Like others have mentioned, this is the format of choice over in Japan. Those "digest-sized books" that you see everywhere are actually full-volume reprints of anthology series that first appeared in magazine size.

The domestic equivalent is SHONEN JUMP, which has a subscriber base of somewhere north of 100,000, making it the best selling ongoing comic anthology in the country by a wide margin. ("52" is a limited series.)

Thanks to all for your opinions and comments on this matter, thus far.

Like I noted in the first post, I sent the same message to "Comics Buyer's Guide," "Comics & Game Retailer," "Wizard," and even to Marvel and DC Comics. I'm hoping this might at least provoke some discussion with those publishers and publications.

That's not a bad idea, Matt L. I did post about this subject over at Talk/newsarama, so hopefully Matt Brady wouldn't remove a post at "Joe Fridays" for being redundant.

Edited to try and avoid creating an unintentional link.

Todd Douglas: there was a period of several years recently during which, of the Superman titles, I was buying/reading exactly one, because only one appealed to me.  (Couldn't stand the work of the "Joes"--Kelly & Casey.)  And, during the crossovers between all of the Superman titles, I didn't even buy that one.

I had a similar experience with X-title crossovers.  That's what really drove me away from all of them back in the 90's, and I've never returned for more than an issue here and there.

Rick wrote: ...Marvel and DC could publish both the standard individual monthly comics and the monthly magazine size anthology comics. Now before you guys jump in and start saying that this would be a bad idea, let me explain. The individual monthly issues would be produced and sold specifically to comic shops and the magazine size anthologies would be sold to other outlets like newstands,convience stores.book stores,supermarkets,and Wal-Mart...

Again, in order for this idea to work, the change must be total, and across the board.

George wrote: ...guys... for this to work STOP thinking "anthology" and start thinking extended single title.... ex.  Xmen, Uncanny, Xfactor all in one book... titled THE XMEN...

I actually agree with this, George. The anthology was just an example. An extended title would actually be a better idea, overall.

"Marvel and
DC seem to be particularly concerned with
immediate profit, and I don't see them banking their
entire companies on an across-the-board format
change.

The logistics in bumping everything up to magazine
size, like JB mentioned earlier, would cause plenty of
headaches, too. In addition to comic shops having
to redevelop their filing systems, ordering a lot more
magazine boards and boxes, and, in some cases,
having to build and order entirely new storage and
shelving sytems (I've been to more than one shop
where the new comic racks and back issue bins are
physically designed only for standard comic book
format material), Marvel and DC would have to
drastically re-work their budgets for the production of
each issue, they might have to switch to a completely
different printer (and the unions would *love* that),
the monthly orders from Diamond would have to be
packaged differently (assuming that there'd be a fair
number of holdouts not switching to the new size),
and there are bound to be a lot of people like me
who like reading monthly comics that are pretty
much the same size, shape and format as they've
been since the 1930s and would resist the switch."

 
Sadly, stuff like that is why I often think that they only long-term hope for the industry is for the Direct Market to implode and take DC and M****l with it, allowing some new publisher to re-enter the newstand market as the only comics available.

Mike

Andrew wrote: ...Add in all the retailers who would be up in arms against any product that would remotely cut into their sales (such as a magazine that's going to be hitting Wal-Mart the same day that it gets to their shops)...

I never said that there would be a change in newsstand distribution that would have it so that comic shops and newsstands received the product on the same day. As it stands now, retailers going through Direct Sales receive comics two weeks in advance of the newsstand retailers. I'm not asking for that part to change.

Now, as I stated previously, any comic shop retailers that fear expanded newsstand distribution is just being shortsighted, and is, frankly, stupid.

Mike wrote: ...Sadly, stuff like that is why I often think that they only long-term hope for the industry is for the Direct Market to implode and take DC and M****l with it...

The Direct Market is not evil, in and of itself, at all. The major publisher's reliance, almost solely, on the Direct Market is where things are bad.

And, if Marvel or DC falters, so does the kingdom. If anything happens to those publishers, pretty much say bye-bye to comic books in America.