Quote Originally Posted by H-E-D View Post
Look — I’ll be honest and admit that I’m a digital reader. So when I argue for the importance of LCS it’s not because of personal affection.

But the fact of the matter is that LCS are more important to Publishers than digital is. To be clear; I think thatÂ’s largely because the publishers have barely done anything to decrease their reliance on LCS despite the fact theyÂ’ve long been vulnerable to crises.

It was always a when, not an if, something would blow up the LCS. And LCS share a good chunk of the responsibility for that; as a whole, theyÂ’re highly averse to change and adaptation.

Regardless of how we got here: no comics publisher currently has a line that could be financially viable without the direct market. You canÂ’t just expect that retailers going belly up wonÂ’t affect you because you read digital. ItÂ’s unrealistic to assume digital readership would increase enough to support all the books that are currently being solicited.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webtoon

I think the loss of physical market would in time see Marvel and DC transition to more of a webtoon format. The way things are now — individual issues with page counts, etc; that’s a reflection of the realities of physical publishing.

I donÂ’t think doing nothing is a good idea, to be clear. I think retailers are being reactionary and myopic in outright rejecting a solution in the vein of comichub. Marvel and the others need to do *something*. But if that something is to just let retailers die, make no mistake, the impact will be felt just as much by digital only readers like you and I.
Thank you!

I agree with most your post. If we lose the LCBS, or even a percentage of them, I'm pretty sure Marvel's cancellation line would move substantially up.

We really don't know what the publishers are doing. With Diamond not paying the publishers, which sounds like it is breaking the terms of their exclusive contracts, I wouldn't be surprised if the publishers aren't looking for alternate distributors. Which I tend to think is a good thing, but I'm not sure.

I wonder if Marvel shouldn't start another another universe, sort of like the Ultimates, that was digital only. Likewise, instead of farming out the kids books to IDW, they should consider doing them on a Webtoons or digital only format. They could print the kids book in trades for book store market.