How Many Warnings Before The Collapse Of The Comic Industry?

Well, some very interesting stats indeed. Apart from my Avengers posting in Chinese, no single post has beaten the views record set for David "The British Manara" Gordon's interview. That posting has had 14,611 views.

But my posting about Image Publisher Eric Stephenson was one of the most viewed and what exceeded views of that posting?  The post on the creators who deserve recognition and promotion -that set a new daily view record (excluding the Chinese Avengers item 306.97 though I keep failing to include the most popular posting on The Green Skies with views (JUST on CBO) of 42,606.

And it seems people are talking about yesterdays postings. But I am not going to start a pillory Eric Stephenson and Image Comics campaign to get more views.  That is not what CBO or I am about. Yes, I have read comics since I was 4 or 5 years old.  I've worked in publishing and the comics industry since the 1970s. I'm passionate about all types of comics but unlike 99% of fans I know that it is a business. A business but not an insulting rip off.

Publishers need comic readers.  Comic shops need customers and the distributor (a monopoly, as I keep saying, is supposedly illegal in Europe let alone the UK) needs shops and the comic fans.  A distributor is not there to dictate what a shop or comic fans should read. The sooner the shop owners shape up or go out of business the better.  That might wake the monopoly distributor (if there are any brains there) realise what they have been doing wrong.

"If Marvel and DC collapse and the industry implodes we can pull in the Independents and black and white comics to save our arses!"

No. It isn't the 1980s. Print on Demand and self publishing is something the distributor (Diamond) seems to ignore because it isn't the Marvel or DC cash cow. Most Indie comics are not sold in shops now. Does Diamond think that a small publisher is going to say "Sure.  I do all the work and put in all the effort but I'll pay for postage to get "X" number of books to you so you can then take a huge cover price cut on sales so that I make nothing  but it will help save YOUR business!"

Feck off.

Come the inevitable collapse of the "comics industry" then shops will go.  Good. And the distributor is not going to bluff it out in 2016, 2017 or 2018.  Most Indie comic producers have never been comic fans or collectors so good luck with "You get nothing back but it saves us!"

Image wants to do something then it needs to sit down and make decisions because I doubt it would survive a comics collapse and that collapse is well overdue.

I remember my German grandfather explaining how in the 1930s people took Deutsch Marks in huge bags or even in hand carts just to buy a loaf of bread.  Money was that worthless.

We've had a few years of old comics being sold by weight -THAT was warning number 1 that was being ignored.  Warning number 2 was when shop owners tried throwing free copies at comics in peoples faces or offering "Six for $1.50" !

Now we have many people who cannot sell or do anything but hand in boxes of HUNDREDS of comics (from 2000-2016) to charity shops which then have to sell them in bundles or dirt cheap. Jez tells me his charity shop has had to bring in a policy of "no more comic donations" because they have "quite a few" boxes stored away that do not sell. That is warning number 3.

The future looks bleak.  Lowering prices won't help.