I never would have guessed that as technology improved, it would actually make me consider being less up-to-date with things. It’s not uncommon for me to record a new show on TiVo and wait a few days before watching it. If I don’t do that, I could just wait until the fall and use Netflix to watch the shows on DVD. Likewise for movies. I’ll usually rush out to see the ones I’m excited about in the theater, but my home system is good enough for the B-list. As the technology has improved, it’s let me be less crazy about having to see everything right away, because I know I can catch it later and not miss out. This is also true of comic books, where almost every series is collected into trade paperbacks.
Trades weren’t as common even five years ago, when only the biggest montly sellers were guaranteed to see collection status. Now, Marvel puts out new trades only a few months after a story arc concludes, and DC only lags by about a year. This makes good business sense for them, as they’re able to employ The Long Tail to pick up sales on titles long after they’re out of print in comic book format. Aside from the lament that if people stopped buying comics in their natural format instead of as trades that all comic book creators would vanish like Tinkerbell when no one believes in her, it’s quite conceivable that you could buy all your titles as trades, and, though you’d always be a half a year behind, you’d still have a nice flow of new trades every month.
And really, magazine format comics are basically just plain inferior products to trade paperbacks. Trades are often printed on higher quality paper. They’re bound books that sit nicely on shelves, instead of the storage mess that comes with putting comics in boxes, and you can easily see the spines to find things. You get one nice collection that you can read easily, rather than having to pick up a new issue every few minutes, and it’s easier to loan out to people (and easier for them to return one book instead of six). A trade is asturdy item that’s not easy to rip and tear like a comic, and you don’t have the guilt associated with a comic if you do, born from a fantasy that comics “will be worth something some day” (they probably won’t). If you pre-order from Amazon, you even get a nice discount. And, to top it all off, no ads every few pages.
If trade paperbacks are superior to magazine format comics in basically every way, why don’t I just wait for the trade on everything? Mostly, it’s sentimentality. I like having the actual comic book. Gone are the days (for me at least) where everything had to be a graphic novel, something to be taken seriously. A comic is fun. You read it, you put it down, you read it again in a few months. I like going to the store and picking up a stack of loot that I can read over the next few days. Plus, I hate having mixed formats. If I started reading it in comic form, I want everything to be in comic form. If I started reading it in trade, I want everything in trade.
There’s also this: comic books are about local business. There are, to my knowledge, no large chains of comic book stores. You find your local store, set up your box, and you go there every few weeks. It’s not some corporation taking your money, it’s some geek who decided to risk everything and enter the scary world of the small business owner. Maybe he’s a really nice shop owner. Maybe he’s a fat, sarcastic jerk. Either it’s sincere or it’s funny, but it’s one of the last vestiges of the genuine American Dream, using an authentic American art form as its medium.