Thread by @spacetwinks

comics piracy discourse, and my response is always the same:

the customers are broke
the *creators* are broke
the comics are ever more expensive

but above all

the direct market pre-order system is the worst goddamn shit in the world for building real comics sales

talk about piracy all you want, the real problem is almost everyone who buys off the rack has no idea that their purchase doesn't 'count'

you can't get to talking about piracy until you first deal with 'even your paying customers don't know they're not buying the 'right' way'

like, imagine if... your purchase of a movie ticket only counted towards the box office if you bought it months in advance. same for video games sales. also, no one ever tells you this is the case, that you're buying the 'wrong' way.

that's comics.

add on top of that, imagine if the movies and video games did like zero marketing beforehand until the week before release. you're buying your ticket/game knowing only its title, who's making it, and a brief summary. no trailers, previews, or demos till week before release.

"piracy hurts comics" is also a fun discussion to have, because it's one comics pros are always *willing* to have, because it's from the outside

nobody wants to talk about how bosses and companies that mistreat their employees and don't pay them enough hurt comics

"your piracy hurts comics" you know what else hurts comics? no health benefits. no living wages. constantly worrying about pissing off the wrong editor and destroying your own whole career.

you wanna look at pirates cuz then you don't have to rock the boat on your peers.

(this is to say nothing of the fact that comics pros also pirate, who else remembers when dan slott was caught with a screencap of his demonoid account or some shit)

if you want a far more indepth talk on how comics sales are fucked (and how companies fucked themselves), i do have some PWYW twine essays about the subject

like this one spacetwinks.itch.io/the-problems-w…

this one is more specific to marvel, and specific to some jackass saying 'diversity doesn't sell', and me going through years of sales data to talk about how marvel (and comics at large) fucked itself spacetwinks.itch.io/shut-the-fuck-…