Anonymous asked: 1. How do new readers go about collecting back issues 5 years from now if each series has restarted several different times? If the reader goes to a comic shop or a convention asking for Wolverine #3, he’s basically going to get laughed at because there are multiple Wolverine series that have that issue number.
You posted a number of points, all of which I’m going to respond to, since it’s all one big question/rebuttal. I did not get statement 5, though, so either you skipped that number, or it didn’t come through to me.
Anyway, my answer to this point is pretty blunt: I’m a new car dealer, not a used car dealer. I’m no more worried about readers buying back issues five years from now than I am about the readers of today buying issues from 2008, or 1992, or 1967. So this point is literally of no concern to me whatsoever.
On top of that, though, I think that in the modern era, most readers fie years from now who’d want to read that story will either seek out the collected edition (since virtually everything we produce is now collected in book form), or the digital edition (since digital books never sell out, even five years later.) So what you’re talking about is the collector who wants the specific tangible copy of that particular issue. And that’s likely to be the most knowledgeable reader there is—guys like you and me. Do the readers of today have a huge problem confusing Rob Liefeld’s CAPTAIN AMERICA #1 with Waid & Garney’s, with John Cassaday’s, with Ed and Epting’s, with Rick and JRJR’s? Not to such an extent that it’s something you hear about with any constancy. Readers will not be stupider or less well-informed in five years.
