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Topic: Fans contradicting stance on canon and retcons Post ReplyPost New Topic
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 136479
Posted: 05 July 2026 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

One thing I do think however is that rather than aiming towards the widest market; DC and Marvel should aim their comics at the market of people who want those things from their stories and care about the crafted subworlds.

•••

Which is precisely what Marvel and DC have been doing for forty years.

You’re too young to remember when comics were EVERYWHERE. Not just newsstands, but drugstores, grocery stores, bus stations, train stations. Anywhere people might buy spontaneously. A time, in other words, when buying comics did not require a special trip to a specific location.

The Direct Sales Market (DSM) was conceived as a way for dealers to build up stocks of back issues. It was not meant to become the primary sales venue. But it did not take long for publishers to see that NON-RETURNABLE sales to the DSM were 100% profit. They didn’t have to worry about shipping 600,000 units to those other venues, only to see half returned. Sell-through was the concern of the shops, not the publishers.

Which had the effect of turning a broad based market into a niche market. Just what you describe.

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