"CrossGen didn't "run out of money", they simply never made the money they should do to keep the boat afloat"

Again, I think you're being disengenuous.  When companies "run out of money", they usually haven't spent every dime of investor capital.  It means that someone at some point said, "we've spent too much money for the return we're getting and we don't see that changing so we better try and cut our losses." 

In other words, they ran out of money.

Mig Da Silva wrote: If consumers are not interested in anti-heroes and anti-spandex enough, and if the characterization-driven and begin-middle-end finite model, in which there is progress, not illusion of progress, do not entice the market strongly enough you will not make the sales you need.

Not sure how much you really know about the line, Mig.  Most of their books weren't about anti-heroes and were about as far from what you describe as Manga is to traditional superhero comics.  The model wasn't finite company wide.  Quite a few on-going, no-end-in-sight series.

Read the article, Mig.  CrossGen did run out of money, so much so that they scrambled to obtain new investors at the 11th hour.  I think it has everything to do with launching a new line with established pros working on concepts and characters that were unknowns than it has to do with any idea that it failed because of finite series or some notion of a Millar/Bendis/Moore vibe that, quite frankly, just wasn't there.  Tons of mainstream superhero titles from Marvel and DC rarely get to two years, so it's not all that surprising that a company built on only new characters in a genre other than superheroes found it hard to survive.  That, and CrossGen overextended itself, growing too fast too soon.

"growing too fast too soon."

Yep.  Like him or not, one of the smart things Jim Shooter did at Valiant was to start with one title.  Then two.  Then when those two were doing well, a third.  Slowly, as the titles were well recieved, the company earned trust and when it finally unleashed it's entre line, there was a receptive audience.

??

Now you're just not making sense.  To reiterate, you spoke of the mid 90's market as somehow a downturn from the end of the 80's, early 90's, when in fact the speculative market era of comics saw millions of copies in sales.  Sales before then were NOT good and the upswing in the mid 90's was a hoped for phenom that has occured in comic cyclically almost since the beginning.

If anything, the anemic Direct Market you refer to was much more prevelant before the 90's boom.

And who's painting the current circumstances in a positive light?  I'm just saying your approach to the problem is flawed, not claiming there is no problem.

"Heck, now you're being desingenius... :-) their product never sold. "

How is this a contridiction?  Of course if the product sold they would have had money! DUH  That's like saying Coke wouldn't sell if no one bought it!

I think Mig is forgetting the original point he was trying to make.

"which also seems to have an aversion to spandex and superheroes"

Ok, i don't even know what to do with that.