Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett looks at the present and future of comics.

If I had waited a day to post last week's column I could have included news concerning the "Second Wave" of titles in DC's New 52 in my overview of the initiative.  I won't exactly miss any of the cancelled titles from its "First Wave," though I do hope DC won't use the low sales of Mister Terrific and Static Shock as an excuse for not trying more titles with non-white leads.

The one I'm happiest to see gone was Blackhawks, which besides being creatively a train wreck represents an incredible opportunity totally muffed.  DC could have done a comic about a bunch of tough guys in black super attack helicopters raining hell down on the thugs and despots of the world, the sort of thing that might have appealed to the 18-34 male demographic who play Call of Duty-type military games the company is supposedly chasing.  But instead they decided to give us yet another soap opera full of behind the scenes infighting at yet another super secret organization.  

When it comes to their "Second Wave" while I'm all for the return of the Justice Society the title they'll appear in, Earth 2, appears to have been specifically designed to repel all but the most hard-core of funny book fans.  And given my affection for the original Dial H For Hero and keen appreciation of the 90s revival it's no surprise I'm intrigued by Dial H.  But, given no one born after 1980 has likely never seen a 'dial' shouldn't it really be Press H For Hero?

There's an Associated Press story by Matt Moore (I first saw on the Newsvine site, though it's popping up all over the Internet) titled "Marvel head: Creativity will drive comics in 2012" and subtitled "Stop counting comic books out."  It features an interview with Dan Buckley in which the Marvel publisher and president does some enthusiastic cheerleading for not just Marvel but the entire comics industry.  Buckley also says in 2012 Marvel's focus will again be creativity and compelling stories; unfortunately the only example of these plans given is Avengers Vs. X-Men, which they're branding as AvX.  Marvel's editor-in-chief Axel Alonso is also quoted as saying:

"We all want to see the best of the best go against each other -- Lakers & Celtics; Ali and Frazier; Yankees and Red Sox.  And in comics, it's the Avengers fighting the X-Men.  This is the kind of high-octane, action-packed story that fans demand while also having a profound effect on every character involved -- and reshaping the Marvel Universe in its wake."

Don't get me wrong, after several years of super serious Marvel events, all of which have had some kind of 'torn from today’s headlines' subtext to them, I'm actually kind of in the mood for an old fashioned super-team slugfest.  However as a retailer it's more than a little disappointing.  It's a business as usual kind of move that shows the shallowness of short term thinking at work that might help Marvel win the summer and us sell some comics.  But in the long-term the survival of the entire industry hinges on a publisher's willingness to appeal to more than its dwindling base.

You might have missed it, but on January 15 a story was posted on the Salon website by Andrew Leonard titled "When the Internet ate my son's manga magazine," subtitled "Even the digital generation can sing the disappearing print publication blues."  It tells how the authors fourteen year old son Eli "who has unimpeachable bona fides as a member of the digital generation" was affected by the news the manga anthology Shonen Jump was going (literally) out of print to become Shonen Jump Alpha, an online publication where new installments would be posted weekly.  Leonard quotes his son response as being "It's so depressing, why would they do that?"

It's a thoughtful piece full of the tactile experiences that are lost when you go from print to digital which raises the standard questions about digital only publications, like:

Can a revenue stream based on online advertising and subscriptions keep Shonen Jump a viable concern?  Who will pay for the translations from Japanese if the numbers don’t add up?

We're undoubtedly a long time away from the day when Uncanny X-Men becomes a digital only publication.  But it's only a matter of time until Marvel or DC decides to see if titles on the verge of cancellation might become financially viable once you eliminate the costs of printing, distribution, etc.  In other words, would DC be still publishing Men of War and Hawk and Dove if they were digital only titles?

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.