But both planted in the minds of some the notion that it was possible to draw more customers by shouting louder than anybody else. And as the audience shrank (ironically, in no small part due to these continuous and disruptive "events") those who were more easily fooled by such things began to increase in percentage within that audience. And the Companies, being business masquerading as Art, and not the other way 'round, started more and more to pander to that part of the audience.*

Decades ago there was a B.C. newspaper strip in which one of the characters discovered "CLAMS GOT LEGS!" Friend and Forum member Paul Gibney long ago paraphrased that to represent the attitudes of the Publishers: "FANS GOT BUCKS!" As long as there were wallets to loot, the Publishers would loot them as deeply as they could.

And if, in the end, it was a case of diminishing returns, that didn't matter, as long as there were returns now.

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* During the years when I was trying to make my way into the Biz, it was common to refer to comics as "an artform masquerading as a business." This was not meant to be complimentary. It referred to what seemed the habit of publishing titles that had little chance of selling really well, but were considered "quality product." Something the publishers could be proud to call their own. The Len Wein/Bernie Wrightson SWAMP THING was one example. (Hard to believe, but X-MEN was on that list, once upon a time.) Somewhere in the late Eighties, early Nineties, that flipped, and it became all about the money.