You're not alone, and that's an excellent point. Ever since comics stopped being sold in convenience-store racks, publishers have relied on comics shops to move their wares ... but not every town even has one. And only the very largest cities have more than a handful; elsewhere, the few available choices might be inconveniently located, poorly stocked, overpriced, or just plain creepy.
That's just one more market weakness to add to the pile for comics, and yet another reason to question the industry's sustainability in its current form.
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According to Wikipedia, it started way, way before that. Since about the 50s. Which would put it about the time of The Interregnum and the induction of the Comics Code.
According to Wikipedia
, the sort of collectors you describe were isolated weirdos before about 1981, and the idea of collecting comics with the intent of selling them for big bucks down the line only really took off in 1992.
I think the main difference between America and Japan is that Japan is far more creator driven. Their animated adaptions are also much more consistent.
Naruto, for example, has been running for 13 years. It's been animated for 11 years and has been on TV pretty continuously through that time. (A lot of that is "filler", but the Japan philosophy seems to be its better to keep a show on air with 'Meh' episodes than have it be forgotten.)
France is the same, which partially accounts for why reading comics has no social stigma in France. Italy also works like France, but with annoyingly large amounts of misogyny.
British comics, as it happens, have traditionally been corporate driven a la America, but lately seem to be moving towards a more French-style system. And, if I may take a moment to promote my own country, Irish comics basically became a thing about five years ago, and have pretty much been French-style from the beginning, but have yet to overcome the stigma.
Ukrainian Red CrossI don't think that Japanese comics are any more "creator driven" than American comics, rather, the shame factor towards firing employees or employees quitting their job leads to less turnover. There's certainly many accounts about Japanese media companies sticking their hands (or feet) into the creative process of respected authors.
That being said, the notion of a work that lives and dies with its original creator is appealing. Most of the issues with American superhero comics that seem to drive people away come from the "multi-author, Shared Universe" nature of the works. Creators want to use established characters and settings because they'll actually sell, but they don't want to have to refer to the history that "established" them because that's, like, hard or something. So they keep rebooting to find the right formula, while conveniently not rebooting the money they made bilking people like me into following their "non-canon" storylines.
Sorry for bringing up something that was posted a few pages ago, but...
They should NOT, however, do anything more than redraw/recolor/reink it. I'm talking about taking something like this◊ and turning it into this◊.
If they have a good writer, maybe they can try changing a few lines here and there that are outdated. (Taking EXTREME caution, however)
edited 18th Oct '12 12:41:37 PM by DrFurball

For the longest time, American comics were sold the same way as in Japan - cheap, disposable pulp entertainment that you read and then threw away or gave to a friend. Sure, there were always collectors, but for the most part they were seen as isolated weirdos. To make an analogy, most comic readers were like people who happened to enjoy Star Trek, and collectors were like people who spoke fluent Klingon.
In the late 80s and early 90s, however, people started noticing that collectors were paying major dollars for Action Comics #1, and tried to get in on the act, which led to the situation you describe.
Price and accessibility have both been mentioned. Perhaps the solution is to create a two-tier system.
At the upper tier would be comics as they are currently printed - high priced, glossy paper, sold in comic shops. This tier is for the collectors and hardcore fans, and makes up maybe 10% of the total print run.
At the lower tier, the same comics would be printed on lower-quality, non-glossy paper and sold in newsagents at a lower price (though still enough to make a profit). This would make up the bulk of the print run, and be aimed at casual readers who just want a bit of entertainment.
Trade paperbacks would continue to be printed much as they are.
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