fireandlifeincarnate:

And that brings us back to the original point of all this, which is the idea that it’s your job, as a reader, to save comics from cancellation. That if you don’t buy a Previews catalog, research all of the comics coming out two months from now, and then tell your retailer you want to buy one so that your retailer can purchase an extra copy from Marvel that month and Marvel can brag about it in a press release, it’s your fault when the comic is canceled.

I propose a different hypothesis: it’s Marvel’s fucking fault when Marvel doesn’t sell enough comics. It’s Marvel’s fault they didn’t promote Nighthawk well enough to get retailers to buy enough copies of it. It’s Marvel’s fucking fault specialty shops are the only stores that buy Nighthawk comics in the first place. It’s Marvel’s fucking fault that instead of millions of people reading comics, there are less than 100,000. All of this is Marvel’s fault, not yours or mine, and the propensity of comic book creators to guilt trip fans about preordering has to be classified as some kind of weird version of Stockholm syndrome.

The same thing applies sometimes to fans, who are constantly pressured by the industry to feel responsible for sales numbers and pass along that attitude to their peers. Don’t want to see your favorite character’s book canceled? Well, you better preorder and tell all your friends to preorder too. Want to see more diversity in comics? You’d better buy whatever half-hearted attempt at cashing in on diversity Marvel is promoting this month whether you enjoy reading it or not, or else they might get the idea that comic book readers don’t like diversity, and that would be your fault, you see. Don’t want to see your favorite artist die alone in poverty after creating some of the most successful intellectual properties in the history of American pop culture? Well, you’d better keep shelling out $4.99 for those comics Marvel is giving them a 1% cut of, or that’s your fault too.

please read this article, it’s excellent

Die, Industry, Die! (Or Why Letting Comics Fail is the “Real” Only Way to Save the Industry)