New Brevoort Formspring

I don’t think the situation is one-or-the-other. Certainly if you look at our output over the last few years and the range of materials and storytelling styles that we’ve been using, you can tell that we’re not simply narrowcasting, and that we are trying to do a diverse range of material for a diverse readership.

But all of that is a waste of time and effort if we go out of business in the process. The core of our business remains the Direct Market, the network of comic book retailers, and the core audience. So you can’t overlook what is working in that area and for that audience–gauged by what those readers do more than what they say, since almost every fan will tell you that they’re sick of crossovers while bringing their copies of AXIS and FOREVER EVIL to the cash register.

There’s a bit more to our analytics than the bullet-pointed “we took a break from big events and sales went down.” There was genuine exploration of the marketplace, conversations with our retailer partners, pattern-tracking of what other publishers were doing and what the result was. And as soon as the next Event came back around our numbers bounced back to where they had been. So yes, somebody can conjecture that there might have been some other lesson to learn, but what you’re getting from me here is the most streamlined version of events. I’m confident in the conclusions that were drawn because I was in the mix and a part of the process whereby those conclusions were drawn.

But again, even with that, it’s not one-or-the-other.