the "wait for the trades " debate?

I would venture to say absolute neutrality. An Objectivist would say the consumer has the right to purchase whatever they want, and the publisher has the right to publish whatever they want and sell it.

Yep.

Me too.

~Bob

I agree with Linda and Bob, who know better than I do anyway. The individual's freedom to decide for himself is paramount (as long as he is otherwise law-abiding).

But this does kinda lead to a dimension of Objectivist though that puzzles me.

Here's me. I got twenty bucks. I can buy six issues of THE SHATTERED WHOLE and walk away with $2.30 in me pocket. Or I can buy the collected edition of THE SHATTERED WHOLE and walk away with $6.05 in said pocket.

Profit is a moral good. Is thrift a moral good? Is it unethical for me to damage myself by spending too much for something I could buy more cheaply somehow?

(I suspect the Objectivist answer is, "Shaddup. You are free to damage yourself if you like. You pays your price, you gets ya choice. And if you damage yourself, fine, let the best man win -- and let the 'devil' take the hindmost." Whattaya think?)

Only you can answer that question, Mike. It seems like it would depend on your own reasoning for buying one or the other outside of cost. I don't think it would be un-Objectivist to spend more on something you prefer over the cheaper alternative.

However, there is some morality in certain stances, also (I hope). A local shop I really like is, and always has been, on thin ice. Its kind of a specialty thing, and with the advent of the internet, I found I could get the same stuff there, for a little less money. HOWEVER, I like having a shop like that nearby, so if my local guy carries it, I get it from him. If its something special, well I might save the few bucks by ordering it, since its something he'd have to order anyway.
I could do the same with my comics, probably. Luckily for me, most of the stuff I buy is unlikely to make it to the trades with any certainty, outside of Astro City. Astro City is something I want to succeed in the worst way, so I always buy all the issues, and skip the trades.
Astro City is probably a great example of WHY waiting for the trade is a bad idea. If the monthlies drop off, they won't be able to afford the project at all--from my impression, of course. You won't be able to WFTT, because the franchise won't exist.


DADDIO

Well put, Chaz, it's All up to the Individual.

Ideally, I'd Rather read an entire series at once, but sometimes I frankly Can't wait and get the periodicals as they arrive.

Well reasoned.

Six monthly issues are not the same thing as a trade paperback, and the individual may ascribe what value he or she decides.

Thanks. I can apply this idea elsewhere.

I have been buying more & more trades lately, & less monthly comics. There are several reasons for this, NONE of which confirm ol' Jolly Johnny Byrne's assertions about fans who "wait for the trade" because they think they're SO KEWL and better than fans who buy singles. That's just nonsense.

The first is the most obvious: Most comics are WRITTEN for the trade these days. So why shouldn't I wait to buy them in trades? Seriously, nobody writes stories anymore, just "story arcs." 4, 5, 6-part stories, one after another. Maybe it's an age thing, but I simply find myself less patient for reading part 1 of a story one month, then part 2, the next month, then part 3 the month after that, & so on. I'd rather just wait until the whole thing is finished & then read it all at once. Even Byrne admits that when he was asked to write a JLA story the PTB told him to make it 6 issues so that it would make a nice trade paperback. Now, Byrne will say that he made sure each issue still stood on its own (I haven't read it, so I can't judge for myself) but that doesn't change the fact that it was written with a tpb in mind. So how could he blame any fan who decided to wait for the "10th Circle" trade?

Right now, I only buy comics that I_can't_wait_ to read each month. There are several other titles out there that I'm just sort of interested in, so those are the ones that I wait to buy in trades. It's not always trades, either. I have an LCS that is pretty good at keeping recents issues on the shelf for months at cover price, so sometimes I'll buy consecutive singles all at once. That's how I've been buying the new SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN series, so far. The first 2 arcs were 5-parts. So when #5 came out I bought #1-5, then when #10 came out I bought #6-10. That was followed by a 3-part story, so I waited to buy #11-13 all at once. #14 was a single issue story, so that's the first one of that series that I bought when it came out.
I also bought OUTSIDERS #8-10 all at once after I heard that Captain Marvel Jr & his arch-enemy, Sabbac were in it.

On the other hand, you have a book like SUPREME POWER, which is quite slow-moving, & would probably be better read as a trade, but for some reason I'm just hooked, & anxiously await each new issue every month. Maybe if every book I like was written that well, I wouldn't wait.

Also, several times I've bought a trade & been so impressed that I started buying the singles of that title after that. POWERS, PLANETARY, & WILDCATS v3.0 are all titles that I first bought the trades & then started buying monthly (well, not "monthly" in the case of Planetary, more like "whenever it comes out") although that didn't stop Wildcats from getting cancelled. Some titles, like ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN & ULTIMATE X-MEN I started off buying monthly, but then switched to waiting for the trades. I like the story, but they're all written in 5-6 parts. I'm actually considering waiting for the trades when Powers restarts, & I would've switched to trades of PAD's CAPTAIN MARVEL series, but I knew it was on shakey ground, so I kept buying the monthlies (& it's now being cancelled anyway).

Miniseries I usually wait for trades too. That's most logical. Unless we're talking about something big like JLA/AVENGERS. I'm currently waiting for 1602 to come out in trade. The same goes for finite runs by certain creative teams on ongoing titles. Although I bought "HUSH" monthly, I'm waiting for the trades of Lee & Azzarello's SUPERMAN. Also going to wait for the trades of Joss Whedon's ASTONISHING X-MEN.

But the thing is, I also like the trade paperback format, as it's easier to store & to reread. I've been buying comic-books since I was 8. I stopped counting at around 3,000 I think but I currently have 18 full long-boxes, 4 almost-full long-boxes, & 7 full half-boxes of comics. So not only am I running out of room, but it's not always easy to get to certain old issues if the mood strikes me to reread them.

I was on this other message board, The Fan Man's Forum, a few months back, & a guy asked about BATMAN: DARK VICTORY, if it was worth getting. I actually have that in hardback, which I rarely buy, so I just pulled it off of the shelf, skimmed through it again (I hadn't read it in awhile, so I needed to refresh my memory) & then told him what it was about. I said it was good, but that he should read BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN first, as DV is basically a sequel to that. So then he asked that THL was about. That series I have in singles. So I had to pull out the long-box & get all 13 issues & take each one out of the ploybags to look through them. It's just much easier to read the collected edition.

And the fact is, I just don't find the 22-page pamphlet as a attractive as I used to. It just doesn't seem worth the money sommetimes. But a thick tpb feels more like a book. Again, I'm not saying that in any kind of elitist way, I'm just saying the format looks better to me. When I have to take my car into the shop it's easier to bring along a tpb or two to read while I'm sitting there, than to take an armful of 6 or 12 comic-books. That's why I think Manga has caught on with so many American fans who normally don't buy comics. Regardless of the content, $5.99 for 200 pages just seems like a better deal than $2.25-$2.50 for 22 pages. There's no reason why American superhero books can't be sold in that format, but I guess that's a whole other topic.

The downside is that I don't get to read the stories as soon as others. So I have to go out of my way to avoid spoilers on certain sites. And sometimes it can be tempting when I see a certain issue in the store. It was hard to avoid picking up WOLVERINE: ORIGIN when it was coming out, because I kept hearing people talk about it (& yes the "James Howlett" revelation was spoiled for me when I overheard a conversation at the LCS) & I almost picked up Astonishing X-Men #1 the week before last, but that's the price I pay for waiting.

The biggest argument that guys like Byrne & Peter David (at least they agree on something) against waiting for the trade is that it hurts the industry. And that's a valid concern. If EVERYONE waits for the trade of a series, & doesn't buy the singles, then the books get cancelled & they never make it to trades. Maybe the reason books I like, like the aforementioned Wildcats & Captain Marvel, are cancelled is because other fans were waiting for the trade, which sucks for me. Some try to promote the idea that trades can keep lowselling books alive, similar to the way some movies fail at the box office, but become big hits in DVD & video sales & rentals. And I've heard that that is the case with a few books, mainly some Vertigo titles, but whether or not that's a viable arrangement for all comic-books is open for debate. But that's really not the point.

What is the point, you ask? Well it's simple: I'm not supposed to be reading comic-books anyway. I'll be 32 in August. I should've have outgrown this hobby decades ago. And frankly, so should all of you here. We're adults! John Byrne will be the loudest to complain about how comics aren't written for kids anymore, there's no new blood out there, a bunch of adults are ruining the industry by writing all of these "edgy" comics for a dwindling audience. Superheroes are becoming too realistic, yadda yadda yadda. And he's mostly right.

I don't have any kids, & I don't plan to, so my comic-book collecting will die with me. It's not my fault that the industry doesn't appear to be taking things like that into consideration. I'm not going to go out & force myself to spend $45-$50 a week on monthly comics like I did in my late teens just to "support the industry." This is a hobby for me, not some kind of cause or mission. The fact that the industry gets ANY money from me, even if it's all through purchases of trades, should be considered BONUS money.

To give a comparision: Currently, the highest-rated commercial cable T.V. station is LIFETIME. Believe it or not, their ratings are double those of Fox News Channel, MSNBC, & CNN combined. They got that big by targeting half the population: women. I sometimes watch shows on Lifetime, various movies & a hidden-camera show called "Girls Behaving Badly." But I'm not in the target audience. If I watch, great, but I'm not who they're focused on. That's why you'll see commercials for Tampax instead of Samuel Adams beer. If the network execs start worrying what would happen if guys like me stopped watching, then they're doing something wrong.

It's the same with the American comic-book industry. They should be able to survive even if all 30 year olds only bought trades, because their lifeblood should be based around 13 year olds, not 30 year olds. If creators start insulting the adult fans they have, then they damn well better make sure they have enough teenage & younger fans first.
Again, it's not my fault that kids aren't reading comics like they used to, & I'm sure we could all debate who's fault it is, & what should be done about it, but the bottom line is that KIDS should be the primary focus of the industry's attention right now. Worry about THEIR buying habits, not mine.

I want to see the industry survive, but if it doesn't, oh well, I guess I'll have to find another hobby to spend my money. I also want to write comic-books, but if it's not viable, then maybe I'll focus on writing novels instead (which is something I plan to do btw). My life will go on somehow. It's the PTB in the industry right now who should be trying to figure out how to expand their audience, & in the meantime they should be grateful for any money they get out of me & other fans like me.

Just my opinion.

"The industry is pretty clearly not keeping up with the demands of the market. All the major publishers should have at least the first stages of affordable original graphic novel lines on the shelves by now. It's making them very vulnerable." -Warren Ellis