Short term decisions for immediate results have long been a danger within business.

I wonder how long it'll be until Marvel and DC end up releasing trades with a couple of dozen variant covers? 😅

Or, more realistically, how long until they release albums/graphic novels without bothering to have a floppy pamphlet release first?

Again I would argue that the manga stories allow characters to develop, grow, change, and reach resolutions. The concept brought to periodical comics, was part of what made Marvel seem innovative in the 60s, Peter Parker aged as the stories were told etc. high school to college to grad school, etc. and DC would eventually follow suit, but then comics became trapped by the Stan Lee maxim that fans don't want change, only the illusion of change, and reactions to storylines that did effect change (characters dying to be replaced by legacy characters, new status quo's etc.) bore that out as any periodical comic fans resisted and rejected those kind of changes to the status quo, so you began to have things get recycled with everything put back into place at the end of every story. Comics were no longer dynamic and evolving and characters could no longer change and grow form the conflicts they overcame. But this took place long before comics became corporate and more IP farms. That was something the corporate entities inherited, not brought to comics. That was a by-product of the generation of comic fans becoming comic creators and the rise to primacy of the sacred cow of continuity, not a function of corporate comics. Now corporations recognized that you don't mess with your successful IP by changing it (just ask Coca Cola what happens when you do it badly), so once they were involved that resistance to change become entrenched in an institutional way, but it's not that comics go too corporate to change, it's that they stopped changing to please the longterm fanbase who wanted things to be like they were when they first discovered comics-the problem is that that was a sliding scale and different for different segments of the fan base so by trying to please everyone, they pleased no one and lost the very thing that was drawing people to the story-cool dynamic characters who grew and evolved through their stories. But stories need beginnings, middles and ENDS. The resolution is what makes or breaks the story. Because the fan base wouldn't accept change or ends, super-hero storytelling became stagnant. Manga, YA graphic novels, and breakout non-big 2 books like Walking Dead or Saga succeed because they tell a dynamic story that has an actual ending as a destination. Even books like Watchmen and Sandman, that have achieved evergreen status in the comic market-have that as a feature, and it is one of the reasons for their enduring appeal and continued sales success. Even Marvel and DC stories told in other mediums, especially the MCU, feature that dynamic. It's a big reason why those stories resonate with audiences and why when they come to periodical comics they don't stick around-not because they can't find which #4 someone was talking about, but because the stories do not have endings or satisfying resolutions that impact the characters in terms of growth and development. It's what good stories need to do to satisfy the audience. It's what periodical comics from Marvel and DC usually fail to do. So even if by some miracle, someone finds a comic shop and actually buys a periodical comic-they're not getting a satisfying storytelling experience, even if they read a whole arc. That's not a corporate problem, that's a we have to tell one never ending story and keep the characters the way the fanbase discovered them because our audience won't accept anything else problem. And the bigger problem is that isn't going to attract new customers to replace those customers who age out or die off. Which is exactly where Marvel and DC are right now. A format and a storytelling ethos that are geared to generations past and do not appeal to current audiences, and you are never going to get those different segments to attracted to the same type of products or stories. That's the divide that is limiting the growth or comics right now.

-M