Bobby Walker of Cosmic Tales in Tahlequah, Oklahoma saw the comment of William James Cuffe of All the Fun Stuff on mini-series vs. ongoing series (see 'William James Cuffe of All the Fun Stuff on Mini-Series') and sent in his own similar observations:

I just finished reading William James' assessment of Marvel, and in almost all respects, I agree completely.  Here are a few things that I've noticed out of the Big Two of late.

To start, limited series seem to have become more of a standard than a special event.  For some of my customers this is okay, they have only limited budgets to work with and buying four to six issues is usually not a problem for them.  The problem arises on two fronts, however.  First of all, when there are 20+ limited series coming out monthly from one publisher, some people cannot purchase them all.  Even worse is when some of these series are coming out WEEKLY, some budgets just can not stretch to include such expenses.

Some of the ongoing series over the past few years have gotten better, but quite a few of them have declined in quality.  It is like some of these titles have become nothing more than tentpoles, and as long as they are keeping the tent up in the air, there is no reason to worry about them.  I know that you cannot put a hot creative team on every title, but in an age where fewer kids are reading, it is only a matter of time before the tent pole snaps and everything comes crashing down.

Then there is continuity.  I read a while back where one of the hottest writers today said that he would drop continuity for the sake of his story.  To a certain extent, I can understand that; however, continuity is what drives a story.   So the continuity of a title should be even more important, and yet there is a company that seems to have forgotten what that word means.  They will routinely, nearly every month, have one or two characters appearing across multiple titles.  Some of these appearances are nothing more than gimmicks to boost sales because character x makes a special appearance.  If these titles are not able to keep themselves afloat, then perhaps these companies need to look for replacement creative teams to breathe life back into them.