Jim,

Have pencils, will draw.

Andrew W. Farago wrote: I think the number of people reading comics may be on the upswing, but they're buying graphic novels, comic strip collections, TV/movie tie-ins from smaller publishers, and other things that don't have any bearing on Marvel and DC's sales charts.

I think that's extremely optimistic, but I'll bite.  Why do you think the number of people reading comics is on the upswing?

As it's been stated before, with a stagnant market there will be diminishing returns.  As prices for comics go up and people are finding ways to trim their budgets, comics go from being "essentials" to being dropped (either a few titles or completely).  If you look at other mass media outlets, there are attempts to adapt to the changing market place, to attract new revenue streams and new customers.  The comics industry may be branching out in merchandise and films, but the core product, comics, seem to have a set base and not much long-term growth.

Sure there are surges with the Obama comics and when Captain America "died", but when looking at the sales numbers, they dropped back to previous levels.  Retention is a problem, unfortunately.

Given it's been mentioned, can someone post a link to the CITIZEN ZERO thread please.
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Darren, is the page in this thread the one you were trying to recall?

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=22799 &PN=0&TPN=7

In searching I also came across this page that isn't a splash but I thought you may want too.

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=22993 &PN=0&TPN=1

Hope that helps.

If the market was truly "stagnant" returns would neither diminish nor enlarge.

Mark,

We’re not far from that scenario at the moment.  Think about how many characters appear in multiple month titles.  As solo titles, not including crossovers and teams books.

ASM currently runs at 3 issues a month, 66 pages, and given that the average storyline is 6 issues in length that means that every two months they can put out a new trade.  And at the moment the lead time between the issues being published and the trades hitting the shelves is getting shorter, why not just skip the middle part?  Although I don’t read it, my understanding is that ASM is practically the only title that is out on time.  I think that the fact they have given themselves a seemingly impossible task, that particular office is doing all it can to not be caught out.

Similar with DC and their event stories that have been weekly titles; I think I’m right in saying that they all came out on time.  It can be done, but only by the select few.

In regard to the situation with Thor, and the other late books, I think that the fact that they will all be collected at some point, and therefore the monthlies are more like a formality, is what could be causing the problem.  As has been stated before, they’re not producing for the monthly reader, they’re producing for the trade reader.  So why bother with the monthly?

It might be a bit of a shock to the system to those 75,000 but most will move over to the trades if they really want to continue reading.  Although it's a different medium, people have made the change from Vinyl to 8-track to cassette to CD to Digital.  

It's all music. 

Same can be said for films. Another prediction (without trying to cause a thread drift) - at some point films will come on USB's, or something akin to them.  That way when you want to do a Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings or whatever you want marathon you won't need to keep swapping disks.  Just plug and play.