The Bullpen

[Chris]

I imagine that when Henry Ford rolled out the 1st Model T there would have been forum threads along the lines of "Ideas to keep horse & buggy sales up".

[Jay Tomio]

Anytime that you can regularly go into a small, specialty,  business and the owner or chief staff member isn't the brightest person in the room/building pertaining to that niche, you know there is a problem

[BobBretall]

Anytime that you can regularly go into a small, specialty,  business and the owner or chief staff member isn't the brightest person in the room/building pertaining to that niche, you know there is a problem

   Very well said.....

[Wood]

I imagine that when Henry Ford rolled out the 1st Model T there would have been forum threads along the lines of "Ideas to keep horse & buggy sales up".

[JimN]

Thanks goodness these forum posts are date-stamped so we'll know who is right in a few years. 

I just think that publishers shouldn't pour any more resources down the rat hole of paper comics.  They're profitable and they should milk the hell out of it.  But, they should be putting their resources into digital initiatives.

I see absolutely no good reason not to do both. I know the digital crowd can't wait for the future to become the present and the demise of paper is supposedly right around the corner but there are plenty of people who don't feel that way. Paper comics are still a profitable business for a reason and they can continue to be a profitable business for a long time to come.

Jim

[Dean S.]

I see absolutely no good reason not to do both. I know the digital crowd can't wait for the future to become the present and the demise of paper is supposedly right around the corner but there are plenty of people who don't feel that way. Paper comics are still a profitable business for a reason and they can continue to be a profitable business for a long time to come.

I just don't think there is much that publishers can do to stem the tide.  Heck, the way the publishers are dicking around with their day-date digital offerings is a thing that they're doing to sustain paper sales. 

Most of the burden for paper sales is going to fall onto the retailers, so I think you're probably right: Both can happen. 

[Bluestreak]

I'm pretty sure it would be against the law (at least in Australia) to have a scratch ticket for cash available to be sold to kids. Not that it would be valid in Australia but anyway.

[lugaru]

Oh yeah, I was being totally sarcastic with the first post... but it is a serious issue for a lot of people so a lot of people chimed in with serious solutions.

[Matt H.O.W.L.]

I know for a fact that the group I went and saw Thor with (of 8 people only me and my 14year old son actually read comics) would have forked out for some copies after the show (which was packed incidentally!)

Cool! I, personally, couldn't feel less inclined to fork over money after spending $50+ bucks for two tickets and a bucket of popcorn, but sounds like I'm in the minority.

[Tempo House]

Destroy the internet and television.

 

Especially video games.

I believe what comics did for generations in the past is now being done by video games for the current generation. That's where they get their sense of adventure and that sense of "wow".  The medium also allows them to participate in that adventure in more visceral ways than a comic book can, and plus, they can share the game with their friends in real time and make it a more communal experience.

Comics cannot survive against what video games have to offer. They need to go more literal and more book-like (i.e., they may be better off coming out as trades right off the bat instead of painfully decompressed single issues which takes for the whole 6 issue arc to complete to make any sense in the first place) and speak to a different, a more literary-minded audience.

Just my 2 cents.