Seven* ways to kill the comics industry

*It was going to be ten, but I ran out of steam.

1. limit access - destroy any opportunities for a casual reader to pick up a comic on a whim by making comics only available in specialist outlets or in high priced collections.

2. Write for the trade - make it so that even if a casual reader does by some chance locate a comic they will invariably find themselves with a small part of a longer story which will make little sense on its own

3. Variations on a theme - produce a variety of versions of a character that are mutually incompatible.

4. Franchise fun - when a movie or TV show is out make sure to have no version of the character that viewers will recognise. Double extra points if you have a version that looks like it should relate to the TV/movie but doesn't. Triple points for using this interest to package up some old reprints in a TV/movie related cover.

5. Title switch - despite your best intentions, the casual reader has located a comic and even though it only contained 1/6 of the story they are still interested. It's time to throw them by continuing the story in a whole different comic so that when they read the next issue they will find they have lost a chapter. Double points if you don't let on where the rest of the story can be found.

6. "Events" - manufacture a company-wide event that ties all your titles together and makes any one title impossible to make sense of when read alone. Double points if you make the event so complicated that it is impossible to follow without a scorecard, and then fail to provide a scorecard.

7. Jeph Loeb.