It doesn’t surprise me that Archie is doing what they do; the DM has never been a big part of their sales strategy. Best guess: Within 5 years most of the publishers will be doing the same. Hopefully by then, enough DM retailers have jumped on-board the digital bandwagon, but I’m not holding my breath.

The question of how important the DM is to DH is tough to answer clearly without sales figures, but their publication of books that include Buffy and Star Wars suggests a potentially big mass audience.

“The direct market of dedicated comic shops, while historically important, is no longer as significant to publisher business as it used to be. ”

is true in Dark Horse’s case. I have to assume that they still publish single issues because they’re financially relevant, not just because they want to. If single issues are still important to the bottom line, then so are comic shops, which are where the majority of single issues sales come from.

Don’t get me wrong, publishers going lower on digital is inevitable in the long run (Archie does it already, don’t they?) but I’d like to see more DM retailers accept that and help set up an infrastructure, so that the comic industry doesn’t end up with the equivalent of iTunes and Amazon as the only outlets available for purchase.

I may, however, be dreaming with that wish. :)