>No, the only cancer to the industry is trade-waiters
Wew.

>they are
And I'm the insecure one?

What was the "benefit" he pointed out? Seems to me he simply described the very commonly known differences between B2 creators and small-press "indies".

Which was also completely beside the question I asked.

It's as if I asked why buying fertilizer from the small shop down the street is better for my grass than buying from Home Depot and he told me because it supports a small business.

This applies for everything really. Dunno why Americans are so shit at making and maintaining culture.

Why would anyone buy a five dollar comic that'll give them half an hour of entertainment at most, when you could go on steam right now and get a good game on sale for that same price that will offer multiple hours of fresh entertainment and maybe more if it's replayable?

No really, how can comics even begin to compete with that?

The truth is they cant. Comics are an antiquated art form that's already in the theatre stage where it's only the one big group of people who really support it, and they're dropping like flies.

i buy my comics from my local grocery store. is that the specialty store you are refering to?

>trade-waiters

I have some sympathy for comic shops but not when they bitch about this stupid shit.

Hint: Most of the trade market is dominated by people who would never fucking ever buy floppies under any circumstances. If trades didn't exist, they wouldn't read comics. Period. Too much hassle.

I find it funny you and the other faggot call me insecure and then write this passive aggressive shit.

You didn't answer my question. And still haven't. You simply told me about the fiscal structure of the industry.

I invite, for a third time, to answer my question. Here it is for the third time, repeated a second time, "How is it a waste of my money?".

He stated DRM. If that's not enough for you then GTFO the internet

That doesn't answer my question. I don't know why think it does.

How do digital rights relate to him asserting that me buying comics I like is a waste of money?

>"How is it a waste of my money?"
Money gets wasted by going to third parties instead of to the creators.

It's fine if you don't like the answer. It's fine if you disagree that this is an important issue. But please don't act like it's an insult to have this explained to you. Nobody knew that you already know, Anonymous Poster #92995331. Don't act so superior to everybody else.

cause you are buying DRM filled shit.

I don't buy digital. So, no, I'm not.

You act like Marvel/DC are the only companies that function on a work for hire basis, and that simply isn't true. Plenty of smaller companies also publish work for hire books that aren't creator owned.

Just because it's not Big Two doesn't mean that it's creator owned by default.

Most of the US market is saturated with capeshit, but content is more diverse than most people realise. It's really just Marvel that won't branch out much, but that's the least of Marvel's problems.

ah ok. Well I just hope you are getting DC more than Marvel, and not just cause the stories. But the price point is FAR better. Marvel keeps jacking their prices and now that Moon Knight is over I'm down to 1 book from them. Ultimates 2

MK and Nova were my only two Marvel books. DC's got me for 4 or 5 a week.

That would be the company "wasting" the consumer's money. Not the consumer's money being wasted.

>waiting half an hour to try and get the "last word"
Lol?

U realize this parallels rural America right?

-Small businesses have shops in small town, competitive prices.
-Wal-Mart comes. Undercuts the competition. Forces small business to close.
-Overtime, Wal-Mart is the last store in town, but hiked prices so much nobody can buy what they used to.
-Wal-Mart leaves. People leave, because the infrastructure to live there is nonexistant.

The "Big 2" are Wal-Mart here, and we are at the last stage of the comparison. Comic fans are starting to leave this hobby behind because its no longer affordable (in America).

>I think Comic Books might be a dying industry.
That legitimately sounds like something Marvel marketing department could say.
>Our comics sales are tanking
>Clearly it's the industry that's dying, and not our comics being shit

A bit of a flawed comparison. I see where you're coming from but they are publication houses not retail outfits.

It's more like Nike undercutting a smaller company, say Big Baller Brand, by selling them to big box stores (Dicks, Macy's, Foot Locker) while the smaller company sells directly from their site. And even that is a bit flawed.

Amazon and Barnes and Noble (with trades) are the Walmart undercutting small businesses, the LCSs.

The fact that the small businesses happened to have a "monopoly" for 10-15 years on floppies makes it tough to compare to other industries.

>Bigger better stories
>Better prices
>Print on demand
>Better access to classic stories
>Less continuity
>Advertising

This is a list of things that will ABSOLUTELY keep printed comics selling under the Big Two. Because they're the only ones who have to worry. Indie comics are already doing this and actually thriving.

>Bigger stories
I disagree. Mostly because they take that to mean decompressed and/or make it an event. But I do see the point in having a few more series that go the mango route with longer winded tales.

>Better prices
tough with floppies since they aren't selling in high enough quantities for them to get a higher discount on printings themselves (materials and such). Though DC has seemed to do well and I personally think a large part of that was people willing to stick with a book for longer or even give it a shot because it was cheaper.

>Print on demand
As in only printing as-ordered numbers? I think they've gotten to a decent point with some surprise titles needing 2nd printings but I'd agree.

>Better access to classics
I'm not sure how thy could make it any easier than they have.

>Less continuity
I don't know if I agree that's arguably why ANAD and stuff failed because the changes were terrible and seen as most likely temporary (not really any impact on overall continuity) or completely counter to what it should be. Many fans do still care about that aspect. But more, even though I hate the term, elseworld type deals that are just beside continuity should be embraced as a way to continue to convert readers to that thinking.

>Advertising
I said above I like it but I do see the dislike not only in ads but in DC in-house ads being mid-story. I think they should, if any, front-load and back-load the issues with ads for other titles and only for non-regular releases like Batman/Shadow and the Looney Tunes cross-overs.

But I can't be the only one that loves seeing a picture of Hulk Hogan shilling the WWF, before those animalfags sued them. Or like Sega Genesis ads. That shit's part of the gold in reading back issues. That's why the TV/Radio museum leaves some of the old ads in when you watch old episodes of shows like McHales Navy and MASH.

That's the exception rather than the rule though, the biggest part of the indigenous European market is the BD format, like 13 or 14 euro for about 50 pages, much more expensive than US comics.

yall a bunch of retards desu. The comic industry is the only print medium still growing: cnbc.com/2016/06/05/comic-books-buck-trend-as-print-and-digital-sales-flourish.html


comichron.com/yearlycomicssales.html


yall a bunch of retards, this is new Sup Forums ladies and gentlemen. Not even a simple google search before spouting bullshit.

...

>cnbc.com/2016/06/05/comic-books-buck-trend-as-print-and-digital-sales-flourish.html

First, CNBC is not really a reliable source when contributors can pay for appearances (see Rick Santelli). ICv2 and Diamond Comics Distributors are basically lobbyists for the comic industry.

Second, the year is 2017.

Third, only Diamond sales are counted? Literally ignoring independent publishers.

...

how does any of that negate the fact the comic market is growing?

>>Better access to classics
>I'm not sure how thy could make it any easier than they have.

This is the only part i disagree with, as far as the big 2 go, their collection/backissue/tpb departments (whatever theyre actually called idk) is pretty piss poor about collecting old stuff at times, DC has taken initiative lately to put out paperback omnis of Vertigo stuff, but they'll just cancel the run in the middle if its not selling well... its like they don't realise book collectors care if a series is finished or not before buying..

for example, Sandman mystery theatre omni is cancelled as of the 3rd volume, I still have two books i can read but they certainly don't do themselves any favours by starting collections then dropping them

or never reprinting stuff with an obvious consumer base, like how fucking long is it going to take for them to reprint The Question by O'neil? that first tpb is like 100$ now which deters people from even bothering trying to get into the series.

It is honestly cheaper to track down all of O'Neil's The Question, including annuals and The Question Quarterly, in singles, than it is to buy just one of the trades. How fucking ridiculous is that?

I know, right? I started reading comics with Rebirth and i just assumed that people would be eating up comics because of the movies that are blowing the box office open, but it's still pretty much the same as if it has no impact. Can someone explain this phenomenon? It's nt like comics are inside baseball, they're pretty accessible and relatively (same price as a coffee) cheap stories with recognizable characters