P.S. I agree a lot of the old stories were much denser, but they were also (for the most part) much worse. Even your typical Marvel/DC rag circa 2008 has a much better grasp of dialogue, plot, etc. than a book from 30 years ago. Read without a nostalgic bent, that Iron Fist page is pretty cringeworthy.

I'd say the good story/bad story ratio is about the same as it was then.

It's not so much about books as it is a wider audience. If we're not visible in the magazine market any more, fine. Where is there an audience for comics? I see a big one in bookstores. Why there is such a foot-dragging resistance to actively going after it, in favor of treating it like an afterthought while we sit here in our little specialty-store exile, I have no idea.

I'd also take issue with some of the ideas being floated about production costs. Comics are incredibly costly right now as a matter of choice. I've been in printing and production art for a number of years and I assure you they can be done for quite a bit less. In fact, chances are good that those production corners are going to be cut anyway over the next couple of years in favor of a less glossy package, but prices will stay up or go higher because we've repeatedly demonstrated that we will pay damn near anything if we get it on time on Wednesday.

It's actually a wonder Marvel can turn a profit on that $2.99 book; I can't get a gallon of gasoline for that much money, let alone something that will last me a lifetime with a 15 cent mylar bag.

To the wider point: not every comic book story makes it to Trade Paperback. There's a reason for that. The sales of "floppies" tells the comic company WHICH books can be a profitable in hardcover or paperback form. There would be substantially more startup costs if the company had to pay for writers and artists to create six issues at a time, wait 7-9 months to get it together, print and bind it all, and then send them to all the Barnes & Nobles in the world. You still haven't received the first dollar yet from the work on that book! And what happens if it tanks?

The 22-page comic tells you quickly and cheaply what ideas are bankable in the marketplace; that's why you're seeing a slew of "made-for-Hollywood" comics hit the shelves. It's not just about nostalgia, it's sound business practice.

P.S. I agree a lot of the old stories were much denser, but they were also (for the most part) much worse. Even your typical Marvel/DC rag circa 2008 has a much better grasp of dialogue, plot, etc. than a book from 30 years ago. Read without a nostalgic bent, that Iron Fist page is pretty cringeworthy.

That's another reason that I really enjoy titles like Fell, Jonah Hex and the Spirit. All three of them may have ongoing threads, undercurrents and plotlines, but each issue stands alone without the need for any backstory or having to wait a month to be continued... (okay, there was a three-issue hex run that went together, buit I still think the individual issues of that story could still be taken separately).

Having said that, I am actually enjoying the two "Summer Blockbusters", Final Crisis and Secret Invasion. finding that there is so much in each issue that in the time it would normally take me to read five or six other comics, I've barely finished the pair... The stories seem denser, tighter and more involving.

The annoying thing is the preice of individual comics... Even taking the BS reason of paper prices going up, the price of a comic these days is ridiculous. Bear in mind that mathematically a Trade Paperback of six issues *should* theoretically cost $18. Then take into account Amazon and other bookstores selling them in a promotion (and still making money) at 50% off.

Reverse-engineer the price back to $1.50 per issue... And now go through that comic and count the ads... Don't count any ads promoting comics and merchandise by the same company, but DO count TV, Movie and DVD spin-offs - they tend to be charged even though they may belong to the same umbrella company...

To me that reads that the COMICS generate more revenue than the trades... Particularly the Newsstand versions, if they are charging an extra dollar per issue!

Now... If only Amazon ran standing-orders on monthly titles, at the same sort of discount rates they do the trades for...

I'm finally getting back around to reading comics from the dark period where I was a broke college student, and picked up the trade of Morrison's run on "New X-Men", and one of the things that struck me about it-- aside from it having pretty badass characterization-- was just how dense the storytelling felt, even in the issue with very little actual dialogue.

If the same work can earn the company money in two formats instead of one, how is doing away with one of those formats a smart economic move? I'm not saying the current system is necessarily the best way of doing business, because, like you say, it's always worth looking at new alternatives. But you're not really proposing an alternative.

Count me in with those who prefer the second Iron Fist page to the first, as well. More exposition (and even more plot progression) doesn't always mean more bang for your buck.

What did you find so convoluted about Empress’s origin story, Greg?

I don't know about the origin. I don't actually know anything about her. But the engine that drove the Supergirl story, the instigating event, was someone kidnapping her parents, who had been somehow de-aged to children that Empress now has custody of. That says to me that there was probably a pretty convoluted storyline in her background at some point.

Maybe for the next sale, I can get you and Julie to send me a rough want list?

Oh. My. God. The difference was staggering.

There was more than one multi-page sequence in the Byrne issues where the two teams were fighting each other and there were separate actions going on the foreground, middle, and background. As each panel flowed into the next, even as the angle changed, you could follow every move of all the combatants, guessing what their strategy was and even understanding their characters better based on what their tactics were. Each of the simultaneous battles had its own arc from beginning to middle to end, where one combatant or the other emerged victorious.

The Land books? Each individual panel looked great. And they also had action in the foreground, middle, and background. But the panels had no relationship to each other whatsoever. If you cut them up into a pile, you could rearrange them in any order and they would still make just as much sense. Each panel had everybody attacking everybody else full-out, but nobody who got hit in one panel would be any worse the wear in the next panel. No storytelling whatsoever. It was depressing.

On Byrne's page, each panel is an action. On Aja's page, some of the panels are used for atmosphere and design. I'm not saying one is better than the other, I happen to like both of them. But the fact is, even though it's gorgeous, Aja's page is decompressed( which frankly, I think makes it a smoother read).

But it is not an economic use of the page. And not only do I agree with Greg that monthly books are uneconomical, but I think I'd take it one step further and say they are just impractical.

The notion that someone is embarrassed or elitist by wanting to read full books is laughable. For example, if I have to go to the DMV, and am expecting to wait an hour or so, I want to bring something to read to kill the time. A single issue from Marvel or DC isn't going to get the job done. And I'm not going to sit there and fumble with multiple issues(especially with bags and boards, that just makes them even harder to handle). Conversely, I can carry around a single trade paperback with ease. Even just being a paperback, It's sturdier, provides the complete story, and is cheaper.

I still buy monthlies(some books still read fine as a 32 page pamphlet), but I've been scaling back more and more lately for all the reasons Greg listed.

"THREE DOLLARS Bitches!"

What they don't understand is that these shows do stories in forty minutes because forty minutes is the length of an episode. And an episode of a good TV show really does have an individual value to it--Lost is a good example. While the on-island story is almost always part of a larger narrative, there's an element to it that begins and ends within the episode. And then there's the flashback/flashforward which is almost always self-contained. Even if you can't fully appreciate the show for lack of understanding, you can at least get an idea of whether or not the show is any good, based on a single episode.

I think the best example of a well-paced comic is Claremont/Byrne's X-Men. Individual, twenty-five-page stories within a larger story arc, mixed with some stories of three, four or five issues, wbut which are more "acts" than "chapters," and that can easily be enjoyed if you haven't read the previous issue. That series always flowed perfectly whether you were just picking up an issue or reading the Essential volumes through in one stretch. The trick is that none of these issues were just intermediaries or stretches of rising action. All of them had memorable moments and the reader never had to wait two months for something to happen.