Joe, the fact that you can't clarify your vague comments when politely asked to do so leads me to think that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. In my eyes, you're just making yourself look silly, which is a shame.

JB, getting back to the original challenge, and specifically the "writing for the trade" concept. Personally I can see both sides of the argument - stretching a storyline out purely to fit into the "six-issues-makes-a-trade" template doesn't make for a good monthly comic, but equally many readers now prefer to read their comics in trade format, and I've always believed a trade works much better if it contains a complete story (so that essentially it's a graphic novel, albeit using reprinted material). So how do you feel about titles which aren't actually an ongoing series, but appear as a regular series of mini-series, which can then be collected into handy trades? Assuming the "writing for the trade" concept won't be going away anytime soon, just for the sake of this exercise if nothing else, would you see a series of mini-series as a decent middle ground, almost a win-win situation?

I'd completely agree than the current Amazing Spider-Man is a good fit for
JB's challenge.

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Let's assume this to be true. How many titles does Marvel publish in a given
month?

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No doubt about it, JB - Amazing Spider-Man is the exception to the rule.

But that's my whole point. If you don't care for the standard Marvel fare for the reasons outlined at the beginning of this thread, then Amazing Spider-Man might be more to your liking. If all of Marvel's comics were like the current ASM, I don't think we would be having this discussion.