New Brevoort Formspring

Only if those print copies are ever going to be worth anything.

It’s been a pretty open secret that the back issue market has disintegrated over the past decade as more and more key material is available in collected editions. Time was, if you wanted to read those stories, you needed to hunt down the back issues. Not any more.

There are always going to be some comics that are worth something, both in the short-term and the long-term. In the short-term, typically relating to something going on somewhere else, either a storyline that brings back an old character or some bit of continuity, or the announcement of a media project.

But most of the comics you buy today aren’t going to retain a lot of inherent value as collectibles.

So really, this is becoming a non-issue. There are some people who prefer a tangible copy, and there are some that are happy with a digital copy. One isn’t necessarily better than the other; they’re just different.