Now I guess that counts as a character pose. But the words on the cover, in my humble opinion, do whet your appetite a tad. Plus, 2000 AD puts out 52 comics a year so characters poses now and again are fine.

I'm reiterating that I am not dead set against character poses.

But action-packed ones are better. A recent one saw an ape, in an astronaut's suit, attacking Dredd:

I don't buy 2000 AD much nowadays. But out of the two, I'd have picked the "ape attacking Dredd" one. I only found out about it recently, but I'm curious as to why an ape is a) in an astronaut suit, and b) attacking Dredd.

I don't think character poses will ever be as fulfilling. 

Back in the day, I recall being blown away by covers that simply depicted the heroes in dynamic, beautifully-done poses. Two of my favorites were World's Finest 285 by Frank Miller and Defenders 130 by Frank Cirocco. I loved these two covers. 

After a while, however, the exceptions became the rule (and even a running joke on the Ultimate Spider-Man title) and the magic went away. I wouldn't like to see portrait covers of this nature somehow banned, but a return to a more judicious use of them would be welcome. 

Recently, I was screwed over by a comic shop which used a "generic" cover to sell an issue on-line. The cover in no way related to the contents of the comic, and yet the store employee making his pitch over the store's "live" FB sale based his entire description of the comic on that cover. He pointed out the Golden Age Green Lantern, saying "Green Lanterns (sic) back then were magic," working with a Batman who seemed to be of similar vintage. He talked about the blimps in the background and the overall period feel of the comic.

Being a fan of both the Golden Age GL and Batman, and having enjoyed previous stories featuring the two Gotham Guardians either working together or taking up one another's cases, I was intrigued and bid on-line for the comic. I won that one and one other and came in to pick up the comics the next day. I was congratulated on the THREE comics I'd won as they tried to foist some other customer's Supergirl comic onto me, warning me that I WAS responsible for purchasing it and it was no good trying to get out of it. 

Fortunately there was a note attached to the Supergirl identifying the actual customer, so they laughed off their error (hahaha) and sold me the other two. When I got home, I found that the cover to the GL/Batman comic had nothing whatsoever to do with the contents of the issue. It was actually a Bunnysuit-era Batman story with a young and spry Jim Gordon in Appleseed armor investigating possibly the most poorly written story I've ever read in comics or elsewhere. Bullock was trying to cover for a partner's supposed misdeeds by faking her death and succeeded in implicating everyone around him in a cover-up, so hey, that worked. Now that she's dead, they'll stop investigating her, right? Because no one ever investigates the death of a police officer, especially not the police. Not when they die in the middle of an open investigation, surely. And I'm sure no one is ever going to tell anybody the death was faked. The main problem with writers these days? They can't write. 

Green Lantern wasn't in the issue either. It had been a GL-tribute month at DC and the cover was a Golden Age GL variant cover, one of many placing GL's on the covers of books in which they didn't appear. You'd think the *ssh*le selling the book on-line would have pushed it as a variant, but no. His pitch was just, "Look! Batman and the old-style GL! What a cool comic!" when in fact neither character appeared in the book at all. The store of course has a strict "no returns" policy, and I'm told by someone else who worked there, the staff found my apparent inability to understand variant covers hilarious. Yeah, the earth can't open up and swallow some stores fast enough...

In any case, generic covers are here to stay, especially since variants, which, hey, can literally be appended to ANY book anywhere at any time, regardless of content, are big business. 

Yes, I'm certain you're right. The words and imagery do "paint a picture".

Regarding your experience, I'd be heading to the Advertising Standards Authority or whatever the US equivalent is. ;-) I would not have been pleased.

Like you say, judicious would be better. I mean, again, this is a good cover as I'm wondering just how Bruce Banner will survive an assault by Namor:

 

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For the same reason that digital albums and e-books are priced the same (or sometimes more!) than their physical counterparts. The publishers don’t want their physical products, which cost more to produce, to be devalued. 

When I used to buy from Amazon, I'd often notice the Kindle price, at least 8 times out of 10, was cheaper. And the comiXology UK prices can be a quid cheaper.

Not doubting you, of course, I know things can and often are different in the United States!

Every time we go "I prefer..."

We move away from that most-established business principle of recent times. We went through this first iteration with music being a free downloadable thing. What happened? People OWNED (and in reality, had access to) VAST amounts of music and were able to carry it around with them. Yes, their WHOLE music collection in their pocket- available at all times.

That was the drug. For some, it was a transition and they did it for a while and thought it was cool. For others, that was their first experience and that seems NORMAL to them. Fast forward and music, in a physical and direct money-making-sense, has lost its value, but has become a huge catalyst for other sales that are related.

Comics thought they were special because they have a huge core base of collectors. This base of collectors believe they are the foundation and will be a foundation...until, well until.

Music lovers changed their tune, so to speak.

And now comics are changing- in how they are digested.

So why buy digital comics? Because comics is ONLY another entertainment choice. And everything else in their world is available instantly and at all times and on whatever device they are carrying. Every kid has a phone. They have their phones with them 24-7 and in any break of continuous stimulation, they go to their phones for interaction and distraction.

 

Kids do not coup themselves up in their room, unplug and read comics for 5 hours. They play with their phones every 10 minutes. They are different. They are a different kind of consumer.

They read comics in pages at a time. That follows 100% of their media.
Small slices of info and entertainment. 

Twitter - short messages

Chats - short abbreviated conversations

FaceBook - brief updates

Instagram - 1 square picture and now vine-type short videos.

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In pure anecdotal fashion, I have older readers who, when they finish reading the digital version of my comic, they go "Where can I get this?" And I want to say ' You just had it. You just read it, that's it' but I know they mean the (REAL) physical version.

And young kids, when given the physical copy, they thumb through it and ask where they can read it online (through their phone). And to them, it's like you haven't arrived until it's on the internet(s).

---------------

That said, I also think the prices are outrageous - but the business model is based on having sales and coupons, not the majority paying full price all the time. And since there are ZERO numbers as to how digital is selling/doing- we don't know what goes on behind that wall.

And now that everyone is pushing "unlimited access" subscription models, I can only image how badly that must be working out for the content providers. I know iTunes and Spotify pay almost nothing for the thousands and thousands of plays. I'm sure it's the same for comics.

Lord help us all.

Yes, true. How depressing.

Pages at a time, eh?

I read SILVER SURFER ANNUAL #1 today. Took about 15-20 minutes (I read slowly). In one go. I would have had no desire to do anything else.

However, I understand it can be easy to be distracted if reading on a device. You're only ever one click away from a cat video on YouTube or a "I'll check what the Prime Minister has tweeted..." moment.

Movies

Ultra premium is a single viewing on a very large screen.

Premium is paid access for either digital or hard copy (and for some reason digital comes out earlier than hard copy)

All you can eat is a Netflix type thing - as much as you want for a fixed price, although no guarantee that what you want will remain on the service.

Comics

Premium is pay for the issue, either as hard copy or digital

All you can eat is Marvel Unlimited or Comixology unlimited. I do the former, but not the latter, so I'm unsure the degree as to what it has on and whether it stays on. MU however, I know very well.

Lots of content, six months behind the premium content. Some things don't seem to be ever coming on there though, such as SUPREME POWER and MIRACLEMAN. so those and their ilk, you need premium for.

BUT, premium in this case has a lot of interesting things. First are the constant sales where things are at knock down prices - this acts as a gateway in to buying things on the premium model.

Second was the time Comixology were selling all collections at stupid prices on the day of release. This was seen as a step too far and the practice stopped after about a month or so.

If oyu think about All you can eat models, this is the main thrust digitally - Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Apple Music etc etc etc.

They are all at a similar price point as well - around £10 per month. Compare that to two comics a month and you begin to see why the Premium buyers are not that large anymore. I certainly don't buy new Marvel, bar a few Star Wars comics, and I even used this analogy with my wife when I started subscribing to MU. Saved a fortune by agreeing to wait six months.

The problem is, how do you produce new content on an all you can eat subscription? Netflix and Amazon seem to be OK.

Musicians seem to need other revenue streams to the actual recordings now, one of the reasons concerts have gone up to silly money.

What will comics do in the long run? Oh yeah, they became movies. But as comics? I don't know what will happen going forward but I would love to know the number of subscribers to MU and how many individual sales there are on digital issues. 

Regarding business, my comic store seems to have more shelf space devoted to toys, figures, merchandise, etc. Which is fine. Yes, they have all the current comics (and back issue boxes), but their "bread and butter" appears to be merchandise.

Again, that's fine. But it shows where the profits lie nowadays.

Shoot, everyone would. The joke I always say is when someone hides a number, it's either really good or really bad. - beyond the none of your business answer.

The problem is always paying the content provider. A site can afford to offer 2 cent subscriptions and sell advertising based on traffic. How then, do you divide that ad-revenue among all the involved parties. I was privy to a company that sent me all their info and plans and when they did the numbers, it didn't work out.

They plainly said it wasn't sustainable. Those with streams usually have other properties to lean on.

What's next?

When I see a new-ish title for pennies, I can't help thinking a creator has lost out somewhere.