Quote Originally Posted by JFP View Post
I have some questions and comments.

Comic bookstores are decreasing in the U.S. That's a fact. If the health of the comic book industry is good, then why are comic bookstores decreasing?

Digital comic bookstores have barely been increasing. Why is comixology dominating the market? If the sales were so high, wouldn't there be a boom in people running to create their own digital comics? Why so few challengers to comixology if the sales are supposedly high?

Digital comics becoming the norm in the U.S. and brick and mortar dying out are a bad thing for the U.S. comic industry. It kills the casual consumer. How many of us got into comics by casually walking into a store that sells comics and buying it on a whim? Lots of us comic book fans. If comics had been digital decades ago, many of us would never have become fans. Unless you're directly looking for comics, you can spend every day of your life searching the web and never come across anything comic book-related. Think about it. There are online radio dramas and online stageplays available only online. But no one finds these unless they are specifically looking for them. Same thing with comics. If comics become entirely online, you're hardly likely to stumble upon them unless you're specifically looking for them. Like online radio dramas and online stageplays, comic books being available only online would only be for the existing market. We think about how difficult it is to get new fans now but with digital only it will be much harder to gain new readers. The days of people getting into comics because they were walking by and the cover interested them enough to start flipping through it will be long gone.

In addition, many people got into comics because a friend, relative, or acquaintance let them read their comics they had lying around or outright gave us their old comics. With digital, you lose that aspect of people getting into comics.

Comic book covers were extremely important because publishers realized the most fascinating covers attracted new readers enough to stop and take a chance on them. I know damn well that's what happened with me. Seeing this issue of Batman made me become a lifelong Batman fan:

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I remember the comic bookstore was at a local shopping center. I was a teen who was bored waiting for his mom to finish shopping. So I started walking through the mall. It had a comic bookstore. I wanted to go in and flip through the magazines. The magazines were at the right, while the comics were at the left. Even though I headed toward the right, something on the left caught my eye. It was an issue of Batman. I'd seen Batman in the Tim Burton movies, but never bothered with the comics. When I saw this comic, I was intrigued. It was wrapped in plastic and had a white board behind it. Without knowing the importance of it being wrapped and sealed, I opened it up and began flipping through it. I read it from beginning to end and loved every bit of it. So I decided to buy it. Looking back on it now, I'm amazed that this comic, which was 2 decades old (this was 1999), was being sold for only 50 cents. It was cheap, entertaining, and eyecatching. Plus, the store was a 10 minute bike ride from my house. If the comic had been available online for $1.99 (or more) on comixology where I can only read 5 sample pages (at most), I'm damn sure I wouldn't have been interested in it no matter how cool the cover. And I'm sure the same could be said for the rest of us. How many of us would have gotten into comics if they were only available digitally for $1.99 or more with only a 5 page sample?
The reason why the industry as a whole is not in decline even though the number of stores are is for the same many other types of stores are suffering: the internet. People getting their comics from places like online retailers and amazon is what it killing the physical stores and while I agree that sucks do you actually think that is going to change?