You’re conflating two things that are not quite connected in the way that you think they are. Comics didn’t disappear from those locations because of the shift in distribution, the shift in distribution happened because comics were disappearing from those locations. As an item, the comic book rack wasn’t generating enough revenue-per-foot as many other things, and so those newsstand outlets gradually but consistently stopped carrying comics, regardless of their returnability. They weren’t worth the effort to stock and restock the racks for the relatively meager profit they generated in those outlets–a cigarette machine or a soda machine or a video game generated more profit, and with less maintenance. It was evolving and switching to the Direct Market that saved the comics industry–without that shift, mainstream comics would have died off by, at the latest, the mid-1980s.
vbartilucci
asked:
" It was a woefully wasteful system, one that meant you were often printing three copies, selling one, and destroying the other two after shipping them all over the world." I understand the point, but what it did was make comics far easier to get. Comics are largely a destination purchase now - you have to seek them out, as opposed to walking into any candy or drug store. What else can be done to increase accessibility, especially to young people, the legendary "new readers"?