The problem is that cutting from, say, ten titles which sell 20k each to two titles won't make those two sell 100k each. They probably won't sell even 40k each.

Neither the price reduction. Kurt Busiek's widely praised Untold Tales of Spider-Man cost just one buck when most comics cost double that or more, yet it didn't sell even half of the parent title.

The digital market is still too small. Reportedly sales for digital comics are lees than a tenth of print sales. Not to mention, of course, that digital comics readers are far more likely to just illegl download them than print comics readers.

Focus on established characters? Well, that would be tantamount to admit that no new concept will ever again work on comics. Even on the current depressed market, a few new concepts (even at Marvel and DC, just look at Deadpool or Fables!) have been able to thrive. Of course, they would be more likely to do so if Marvel and DC published less garbage, but, as I explained above, even cancellation-fated garbage IS helping the bottom line.

So I don't think those suggestions will save the current US comics industry. I am partial to the French comics model myself (essentially changing from a periodicals-based model to a book-based one), but that would change radically the way comics are published in the US, probably alienating most fans.

So, yeah, I don't know what to do. If there was an easy solution, it would already been done...