The Future of Comics and Other Publishing
by James HudnallYou can probably date yourself by remembering how much comic books cost when you were a kid. Was it a dime, a quarter, a dollar? Can you believe they cost $4 now?
As the greenies would say, that’s unsustainable. Comic books used to be common. If you went in any kids house in the 50s or early 60s you would probably find some. Not so much anymore. Comics once sold everywhere magazines were sold. You could buy them in drug stores, supermarkets, seven-elevens, newsstands, even some liquor stores. But the so called “newsstand market” was a hostile place to comics publishers, and a shrinking one.
These days, it’s hard to find comics anywhere outside of the comic book store. That means that comics have become a “destination product.” It’s something you need to know where it’s sold, you have to physically go there and if you’re lucky, they might have what you’re looking for. However, most comics retailers order to sell out. So the odds are, you may be unlucky if you don’t come on “comics day,” the day the books come in from the distributor.
And that’s another problem with comics these days. There is only one distributor. When I got in the business in the mid 80s, there were around ten distributors. But over the years they all went under leaving Diamond Comics as the sole place publishers can distribute through to the “Direct Market,” as we call it. It’s like government run health care, if there’s only one place to go for your needs, you have to like their terms. (more…)
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