I returned to regularly collecting last year after a ten year break from comics. When I stopped reading around 1992, monthly titles selling 100,000 copies a month would barely crack the top 100. Today very few titles manage to top the 100,000 mark.

As an industry insider, what is your viewpoint concerning the reasons behind the collapse of the comics industry? Why is buying the TPB only different from buying the monthly titles? Are readers supposed to buy both to help ensure the existence of their favorite titles? I personally buy the monthly formats for my favorite books, and would like to start picking up some TPB's to access material I otherwise wouldn't buy at all. If waiting for the trade isn't the ideal behavior creators and companies expect from comic fans, what purchasing behavior is desired? Buy everything - monthlies and trades? The buy everything solution doesn't seem realistic.

Your comments indicate that the TPB product as it is created today is killing lower and mid-selling monthly titles. If this statement is true, why would comic companies produce a TPB product which is destroying their "lifeline" of monthlies? How can the TPB format be utilized to bolster the comic market, instead of cannibalizing the monthly readers?

I appreciate your time and attention regarding my questions.

I'd imagine the holidays, or a Captain Marvel deadline, are keeping Peter David away.

As you saw from your other thread, readers will make up their own minds about what format is best for them for a particular series.

For any fledgling series, though, I think it's best that any potential reader who doesn't have a Kryptonite-like aversion to monthlies go ahead and get it in that format. I gather the series that you're wanting to get in trade are ones that you either aren't that interested in or you don't have the cash for at the moment. I wouldn't worry too much about it if you're foregoing them for those reasons.

The reason the "buy everything" solution doesn't seem realistic is because it isn't realistic. What you have to realize is that publishers never intended for trades to supplant monthlies. They were intended to be supplements to the monthlies.

Remember that once upon a time, fans bought multiple copies of books they liked. One was for reading; the other(s) were to keep mint so they'd always have it in pristine condition. In some countries such as Spain, it was SOP for collectors to have entire runs of series bound into permanent book form.

As retailers started ordering closer to the bone (making back issues scarcer, though, and as prices crept upward, and as sheer volume of titles increased, that became more problematic. DC tried a hardcover/softcover release of varying comic formats with "Teen Titans," but it didn't quite take. Trade collections, ranging from the Cerebus phonebooks to the aggressive collecting of Sandman, pointed the way.

There seemed to be no downside to trades. For those people coming in late to a series who didn't want to search out back issues, the trades made catching up easy. It was cheaper and easier than buying multiple copies and keeping them in snugs. And it attracted readerships who didn't frequent comic book stores but were now stumbling upon material they wouldn't have found otherwise.

In short, trades were supposed to cover those books that were either large sellers as a means of continuing to be reader breeders, or books that were wildly critically acclaimed so they could reach a broader audience.

What no one anticipated was that readers would come to assume that *everything* was going to be collected as a trade, or that if something was "any good" it would be collected. This caused a progressively spiralling downturn. What is a creative team supposed to do when increasing numbers of readers say, "I bought the first issue, loved it, and will be sure to collect it as a trade." The more frequently you try to point out that enough people employing this reasoning will result in no trade and no ongoing comic book, the more the result is a collective response of "La la la, I'm not listening, I buy only trades, la la la."

No one is saying that readers are expected to buy monthlies out of altruism. Their response always boils down to: It's not my problem. Well, that's true. Nothing is ever your problem until it actually becomes your problem. Like, for instance, if you hunger for something new and different in a market becoming increasingly toxic toward such endeavors.

What can readers do about it? Decide that if they like a monthly title, buy it on a monthly basis because if it's not supported on a monthly basis, it won't be collected but instead cancelled. If they then want to buy the trade, they can always turn around and donate the monthlies to their local libraries, if nothing else.

What can publishers do about it? Do what book publishers do: Wait a year. No publisher in his right mind puts out a hardcover followed within a few months by a paperback. As it stands now, there can be solicits for trade collections of books and the first or second issue is just barely hitting the stands. Instead wait a year from the publication of the last issue to be collected as a trade.

In that way, you'd be forcing readers to wait a looooong time for a trade. Perhaps the additional wait time would serve as more of an incentive to buy the monthlies.

With all that said, I'm relieved to mention that"Fallen Angel" issues 1-6 will be out in trade in June. Nowadays it seems the only way to survive.

PAD

I'm finding a number of new and different stories in original graphic novels, which nicely sidestep the whole issue.

The fact is, I'm no longer a monthly buyer. There's already more out there in my preferred format, that of the book (original or collected), than I can keep up with. There's no need for me to settle for a format I don't like and is no longer economically effective.

If publishers want my business, they'll put out products I want to buy. If they don't, there are plenty of other book-format comics out there for me.

Delay? Doesn't matter. When I read it, it's new to me. I've got a number of collections from last year waiting for me -- and because they were put together with a longer story and format in mind, they'll still be as enjoyable when I get to them.

Short answer: it's not my job, responsibility, or source of guilt to buy something I no longer want. If "waiting for the trade" is killing good comics, blame the publishers, who aren't listening to their customers' desires.

I'm one of those that started dropping monthlies for trades. I did it not because I wanted the "cool comic bookshelf", but because the stories were getting drawn out each issue.

A large majority of the monthly titles I picked up were turning into slower-paced 6 part story arcs. I would just pick up the tpb so I could read it all at one time. One example of this is Ultimate Spider-man. It's a slow moving comic, but read as a tpb it's much more enjoyable. I've went back to monthly on quite a few comics lately though. I stayed with the tpb form on New X-Men, Thor, and Green Arrow.

I've wondered about the effect the rush of TPBs will have on the comic sales as well. With everyone dropping books in an already strapped industry, it's seems like a sure fire shot to the foot. I've seen creator comments along with what PAD says above. Marvel though, has geared their output to be very Collection Oriented. So I assumed it was still a healthy tangent for the comic scene.

Ultimately, I'm all for TPBs and HCs. They lend themselves to be the best way to read long comics arcs. I especially like the collection of older material like the Masterworks, Marvel Lengends, and Archives. My wife, on the other hand, wants the montly read. She's into Strangers in Paradise, Fallen Angel, and Batman. She'd just as soon have the monthly comic to read or sample. She will pick up the occasional Batman TPB of older stuff though.

I just don't want my TPB/HC habit to lead the industry to a quick death.

Tim O'Neil where are you because I am about to quote you - via http://www.tcj.com/journalista/

Relax Flapjack its not you who's contributing to the industry's premature death its the multiple issue padded stories that Marvel seems to be advocating these days. Where have the smaller story arcs with continuing sub plots gone? Who can be bothered waiting 6 months for a story that could be told in 2 issues? Even Peter David (one of my all time favourite writers) is writing in this long winded style lately (Captain Marvel is nearly always written in at least 4 issue arcs). I can't help but feel Marvel's catering to the TPB market is slowly killing the industry. Just my opinion.

I defer to Mr. David's insight into the comics publishing world. But with respect, publishers and creators have only themselves to blame if trade paperbacks come to replace monthlies, leaving mid-list monthlies to face sluggish sales and quick cancelation.

Increasingly, comics are written in six-issue arcs that drag out stories painfully and needlessly, and that make it difficult to remember, in December, what happened to Batman back in August ... and they are written this way to pad out the inevitable trade paperbacks. It was John Byrne, I think, who said that DC demanded a six-issue JUSTICE LEAGUE arc from him, and no less than six issues, so they could sell it as a trade paperback. DC wasn't the least concerned whether Byrne had six issues worth of good story to tell.

Also, a lot of trade paperbacks include new stuff that wasn't seen in the monthlies, such as a cool and entirely new concluding chapter in the KINGDOM COME trade paperback. I bought the monthlies, so I didn't get it and feel a bit cheated.

Finally, a lot of monthlies aren't really monthlies anymore. Publishers and creators are getting lazy about meeting those deadlines. I still love THE ULTIMATES, but if that title churns out six more issues in 2004, I'll be surprised. Why shouldn't I wait to read the next trade paperback all at once, rather than collect one issue at a time as Marvel slowly leaks them out over the seasons?

I'm moving from being a monthly reader to a trade paperback reader. Despite Mr. David's comments, it feels like that's the direction that publishers and creators want me to go.

Pretty much my feelings exactly. There is now so much out there to read in the format I prefer, high quality material and critically acclaimed series I have yet to get to, that I no longer have to purchase something I'm not inclined to purchase anyway - the monthly comic book.

Without the strong TPB trend we've seen, I'd be reading a mere fraction of the comics I'm reading. As it stands they can stop publishing TPBs right now and I'd probably still have reading and purchases to make for a year or four.

I'm a bigger prose reader than comic reader, and I feel no need or desire to keep up with the latest paperbacks or buy brand new hardcovers. The library of available reading goodness is more than I can ever hope to get to. (And no doubt new writers are not seeing all of the income they could because there are others just like me, content to read well-established works). The world of comics is finally starting to build just such a library. You'd better believe I will be on board.

And without that library? Sorry, no. I haven't the time nor the inclination to do the monthly comic chase anymore. That was one of the things that prompted me to drop comics for quite a few years. It was the Sandman TPBs that brought me back.

There are a host of reasons I prefer TPBs. No amount of low-level book cancellations will counter those reasons. And rest assured, if TPBs are where the money is rather than in monthlies, it's not me that will have to adjust.

(Personally I think they can live together in peace. Peter David's idea of waiting a year before publishing a collection is a damn good one. At one time they waited a while before bringing films to home release in order to keep people in the theaters. DVD profits changed that, but the wait is still there. And I don't mind waiting for something I want. Best of both worlds? I dunno. Maybe)

What's the recurring feature of these paragraphs? I. I, I, I, I, I. I prefer. I feel no need or desire. I haven't the time. I don't mind waiting. I, I, I. Me, me, me.

Which, of course, is the mostly appropriate attitude for consumers. They should be focused on what they want.

What Mr. David is pointing out, however, is what you want is damaging to the overall comic industry and, by some extension, the artform. But again, that really shouldn't be the consumers' problem.

The problem is that the comic industry is tilting itself toward the "trade and trade only" buyers preferences, disregarding the real and potential damage that will do to itself. That puts people like Mr. David in the desperate situation of having to ask consumers to do things they don't want to do, in order to try and save the comic book business as a whole.

Mike