Maybe.....the big two seem to make their money from movies, TV, merchandise and licensing rather than comics. I am not one to buy variant covers or other gimmicks (although I did in the 90s). I believe DC's Rebirth could be them trying to lure back readers whose interest and purchases declined with the new 52 offerings. I know I will be checking out many Rebirth titles and see if they are to my liking.

Comic sales are no longer about what the end customer orders, it's about what the retailers order. Diamond charts etc. reflect orders, not sales to end customers. The current bubble will last only as long as retailers have the confidence to order enough to meet minimum sales thresholds for variants or additional discounts on the orders that they currently do. If actual end customer sales were taken into account, sales numbers would be much, much lower already. Secret Wars and Convergence (not variant covers) and the poor initial response to the offerings which came afterwards from DC and Marvel has shaken that retailer confidence. How well Rebirth does doesn't rest in the hands of end customers, but in the hands of retailers who ace the orders and there has been a lot of skepticism and reluctance to order big on these that I have seen from retailers who choose to talk about it.

The Big 2 direct market sales pol is a zero sum gain right now in terms of end customers. If something increases in sales, something elsewhere is decreasing. People trying new Rebirth titles are likely dropping other titles they tried recently and were less impressed with rather than just adding new titles to what they are already buying.

Again revenue wise, the market is just reaching the levels it was at 20 years ago-but the products cost 4-5 times what they did 20 twenty years ago to generate the same revenue-that means they are selling far fewer units to generate that same revenue-4-5 times fewer or more when you consider that the revenues also includes toys, trades, and other things that were not a significant part of the marketplace 20 years ago that all now contribute to the revenue pool that has yet to exceed what it was 20 years ago.

The prelude to a crash is a peak, and there is no peak. There isn't enough height in the market to make a fall qualify as a crash. At best there might be a stumble, where orders come down to the level of actual end sales -but on the retailer level that means they are spending less and making the same so not necessarily a bad thing for them. For publishers though it means their sales will drop the the level of the end customer purchases that currently exist, not the inflated middle man levels that sales charts reflect currently. That is what is called a market correction, not a crash. And it might be long overdue. If you look at other publishers-Image in particular, their numbers are climbing and it more accurately reflects end customer sales not inflated middle man purchases. So there is growth potential, but only if the product is one that grows audience not switches it form one product within the market to another creating a stagnant customer base.

So I don't see a crash so much as a needed market correction and transformation of the market, one that reflects the 21st century, not the 20th century way of producing content and providing entertainment value.

-M

I'd say no. All of my local LCS' are thriving. And it's not due to the movies or just the big two companies either.

Independent comics and trades are hot right now.

The only thing that I think could cause a "crash", at least for an LCS, is the advent of digital.

Seriously, though, the ongoing growth of comic sales is due for a course correction. That happens all the time to every industry periodically.

It probably won't be as scorched earth as the crash after the speculator boom, due to (like Brian said) increased diversity - And also lower sales due to higher price points.

The industry could disappear in a puff of smoke tomorrow and 99% of the public wouldn't notice or care
I'm only speaking for the U.S. but folks watch superhero movies and TV and will never have the slightest inclination to even think about a comic book . They generally don't even read newspapers anymore

So a crash on the horizon? Of course-there are always peaks and valleys ever since the beginning. 

You could say you work in graphic novellas.

Maybe.

I think the advent of digital services and the overall success and popularity of the movies and related media/merchandise will help the overall industry.

But I get a bad feeling on the resurgence of the variant covers and it's effects on how retailers make their orders. For example, I'm still pissed over Valiant's retailer incentive for their Legends of the Geomancer mini that was offered concurrently with the release of the Book of Death mini. They explicitly stated that LoG wasn't going to be offered digitally and for retailers to acquire a certain number of copies of each issue of LoG, they had to order a certain amount of BoD to qualify. It's ridiculous, it's forcing me into a collector hunt that I want no part of just to read this story when I am more than willing to pay for any digital copies of the mini. It's ostracizing a certain portion of your readership for sake of the bottom line.