the dates are pretty hidden these days... just in the indicia, if anywhere.   I've gotten used to it.  I think since the series isn't an ongoing story anymore (ie, each writer pretty much does their own thing and barely references what has gone before) its fine.   You can... mostly... go with 'Aaron's Thor' or 'Cantwell's Iron Man' to describe things, and which order doesn't matter all that much.

Lest we forget, there were legitimate reasons involving postal rates for subscription copies for comics not to renumber with #1 into the 70s. You didn't see an increase of new #1 until US Postal regulations changed and subscription copies became much less a factor in total sales (aided and abetted by the advent of the direct market making it easier for fans to find books where comic shops existed and fueling the growth of mail order comic suppliers of new issues).

Once those market obstacles were out of the way in the early 70s, using #1 issues became a de rigeur way of increasing sales and we no longer saw companies (Marvel. DC. Charlton etc.) keeping old numbering when relaunching or changing the titles of books, and every new book launched with a #1. I think DC hung on the longest with continuing old numbers when they revived books like Challengers, All Star Comics and Plastic Man in the early/mid-70s, but they were launching all kinds of new #1 at the same time (at least until the DC Implosion hit).

-M

That's up to 2000AD. Would it boost sales? Possibly. Would it make people happy? Maybe.
The company's been doing it for so long it would be a kick in the teeth to the readers I would imagine just to stop and re-number.

Since I have no idea what the comic market in the UK looks like let me ask this-is 200AD available in places where anyone can pick it up (like an actual newsstand or market that doesn't just sell comic/hobby products) or is it available only in a niche market that is a destination marketplace only people who are interested in buying comics would go to?

If it is the former, my guess would be that people would continue to pick up the latest issue of 200AD to read no matter what the numbering was as long as they could tell it was the new issue (and numbering isn't the only indicator of that, distinctive covers or cover copy, dates, etc. all serve the same function). If its the former, then I would guess the buyers would be more interested in the trade dress than continuing to get the content they enjoy and have enjoyed which is entirely unaffected by that trade dress.

But again, if you let trade dress determine your enjoyment of the content inside the book, I think you've put the cart before the horse.

-M

Thank you for not answering my question as to how 200AD is sold in the UK.

As for buying the next issue of something for the content, I can not remember anyone outside of comics fans caring about what the issue number or trade dress was for a periodical they were purchasing. They wanted the next issue for the content-the stories, the news, the pictures or what have you. No one cared what issue of the Times it was, as long as it was the next issue. Of Life. Or Playboy. Or TV Guide. Or Newsweek. Or Weird Tales. Or Reader's Digest. Etc. As long as they could tell it was the next issue and they continued to enjoy the content and could afford it, they would continue to buy it. Comic fans seem to have fetishized the trade dress, numbering, logos, brand names, etc. and prioritized it over content (which could go a long ways towards explaining why readership of periodical comics continued to dwindle while publishers focused on and prioritized the trade dress over content).

People who consume the content and enjoy the content focus on the content and not the trade dress. It's only with the advent of the "collectors" of comics and the rise of the direct market that this stops being the case with comics, which is about the time readership numbers started dwindling (not sales numbers, readership numbers as with comics as a collectible the two are not the same and with the advent of the direct market they are totally separate as direct market sells to retailers who own the issue whether they resell it to a reader or collector or not.

Yes, collectors seem to derive enjoyment from the numbers or trade dress of comics. I don't deny that. But I think that's part of the problem, not a feature of comics as a hobby/feature and thus puts the cart before the horse.

Opinions may vary and that's cool, but not every comic reader cares about numbers of trade dress, and most who aren't collectors in addition to readers, even give it a second thought.

-M

Maybe it's because some of us can't imagine why a number makes someone happy or is enjoyable.  I mean, I guess it does and can be.  But I don't understand it in any way.