As a comic book fan, I am blessed to be able to always have one steady, ever-present constant in my life: Wednesdays. Every Wednesday, hopefully until the Earth explodes, there is one guarantee, and that is that my local comic book shop will be receiving the week's shipment of books. There is such a wide variety and high volume of books published on a monthly basis that a devoted reader is essentially guaranteed at least one quality book a week. As harsh as it may sound, Wednesdays make the rest of my otherwise oppressively obnoxious working week seem worthwhile.
However, as older fans become jaded by unreliable shipping schedules on their favorite books and new readers become isolated by a growing number of event books and their tie-ins, a new trend has long been growing: comic book fans have started to wait for the trade paperback collection of their favorite series, which provide a convenient and generally cheaper way to enjoy the same stories, albeit months after their completion in the monthly books. In fact, trade paperback sales have steadily increased every year since 2003, while single issue sales have been on the decline since 2007.
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While I'm definitely not concerned with floppies going the way of the dodo, at least in my lifetime, the "waiting for the trade" trend brings to light important questions in the way that stories are presented and affect their readers. As a result of the success of trade paperbacks, one thing that has truly been defeated in the way of monthly comics is the done-in-one issue, featuring a tale that begins and ends within that issue's front and back covers. While there are exceptions - Paul Dini's run on Detective Comics, for example - many books are now being written for the trade, conveniently featuring easily collected storylines that fit into a pre-established format, usually about six issues or so. A six part story is all well and good, but it becomes an issue when the storytelling begins to suffer because the writer is attempting to make it fit into a certain number pages, which can either fill what should be a shorter tale with fluff, or condense a story that needs more space. I've always considered comics as the most freeing form of storytelling, and writing a story to fit a space rather than letting it grow organically is detrimental to both the stories and the medium itself.
