I visit the Newport-Lincoln City-Depoe Bay area on the Oregon coast every year, and there are plenty of antique shops, thrift shops and used book stores around - and they all have a box or a pile of comics. New Marvel & DC comics are impossible to find. There's only one comics shop on the north Oregon coast - it's in Astoria and it's brand new. I think there's a shop down in the Coos Bay area but I've never been that far south.

Also, Hood River is known for a couple of things besides fruit and tourism. Watersports, particularly windsurfing and kiteboarding, are very very big there, and they have one of the biggest & best independent breweries - Full Sail Brewing, which is employee-owned. The tourists who come to Hood River generally fall into two camps - the ride-the-train-thru-the-orchards-and-foliage group, and the sit-in-Full-Sail-sipping-a-pint-and-watching-the-windsurfers group. On different days, I could be a member of either group.

I definitely agree that comics and other "nerdy" publications need better distribution if they're going to survive, but such a thing seems nigh-impossible when you factor in today's economy and the stubborn publishers. I think comics may need a format change to hit the newsstand in full force again.

I'm certain of the need for a format change, and of the need for better distribution. What baffles me is why Marvel and DC are fighting this idea so hard. It is staggering to me that I can go to a one-horse town like Hood River and easily pick up a copy of Joe Sacco's Palestine or the Pet Noir anthology, but nowhere within the city limits can one find a copy of the latest Superman or Spider-Man.

When I talk about 'comics' being in trouble, I should be more diligent about drawing the distinction: I mean "Marvel and DC superhero comics," usually, when I say stuff like that. What we call 'mainstream' is actually the hardest stuff to find.

But mostly I think I agree with Greg Burgas, at least in general. "Comics" today as a whole are in really good shape, especially when you factor in things like manga and classic newspaper-strip reprints. It just baffles me that Marvel and DC, with the huge advantage they have with their character visibility, aren't moving in the same direction instead of stubbornly clinging to the aficionados-only comics-shop market. This is a Golden Age of sorts -- but the two biggest publishers we have, the ones best positioned to take a chance on these new market possibilities, act like they are hoping that if they ignore it long enough, maybe it'll go away.

I definitely agree that comics and other "nerdy" publications need better distribution if they're going to survive, but such a thing seems nigh-impossible when you factor in today's economy and the stubborn publishers... I think comics may need a format change to hit the newsstand in full force again. But then, Marvel tried it with their Ultimate Magazines, and that didn't work, did it? Hmm.

I know that without comics on the newsstand, I never would've got into the medium, and I probably wouldn't have become a big reader, or a guy willing to call himself a writer.

And as someone living in a mostly-rural area, I definitely understand the problem with finding a good comics shop or bookstore.