Dont give up though. You may find some local conventions or a better retailer someday. It’s not comics publishing or even retailing that’s failed you, it’s a few bad representatives.

I’ve actually purchased comics online quite a bit. Personally, I have purchased from Mile High Comics, MidTown Comics, Amazon, eBay, Bud Plant Comic Art, and Bill Cole Enterprises. So far, ALL of them have given me great service. Give them a try!

Comics is the business of publishing. I’d have thought a good publisher would want to make their product accessible to the widest market possible, but comics seem to love hiding away in a dark corner where only those that know can find them.

Ironically, it supports my point.

If comic books continue to be marketed as entertainment for “children” then comics for adults will always be considered a novelty. This kind of stuff never happens in books and movies.

That is, nobody is writing articles like “wow, did you know that even adults can go to the movies too?” Nor are they writing articles like “zowie, even adults read novels now, aint that amazing?”

Comics are widely considered childhood entertainment. It is the kiss of death (or the mark of an emotionally stunted adult) that you read comics as an adults. Want an example? Go watch “40 Year Old Virgin.” The main character is shown reading comics, which signifies that he’s an adult reading child entertainment.

Again, I reiterate, if comic books are marketed to kids…but we really want adults to read comics too…we are doomed.

Check this out. Comics so aren’t dead.

I suggest you find a new comic store…preferably someone who embraces your inner geek and makes you feel at home with the geekiest of interests.

I think kids would read comics. They’re not buying comics for sure, but look at what you said:

“Go to the comic store and observe who is going up to the register to buy comics.”

I’m 21 and I hate going to a comicbook store because the people in there really do have a “culture”. They mock me for liking certain books, or looking at certain graphic novels, the store owner is like “How do you not like zombies? You’re so strange”.

I never would have ventured into that shop as a teen because I wouldn;t have had the confidence to get by those attitudes. People who are into comics don’t want you coming into their store unless you’re in their mindset. Imagine a non-comics person going into the store asking “What’s this?” Comic book store guy in the Simpsons had to be based on someone.

Where did I start reading comics? Newsagents, super market comics (I live in the UK where non-american comics do make it onto the Supermarket stands). I didn’t step into the comics store until I was 18 and saw the Wizard how to draw book and thought “just get in and out”. Was in there for five minutes, and came out with my book and also having been mocked and laughed at by the guys inside. ¬_¬

Comics are only bought by adults because they’ve all shifted into a specialist store. i.e. there is no access for new readers unless they venture into these den like atmospheres. A few of the bigger bookstores here in the UK now have graphic novels which might help. No other industry tho has a specialist store for their magazine. When did you got to the Movie book shop to buy the latest issue of SFX?

Grab some comics, throw them at kids and see them eat them up. Web comics which are free also have great readership followings from kids. Manga and comics which have TV shows introduce themselves to kids in places other than the comics stores and build attraction that way.

Its more shocking to me that publishers perpetuate this model of business which allows such low level of access for new and young readers.

More general stores would act as brokers.

You’re right though, the lame halfhearted attempts by many newspapers to “keep up” have been rather lame. (I cant say “ALL” newspapers because I am rather familiar with my local newspaper.) This keeping up mentality is sort of like how a successful genre movie will suddenly a half dozen imitators the following year.

Newspapers should explore the right ways to leverage technology, as it is appropriate to daily news reporting.

But they should LEAD where it matters, that is, in local coverage. That’s where newspapers still own the medium.

My local paper has an online area specifically for mothers. They also started encouraging readers to send in their news and photos. I think some papers are making an attempt to get current, but maybe it’s just too little, too late… or, in the case of my local paper, the features and the writing are mediocre, and they just come off as hopelessly dorky.

Yes, papers shoot themselves in the foot by including too many wire stories. I think they’re cutting costs to survive, but in so doing, they are cutting quality and value, and thus merely hastening their own demise.

The physical burden of taking all that newspaper to the curb is something else I no longer want. My recycling bins are too small as it is.

It’s even more dramatic when you consider that newspapers practically had a monopoly on one specific form of person-to-person mass media. They literally had a local lock on personals and want ads. That was stolen from underneath them by companies like Match.com and Craigslist.org.

New media affords us the luxury to distribute, immediately and easily anything on the web. This same media, in many cases, also allows us to leave comments for other readers and the audience (this blog being a perfect example).