Agreed, a new Plastic Man book would also be great, but I'll take what I can get

It can't be that far off. If the focus of the rumored relaunch is on characters with movies on the way, they'll want something to tie in with the movie.

In other words things changed when the focus shifted from newsstands to the direct market. What we have now is the unintended consequences of that shift, and since the direct market is now the only market, all marketing is directed by the buying patterns of the hardcore customer base in that niche market-which results is lots of comics that see sales spikes in the short term because there is almost zero growth potential outside the direct market by selling only to the direct market. The focus became on selling to current customers not in bringing in new customers. SO now you have an industry that exists only to serve a subset of the market, and focuses on shifting marketshare within that subset, hence events, relaunches, #1s, variant covers, sensationalized changes to the status quo that are soon followed by sensationalized returns to the status quo, all geared at trying to maximize sales within the small niche market that remains with no real plans to grow the market in the long term, mostly because they no longer have the infrastructure in place to sell to the larger more sustainable long term market in place because they let it atrophy, but also because the content doesn't appeal to the larger mass audience anymore because it has become insulated (and inbred), and because no one in the industry really has the practical experience of how to go about making content for the larger audience (outside of maybe Kevin Feige and he's part of the studio, not publishing). Add to it a fanbase with a sense of entitlement that resists any changes away from products that appeal only to their sensibilities that dominates the public discourse about the industry and its products (mostly with rants and tantrums) and doesn't back what i says it wants with actual dollars spent but keeps buying what it says it doesn't want in greater numbers, and you wind up where were are now.

The direct market was the road to hell paved with good intention,, but rife with unintended consequences for the industry.

-M

I think Marvel's Unlimited subscription is a step towards making books accessible to a wider audience in an affordable manner. Streaming entertainment via subscription is a viable model for a wider audience in the current market. People who stream are used to a lag time before series/movies become available so don't need to have new releases the day it is released so the 6 month lag time for them is not an issue, and it allows a casual reader to sample stuff form all eras, creators, or characters in the library to find what they do like without spending money specifically on things they may not like in the process.

Digital comics as individual issues is a half-ass measure as far as I see it, and not in step with the way people buy other media digitally. Prose is sold in complete stories. Movies sold in complete stories, even tv episodes bought individually usually comprise a complete story albeit within the larger whole of a season long arc in some cases. But individual comics these days are never complete stories, so that is a barrier for expanding to a non-hardcore audience. Digital trades collecting whole stories priced at what a novel, movie or tv episode sure, but individual comics at those kind of prices individually is not going to fly with a wider audience both in terms of price and completeness of contest. The wider audience wants complete stories or at least a complete story that is in turn a chunk of a larger story arc for their money, not a small fragment of a story costing as much as a complete story in other media.

If comics are going to maximize the potential of the digital market, they need to abandon the albatross of the formats of the direct market, but they are caught betwixt and between because so much of publishing's revenue stream is tied up in the direct market and so much of their infrastructure and practical experience is selling to that direct market, and it's quite likely the direct market might not survive the transition. The question is can comics continue to survive and be profitable if they do not make the transition into the 21st century market. They are no longer bringing in enough new customers to account for the normal attrition of readers who lose interest over time, never mind the mass exodus they seem to have experienced in the years since the speculation bust. The direct market is currently propped up by marketing shtick (variants, #1s, etc.) geared towards the collector aspects of the direct market customer base, but I think we are seeing that finally wearing thin. The buying patterns of those that remain in that hardcore customer base haven't changed (so neither have the buying patterns of retailers who tend to service that sector of the market as their core customer base as well), but there are fewer remaining and those new customers coming in seem to be looking for something different (hence the success of publishers like Image).

I think the next 4-5 years are going t be an interesting and bumpy time for the industry. Change is never easy, but I think entropy is catching up on the direct market. It is a 20th century model struggling to survive in a 21st century market-just as the newsstand struggled to survive in the 80s and eventually faded but comics themselves didn't, comics had to evolve or die then, and I think we're at that point again. However content and format has to evolve to match the market as well.

-M

Record stores at least, are making a come back as vinyl is back in vogue.

-M

It's really the concept of specialty stores that's going away, not so much the nostalgia products themselves. There will always be a market for high quality collected editions, but with discount sites and Amazon, there is no longer a need for a physical store. People liked those shops, be it music or comics, for the communal experience but I never had good experiences with the comic shops I frequented. I've never been one for cliques and simply wanted find what I wanted to purchase and get the hell out. Loner's unite!