David Brothers of Comics Alliance recently wrote about his personal burn-out after writing and working in the comics industry for a while. It’s honest, it’s sad, and it’s 100% accurate. You should read it.

If you’re reading this site, you’ve been in a comic shop. You’ve probably had a comic habit, spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in a comic store. I’ve heard stories about terrible stores, rank pits of misogyny and quarter bins covered in black mold. Nobody’s worried about those stores dying. Nobody would care if those stores died.

Please, die awful comic stores. Give the good ones better market share.

Personally, I love my local comic shop. I worked there, I’ve made friends there, lifelong friends, and it’d really hurt me if it ever went away.

I know digital comics threaten comic shops as we know them. I can sympathize with the small business owner who sees a correlation in dollars spent on an iPad NOT being spent in his store.

I do know that the music industry and the video industry have already gone through the digital revolution, so I can look at that for an idea on how this might all shake out. You know what I immediately notice?

Music stores are dying. Music publishers are still around.
Movie stores are dying. Movie publishers are still around.
DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, et al – they’re not going anywhere.

If I was a comic book store, I’d really start trying to plan for a different reality than the one I’m living in now – or trying to get things back

THINGS:

I did an interview with LBFAintern Luke over at his site The Nerdcenaries. It’s a trainwreck.

FRIDAY! THIS FRIDAY! Chris and Eugene and I at Billiard Bar in wonderful Dallas, TX! 9 P.M! We’ll be entertaining at a live art show along with a bevy of other creatives including the cast of the Variants and SO. MUCH. MORE! Buy me a drink, I’ll be your friend.

-cof