Here’s Judah Alt’s prescription for the comics industry:
“For a healthy future, the comic industry needs to embrace the digital world. This means offering content online, and offering premium edition higher-end products for dedicated true fans. Stuff like the ‘absolute’ editions and opening chapters of comics.
“They need to sign up with a ‘Kindle’ provider once a digital, affordable, and high quality variation comes around. Right now Kindle is a great idea, but the execution is bad. The next Kindle generation will likely catch on more, and the comics industry should be there.
“Otherwise, low res scans of series available for free (at least the first volumes) would be a great way of getting people introduced to the stories/comics. Sort of like the Baen free library. But for comics. I’ve bought of books I wouldn’t have from reading Baen’s online content, and I don’t see comics being any different.”