Comic book sales are at an all time low, and what seems to be the problem? There is a number of problems with the selling of comic books today.
1: Comic Books are no longer readily available.
I think the biggest hurdle for the comic industry is the availability of comics today. In the town where I live there is no comic or book store and the nearest ones are over an hours drive away. But when I was a kid comic book spinner racks were located in almost every grocery store, gas station and pharmacy. And they had a wide selection of comic books to choose from. But now most of those business's don't have spinner racks and most don't have any comics. And the ones that do have a small selection of titles to choose from. For example in my town the ONLY DC comics title available for purchase is 'Batman'. No other DC title is sold in my town. Comics are just not widely available as they used to be. From what I understand comic distributors will not take back unsold comic books from stores, like magazine distributors do. Meaning that a store who buys comic books cannot return them for a refund if they do not sell. Thus why would any store risk ordering something that may or may not sell, and if it doesn't they are out that money. And because they are not readily available for today's youth like they were when I was a youth the industry will not attract as many 'new' readers as they did when I was a kid.
2: Kids have so many other things that take up their time:
When I was a kid there was no Internet. I had a Nintendo, but the games were so expensive even back then that i only had a few games at any one time. For me comic books were a cheap alternative to occupy my mind as a youth. But now kids have incredible gaming consoles, Nintendo DS's, PSP, iPods, cell phones, the Internet, TV and movies at their fingertips... there is so much technology now that comics cannot compete for the attention of youth like it did back when I was a kid.
3: Superheroes and be found elsewhere like movies and television:
It used to be that you would have to read the 'Spider-man' comic book to follow his adventures. Not now, 3 feature films are available for viewing with a new one on the way this summer. These movies are awesome for us comic book fans, but do they help to create new readership for the comic book on which they are based? I'd say maybe 50% of the time. My son for example loves the Spider-man movies, but he doesn't read the comic. The movies are enough Spider-man for him.
4: Not enough originality being used in todays creators and publishers:
After 40, 50, 60, 70, or 80 years of tales of the same characters how original can you be anymore? I find in a lot of ways comic book creators re-using old concepts and story lines and passing them off as something new. Is it realistic to have us readers believe that a pair of black framed glasses is enough for Superman to fool award winning investigative journalist Lois Lane into not seeing Superman in Clark Kent? No. Comics, especially those done by DC and Marvel tend to have their characters repeat cycles and never truly evolve. Characters change and die as a marketing ploy to boost sales, but then they always come back or go back to the way they were.
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