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T. Campbell on the Scarcity of Shops in Small Town America
posted August 23, 2005
 

T Campbell
Via The Internet

I would be if I thought the direct market was the future of comics.

So much has been written about the DM's fan-centered, change-resistant culture that I don't think there's anything I can add. But if it dies, we'll feed on its corpse and metabolize something better. Webcomics, bookstore comics, some new market not yet even imagined. Maybe even a new form of comic-book store, minus the detritus that the current stores have accumulated. Maybe the comic-book store *needs* to die before it can be reborn. The death of the pulps was not the death of pulp, and the last store closing will not be the end of comics.

Okay, I am sorry that certain *kinds* of comics are frog-marching into a burning lake. I love almost all kinds, and the DM is something of a wildlife preserve for some of 'em... but my first love is comics, pure and simple. And comics will survive.