Yeah, the pure cost of monthly issues is a bit easier for "adult" collector mentality to afford. Putting out cash weekly in being able to follow a series has become far more expensive. Parents would likely learn more towards Graphic Novel/TPB's as a singular better "buy" in most cases. Teens/teens who are predisposed towards sitting for hours to play through a video game providing a "complete" experience would also seem to be a strong target audience for TPB's. Being able to have a full storyline collected to be involved in seems more desirable than to "wait" issue after issue.

Speaking personally, when I was young and collecting it was a major pain missing out on issues in a storyline playing out over multiple issues. If TPB's had been a real option at the time I would rather been able to grab those up. That was part of the joy in picking up annuals every summer. They tended to be one and done adventures until the idea of crossovers for longer stories.

Jump to adult hood and MOST of my floppies sit in boxes unread as I will order Trades or Omnibus editions providing easier reads as stories are collected together. I have all but dropped monthly collecting from my buying habits. Partly based upon price and again how difficult it is when missing an issue that price jumps insanely because it is a "HOT" issue. Trade waiting makes more sense in affordability and having the story to read and enjoy.

You must be the odd one out Icc. Most of us I believe prefer placing our Trades/Omnibus on a shelf. While I too like single issues and they are "easier" to handle for reading I have to say that much of the trade/omni I own have been bought solely based upon how much more expensive it would be for single issue purchasing.

I have a book shelve in my attic and some are there but the majority of my tpb are in comic boxes.

Printing processes are a supply and demand kind of thing; with few clients wanting things on newsprint, fewer printing houses use equipment designed to print on it. It also factors into the reproduction of the material. So, with little demand for the material, few paper mills produce it, which makes it scarce, if you want to suddenly start printing on it.

Paper prices, in general, shot up with the desktop publishing revolution and it crossed over into the costs of printing and publishing. Book prices shot up in the 90s, which I witnessed, at Barnes & Noble. That, ultimately, led to a decline in the mass market paperback, as it was more cost effective to do smaller print runs on trade size books, rather than big runs on mass markets. Mass markets are pretty much only used for big selling fiction authors and genre fiction, with a long history of paperback buying patterns (mystery, sci-fi, romance and westerns). Juvenile books tend to fall in an intermediate size, until you get to the YA age group.

Looking at the coloring side of things; it isn't just comic book colorists. I work at a print shop/shipping retailer and we have a local university with a graphic design program. So, I see a lot of proofs for design students. So many of them have no clue about color formulas and that they have to gear their work to the system that will reproduce it. We use the CMYK color system, on our copiers and printers. There is also the RGB color model. That is used more for electronic display; but, what you see is the designer gearing things to the computer display and not the printed medium. Certain colors can fall on the outskirts of one particular color element (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, or Black) which can cause the color to shift, when printed. I have seen dozens of students and amateurs come in a have us print something and say it didn't look like that on the computer. Of course not, it was reproduced there with a different color system and projected with light on a display screen. Even when they use the CMYK formula in composition, they are still looking at a light projection display (computer screen), rather then a light reflecting display (paper). Also, paper choices can affect the look, as gloss paper makes colors pop more, since they reflect more light. The trade off is that in bright direct lighting, they reflect too much light and the color becomes blurred. Matte paper gives a flatter look, but maintains it in brighter light. Thickness can affect how solid and rich the color looks. 20 lb copy paper and 60 lb cardstock reproduce images differently.

Book and magazine publishers have always understood this; but, traditionally, comic book publishers worked on the cheap to maximize their profits, since their price point was aimed at children's pocket money. That carried over into everything, including the pay rates for the people who created the stories, especially compared to other publishing. That was one of the things Jenette Kahn was fighting, when she became publisher at DC, having come from the childrens publishing world. Scholastic provided much better pay and incentives and got quality work. DC paid relatively low rates, offered no royalties and maintained full ownership; so there was no incentive to innovate. She was never able to fully implement what she wanted to do (corporations weren't much different than past owners, where you can keep exploiting people who won't fight back, as they have been numbed to it); but, the small inroads she made paid off handsomely, through the 1980s and at least the early 90s.

TPB's and Gn  are made to carry around when traveling , so it lends itself to getting dinged up. I would never bag and board them. And yeah, that format is made to have expensive runs on the cheap. Even my treasury books are beat up. But that might be also because of the unconventional size.

Done! Thanks.

For themselves, yes; but, not necessarily within their own studio system.  One of the criticisms leveled against some of them was acting like traditional publishers in certain studios, after talk about co-ownership.