••

Then you should study up a little more on the history of comics.

You should also learn to use "than" when you mean "than", not "then".

••

As I understand it, that number represents assumed readership, rather than actual sales. The idea there was that a single issue would most likely be read by more than one member of a household. (This is an old trick for boosting numbers when calculating ad rates.)

The number is still valid to this discussion, however, as it represents "awareness" of comics. Modern numbers, for the most part, are nearly impossible to parse in this way. Rather than a single sale representing multiple readers, multiple sales very often represent a single customer.

@Sean

Read your rant - and I share many of your criticisms - but you glossed over something there I think you should bend some more thought towards.

Don't discount the impact that iPads and the emerging tablet/e-reader market could have on readership. Devices such as these are the new frontier. Never before in the history of mankind has the independent creator had such a resource for distributing their work as will happen over the next decade.

I think that we as comic fans need to resign ourselves that it's more or less "too late"for Marvel and DC. For better or worse the big two have found a "profit niche" and they're going to keep riding it. The characters and more importantly the "tone" of comic books that existed up through the mid 80s is simply gone forever.

And look, that's sad for someone like me who really preferred Marvel & DC comics when they were more light-hearted and escapist. However, we need to realize that there are LOTS of comic book fans who LOVE the direction and tone Marvel and DC right now. And they're spending their dollars. Perhaps nowadays that purchasing is a little more widely spread between comics, movies, video games and merchandise rather than simply comics, but however it works, Marvel is a profitable company, as is, I suspect, DC.

So it's time to let go of Marvel and DC and embrace the independent comic creator, who because of the miracle of digital distribution quite possibly will no longer have to rely on the big two. 

I will miss having an actual comic book in my hand, but if instead I can have access to three or four more creators such as Jeff Smith in the future, I'll take that trade.

If someday digital distribution makes the continuation of Danger Unlimited as an independent digital comic a reality (and I mean as a viable ECONOMIC reality for JB, not simply a digital extension of "vanitypress") I will take that in a hot second.

It's possible - it really is. In two or three more years, tablet computers such as the iPad, Motorola Xoom, and whatever tablet HP is going to announce today will drop in price from $800 a pop to perhaps $400-$300. Simple e-readers (especially color e-readers) will likely be even cheaper. 

And if a market of people willing to drop 99₵ on a digital comic are out there - we won't HAVE to rely on Marvel or DC for the kind of storytelling we want. It will be out there at our fingertips. People can hook up with digital comic companies or simply distribute using widely available comic apps and their own websites.

Best of all,successful digital comics will have a secondary print market available to them in the form of trade paperbacks, which means you can still get a physical copy if you want it.

All of this, of course, is dependent upon folks like you and me being willing to pay. iTunes and the App market has proved that people will pay for content again, even after getting it for "free" on the internet for so long. 

But at somepoint fans like us will have to get out there, find some creators that are doing comics we like, and be willing to pay them for their work.

My point is: Let Marvel & DC go. Let the fans who enjoy what Marvel & DC are doing continue to enjoy it. Seek out and support new comics, especially digitally distributed comics, and get a PayPal account and pay them for their work. You might just get the comics you like, and we might just see romping tales of heroic action with readership numbers in the millions again.

Maybe.