Yeah, I’ve flipped through five OYL books, and my reaction in each case has been, “Huh?” With the exception of whichever Batman book I looked at, the focus has been “Hey, look how different things are now! Betcha wanna know what happened, dont you? Well, we’re not going to tell you!” instead of “Here’s the new status quo, let’s go from here.”

I remember someone remarking on some site that Infinite Crisis was essentially a plot device to set up One Year Later. So far, One Year Later seems to be more about selling 52 than anything else.

I’m amused by the way that Didio and Wayne have attempted to parse their words so carefully as to admit that OYL was an attempt to cannibalize existing comics sales rather than draw in new readers. What frustrates me is that OYL provided an ideal opportunity for just such an effort and instead DC has completely bungled it.

I find it such a hassle trying to sell comics (I’ve got two grocery bags full of stuff that’s not likely to be worth the effort to list on ebay) that I’d rather just avoid the problem and buy stuff I expect to keep a long while.

I have occasionally picked up a TPB of a story arc that I already own in periodical format just to make it easier to lend it out to people. There are also a couple of series that I started collecting as trades, then switched to picking up the comics out of impatience. (Not that this helps any with Powers these days…) In those cases I pick up the comics, then later pick up the trades (I’d rather have everything in one place than have some on the shelf and some in boxes), and sell the comics on eBay. When I get around to it, anyway.

Most of my TPB collection, though, is of series that ended before I started reading them.

it works out pretty good because i like alot of small press stuff that isnt likely to be traded, and i round out the week with my must reads from the big 2.

Jer, I suspect you’re right about how the companies aren’t really working towards new readers but just towards gaining more of the existing ones.

Which I think has to have a negative backlash coming if it isn’t there alreaydy. Because if you keep coming in and the books aren’t there, either you’re going to buy other comics or stop coming at all.

If he could have said that they printed 150,000 of Identity Crisis #1 and that the OYL books were higher than that AND we increased our overprint by another 10,000 copies, then it would have been clear enough that they tried to print enough copies, but erred.

My LCS sold out of the first week’s worth of OYL books and immediately called Diamond and re-ordered more copies of the following week’s OYL books. He has been doing that every week since and is still selling out.

As for this:

I don’t think DC ever said or intended that the One Year Later titles were designed as a tool to bring in new readers who were unfamiliar with comics and/or our core characters.

Strange, then, that so many people had that impression. Wonder where it came from? And wouldn’t it make more sense for that to be the approach?

I personally thought it was pretty clear that DC was doing this stunt to pull share away from Marvel, not to bring anyone really “new” into the market. They’re looking to pull fans who’ve drifted away back into the core, and maybe drag over a few who are bored/upset with Marvel’s current attitude and writing. Its always looked like a “realignment” move to me, not a growth move.

I mean, come on, the huge crossover that lead into OYL was centered around a character who was involved in ONE story, twenty years ago. The entirety of Infinite Crisis has been one giant pander to fans – why should anyone expect that the result wouldn’t be “more of the same” (as long as it worked) ?

I always took the OYL advertising to be a realignment of the “Big Three” characters to their core concepts – which seems to be the case with Superman and Batman at least – and a “Big Event” to market books around. I thought it would be nice if they used it as a way to broaden the appeal of their books to a larger market, but nothing about the campagin made me expect that they would.

Spider-man loves Mary Jane is another favorite read, but it is written in a style that indicates that single issues are my preferred way of reading it. I won’t be interested in a trade (and a trade is dicey on this title anyway).

Amazing Spider-Man is so poorly written now that I won’t care for a collection of current storylines. Give me a Roger Stern AMS collection any time, however. (NO, I’M SERIOUS!!)

And some titles are so suspensful that I need to know RIGHT NOW what is going to happen – Young Avengers and Seven Soldiers – but enjoy it enough to get the inevitable trade too.

Polly and the Pirates is really enjoyable, but the wait between issues is so long I wish I had waited for the trade. I’m old and can’t remember between issues. But I thought a trade might not happen so I picked it up (loving Courtney Crumnin).

I have probably made no sense at all in this post.