paul grist is doing it right

[Dave Jordan]

pick up Mudman #1. you should buy it(because it is bloody awesome), but if you don't, at least pick it up and read paul grist's text piece on the inside cover. it's simple. he's professing his love for comic books. not the medium, but the object. he's tired of people writing for the trade, and tired of people killing sales by waiting for the trade. so he's writing for the single issue, and he's not going to pad out trade collections with sketch book sections and supplemental material, he's going to put that stuff in the single issues. he's going to reward the people that get out to the shop every week and plunk down their hard earned money for single issues when so many people(consumers and creators) are going the trade route.

brings up a fairly good question as well, how many people that are "waiting for the trade" actually follow through and pick them up later? i know that i only remember to pick up a fraction of the stuff that at one point i had said "i'll pick it up in trade," about. even if you do pick up the trade, is that much better than buying the single issues and saving them up to read them 5 or 6 at a time?

[gregasaurus]

I really enjoy the single issue but one problem with them is the reread. Trades sit on the bookshelf so nicely and I find myself picking them up and flipping through them time and time again. With the singles I always say....."I want to go dig those out so I can reread them" but I really have to work up the motivation to start moving boxes around. That being said I pick up a lot more in singles than in trades. Most trades are the things I learned about long after the fact or all the crap I pick up used at Hastings for $3.

[kyle]

i agree with Greg, that the reread is the hard part of singles... if i want to reread something, it's easier on my iPad or in a tpb. and, as far as storage goes, a bookshelf full of trades displays much nicer than 6 short boxes stashed in a closet. that said, i still love single issues, and don't think i could ever see myself skipping on them 100% but there are definitely some books that just work better as a collection.

and i also don't get around to everything in trade that i'd like to, but i'm working on that.

and if you're going to buy 5-6 issues and wait to read them, you might as well get the trade, because of cool extra features, and it's usually a bit cheaper.

it's almost the comparable to seeing a movie in a theater. you see a movie in a theater, and get to see it one way, then you buy the dvd to watch at home over and over. singles and trades are the same way, to me.