I was a pretty solid comic-head for a while. Not insane, but I was taking maybe seven or eight titles monthly, with extras and miniseries and one-shots thrown in. I quit my monthly habit, finally, cold-turkey. It was hard giving up my Hellblazer (ten years!), but I done did it.
Of course, I’m still a geek, and I’m still buying some titles on a whenever basis (mostly humor mags, like KoDT and Nodwick). I’m also buying some trades, and therin lies my question.
If I want to support an indie, like Aardvark/Vanheim or Dork Storm, and assuming that I’m only going to buy the comic in one format, am I doing more good by buying a trade paperback, or the monthly ish? Which medium makes more money for the publisher?
Depends in part if it’s self-published or not. Aardvark-Vanaheim, for instance, all the loot goes to Dave and Gerhard anyway, so I don’t know that it matters, with one caveat (see below)
Per Kurt Busiek, for many, MANY other books (Astro-City, for example), the writer makes tons more loot from the TPBs.
But I’ll add that if enough individual issues aren’t bought, the chances of a TBP diminish greatly: who wants to do a TPB of an book where the individual issues didn’t sell?