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 reasons why comic fans may migrate to downloads sooner rather than later, the premium he'd like to see in the wake of DC's Blackest Night rings promotion, how his dream came true:

I've been involved in some aspect of the comic book industry for well over thirty years so you would think by now I would have Diamond's holiday shipping schedule fully committed to memory, yet like the newest of newbs I fully expected there'd be new comics waiting for me last Wednesday when I arrived at Super-Fly Comics & Games.  It's a 100 mile, two hour round trip from Cincinnati to the store, a journey I don't much like making twice in one week let alone two days in a row, so to make the most of this visit I touched base with Super-Fly co-owner Tad Cleveland.

It's been quite a while since I was involved in the day to day operation of a comic book shop and I'll happily confess his kind of 'in the trenches' experience invariably leads to opinions more informed than all of my armchair theorizing. Like when the topic of digital comics inevitably came up I made the same point that I've made here; the one advantage comic books currently have over music and TV is the majority of our customers haven't (as of yet) become regular downloaders.  At least for the foreseeable future they seem comfortably committed to the direct sales market.

But Tad suggested something I hadn't thought of, that our base might be pushed into becoming downloaders because of an inability to afford the number of titles currently being published by Marvel and DC that they 'have to' buy to keep up with current 'events'.  Apparently there's been grim talk in the checkout line from some of our customers about how they'll have to start cutting back on their standing orders, which of course could just be talk.  I myself heard similar sorts of things being said five and ten years ago.

Though today's situation is a bit different, what with there being a recession (though it sure feels like a depression to me) combined with massive unemployment plus a never higher price break and impending reader exhaustion exacerbated by the declining quality of most of these spin-off titles.  Yeah, I understand that last one could be just my opinion but I think the general consensus is it's a matter of "when," not "if."

It's a legitimate concern; there's never been a better time to stop buying comics, but the thing is that hasn't happened.  In fact according to the latest sales estimates for November the overall numbers have actually gone up, meaning that our market may be in better shape than we ordinarily assume.

Something else I learned while at Super-Fly; our customers really seem to have gone for DC's power rings.  Hopefully we'll see other publishers make these kind of promotional knickknacks (rings, badges, cell phones dangle charms, etc.) available, but what I'd really like to see is one of them offering us a more substantial premium.  Like, the next time Marvel wants retailers to take a chance on a new title that they swear up and down is going to be hot, hot, hot they'll back up their hyperbole with something like the "exclusive, all-new Hasbro Marvel Universe Nick Fury action figure" Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited was offering new and renewing subscribers a while ago.

This week I was planning to once again revisit one of my favorite subjects, how Marvel and DC should always make one of their multiple titles featuring their brand name characters (Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, Hulk, etc.) easily accessible and self contained for new readers (and those of us who want no part of current continuity.  So you can only imagine how I felt when DC went and made my wish come true in the form of their ongoing series of Earth One graphic novels.

And finally, on a completely unrelated note, there's the new WWE Heroes comic coming out next year.  You've really got to give Titan Publishing credit; just because no one has ever been able to make a successful go of professional wrestling comics before doesn't seem to have dissuaded them.

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.