Jacob, I agree that too much emphasis on continuity can bog down a comic and make it virtually inaccessible for new readers.

This problem really struck me during the last two seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." It's perhaps my all-time favorite TV show and I followed it from the beginning. However, my wife didn't start watching until around Season 6 and she had to continually ask, "So, what are they talking about again?" I could see how that would get frustrating.

When I first started reading comics in the late 1970s, though, comic book stories were much more self-contained. It's not that continuity didn't exist, but it was much simpler and new readers could easily pick up on what was going on. Any references to previous events could be explained with a brief editor's note or a couple of flashback panels. You could pick up just about any book and enjoy it without needing to know a lot of back story.

It would be great for comics to develop a "Harry Potter", a character that could drive the kids and adults over to the medium in droves.

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Actually, such characters are already there and more are waiting to be created. The problem is that the comics industry itself, right now, is in a lot of trouble.

Harry Potter sells because he makes it onto every bookshelf. Believe me, if the only format for Potter was special "Direct Market Fantasy Book Stores", nobody in the public at large would know who he is, they would not know J.K. Rowling from Arnold Stang, and there would be no Harry Potter films.

It's not that the Ultimate versions are better, I just find them more
identifiable, partly because many of them are my age and also because
they are really being written for this time we live in now. --- J.Seacrest

What? You need to explain this to me. How are Ultimates being written for the time we live in now and how is that difference from the regular Marvel line.

I really don't know because I've never read them.

Jacob P Secrest wrote: I also like the appeal of very limited continuity and no event comics.

Agreed about the "event comics" but only so far.  The Ultimate universe has had it's share of multi-part mini-series that tie into regular continuity like those being written by Warren Ellis. 

As far as limited continuity, that's only going to last for so long.  ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN is already mired in it's own continuity after 100+ issues and so is ULTIMATE X-MEN after 70 some-odd issues.  With multi-part arcs for every story, they aren't new reader friendly either when you come in during Part 3 of a 6 part arc.

This is why I was thinking about comics being broken up into 3-issue arcs. Remember SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE? Almost every "story" was told in three issues, three-act structures. If the writer does his job, there should be enough information to catch up a reader who picks up part two, or three, just enough to get them into the jist of the story. And then you have the next 3-parter, and the next, and break it up with a stand-alone so to not create monotony.

I think even Roger Stern did a lot of this, particularly on his HULK run. It seems like I remember many of his arcs were about 3 issues. Not only was the main story solved, but any subplots as well. You create new subplots for the new arc. Then if you're forward thinking, like Stern, you have one big subplot (the lurking presence and revelation of THEM and the return of one of the Hulk's oldest enemies as the mastermind behind everything) to conclude your run. That way you also don't have scattered subplots around so some other nimrod can come in and change everything.

Of course, that didn't stop the people involved in Alpha Flight after JB left from coming up with some ludicrous resurrection for James Hudson. If I'm not mistaken, JB drew Hudson's rib cage lying in a puddle of scorched debris. That doesn't sound like a survivor situation to me.