Anonymous
asked:
"by those outside the hardest core readers, of which Mark was one." Tom seriously who do you think buys more books , the new readers you are trying to pull in with new shinny #1 reboots or fans who buy entire series , runs , omnibuses , trades , go to Cons etc , it's not those new reader it's us the hardcore fans , Like me who purchases 80-90% of all your titles every month, I don't want you to cater to just us but acknowledge what and how much we contribute to your "bottom line" sir

We acknowledge that each and every month, in the pages of dozens of the books we put out. But there is this sense of ownership among the long-time fans, a sense of entitlement. And yes, a sense of fear as well, as though this thing that you love is going to be taken away from you and given to somebody else.

In this case, you’re saying this because you’d like for me to handle continuity in the way in which you would like it handled. But in that instance, it’s truly a question of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the one, and what’s best for the story coming first.

Also, and this is self-evident: every one of you long-time readers started out as a new reader once. And many of those new readers will be the long-time readers of years from now.