John D... I hear your frustration... I've posted similar thoughts over the last few years here... and I have an answer for you.

Give the damn things up.  The hobby is no longer fun.  I only get the Byrne stuff and I don't even pay for it anymore - I'm so sickened by every aspect of comics, I refuse, on principle, to give the industry any of my money, in any way.  (The fact that the LCS guy pays DC for the books he's giving me for free isn't my concern. Byrne needs to get paid, after all...)

Let comics go.  There are a million better forms of entertainment out there... if you like movies, and don't mind shopping used or online, you can get thousands of titles for the price of 2 modern comics - and unlike the 5 minutes of "pleasure" you get out of a comic - most movies run 2 hours!  And with DVD, you often get extra features! 

Dude... Eraserhead is on DVD.  Forbidden Zone is on DVD.  Dude.  Bruce Campbell does an audio commentary AS Elvis on the Bubba Ho-Tep DVD.  Where can you get that kind of entertainment from comics these days?

Walk away from them.  Walk away from the over-priced lack of entertainment.  Walk away from the same-old same-old stories, passing themselves off as new because they have a titty and say "shit".  Walk away from the embarrassment of reading something that the general public thinks is for (slow) children.  Walk away from Mordichai at your local store, the mouth-breathing son of a bitch who isn't fit to run his sock drawer, much less a business.  Walk away from the embarrassment that are called comic fans.  Walk away from it all. 

I've done it, and I can't tell you how good it feels.  Do it, and then go shop in a real store for something.  Go to your comic shop, ask for Byrne, get the usual run around - about how it doesn't sell - (then, by the way, turn and look at the rack, and look at all the other books on it.  You know what they're doing there?  NOT SELLING.  I CALL BULLSHIT ON COMIC SHOPS.  2 copies of Blood of the Demon will break the store, but 100 copies of Infinity Crisis don't hurt them?  BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT) - and then go to a real store and buy a movie.

Then go home, and examine the two exchanges.  And then come back here, and honestly tell us that you still want anything to do with comics, ever again.

That goes for all of you.  And, yeah, I lucked out with the deal I get with my Byrne books, and we can't all get that lucky, but you can avoid the shops.  Get a subscription.  Order on-line. 

There's no reason to be buying comics.  There's less reason for comic shops to stay in business.  Take action, kids.   

But today, because they are so incredibly stupid that they buy all the "Bad Byrne" stories and gibber them in their shops like trained baboons, there are retailers who would rather pass on a sale than support my work. Retailers who are so empty of brain that they fail to grasp even the simple fact that X-MEN became a hit because the retailers pushed it, not because they sat behind their counters chuffing "FANTASTIC FOUR sells twice as well."

Well, I gave my local store a couple of boxes of comics for their back issue bins.  So, in a sense, I'm "paying" for them, but keep in mind - they were all going to be burned at a bonfire anyway, so it's not like they were worth anything to me...

Let's not forget that when JB started art chores on JLA and Action, monthly sales went up be about 15,000 copies per month!  If sales are the gauge of success, then JB should avoid second tier stuff like Demon and Doom Patrol, and stick to the established characters.

But I doubt that sales figures are all that JB focuses on in life.  With Gail Simone writing Atom, I predict it will post similar numbers to her Birds of Prey series, and be around for a good long while, without necessarily being a Top 10 seller.

And is the Page 2-3 spread in Atom #1 a portion of the new JLA?  It fits with all the silhouettes provided on the promotional cover.

Dear Sir

If Marvel can not be an option to improve the situation, maybe only big and popular ongoing DC series could solve the problem.

Marvel would be my first choice, but if that is not possible, I'd just be happy with an ongoing Generations book. Inks always by John Byrne, of course.

If there is one thing that didn't seem perfect to me when Mr Byrne drew Doom Patrol and BOTD (one of my favorite books in this decade after all), it is other people were inking his stuff instead of him.

Who decides who inks Mr Byrne's works?

I'm sure none of his commissions could look better than they already do if inked by someone else!

"Yeah, as much as I've always enjoyed John Byrne's writing (one of the best ever!), there are certain realities about the current marketplace, and "old school", as much as I hate to say it, isn't the soup of the day."

Again, speaking as a complete non-professional who doesn't have even 1% of JB's understanding of comic storytelling, I notice that he's incorporated non-linear storytelling into GENERATIONS, DOOM PATROL, BOTD and even the new ATOM.  I'm not sure the current comic audience can really handle that.

I could be mean and say they're not bright enough to follow it, but that's not fair.  Today's comic audience seems to mostly care about two things - "big ideas" and soap operish character drama.  What they don't care about is plot.  When you take an audience that doesn't pay attention to how the story gets from A to B to C to D and give them a story that goes from C to B to D to A or even B to A to C to D...I'm not sure they can keep up with it.

Mike

LOVED Atom #1 -- kudos to Gail for a GREAT story with a great intro to the new character (both here and in BNW), and kudos to JB for some stellar work on the artwork and visual storytelling chores.

One question for JB:  What's up with the Green Lantern costume?  Looks similar to your "Generations" Green Lantern costume (which was an homage to one of Gil Kane's "interim" costumes for Hal Jordan, I beleive).  Did Gail ask for a slightly different GL costume, or were you taking artistic liberties (the latter seems very unlike you, since you usually go out of your way to keep your characters "on-character").

Really enjoyed this issue and the preview in Brave New World.  I had some minor quibbles (would've liked to have seen the Atom in costume, for instance), but I enjoyed the characters, dialogue, and art enough to come back for more. 

Oh - and I LOVED that two page spread of the JLA.  Made me want to see John on Green Lantern. 

Well done, team.