92615_RAA_LooseCannon_Text_R1_PROOF

Here’s the first thing the comic book industry can do to stop its downward slide into forgotten pop-culture oblivion; the place where California Dreamin’ starring Marc McClure and Barry Manilow’s Mandy reside:

Get rid of the monthly comic book.

I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, and you may very well be a bit unwilling, shall we say, to believe what I’m writing to you, but there you go… Throw it out. Stop publishing ‘em. Save the Brazilian rain forest. Trees are dying for your latest copy of Impulse . There’s been an idea kicking around for a little while. I’m not exactly sure if he first came up with it, or not, but the first time I heard it expounded upon in a public place was by Rob Snell, of Gun Dog Comics, at a DC RRP meeting, way back when. Coincidentally, and parenthetically, right this very second, the latest RRP meeting is taking place in Fort Worth, Texas. It stands for "Retailer’s Response Program" or somesuch; it’s an opportunity for DC Comics to con nect with retailers on a personal level and respond to their concerns. Very cool things happen because of these meetings: I personally witnessed Jim Eide of Eide’s Entertainment give DC editorial the idea for The Kingdom fifth-week event, for example, and the Transmetropolitan overship of issues 12 and 13 was first bandied about, by the usual suspects, in a discussion group there… At one RRP, I heard Rob Snell put forth the idea of what he called the "Super-man-ga." Snell thought instead of doing four Superman comics every week for a month, that it’d be more feasible to take those stories and put all four into the same book, plus another 88 pages of "classic" Superman stories, and emulate the format (if not initially the commercial success) of the Japanese manga format. Just think about it: four chapters of new Superman for the folks who were following it, plus four chapters of "classic" reprints for the audience to rec ognize the rich history of the character they were following. Eventually, the serial chapters could be collected into large books, and everyone makes money hand-over-fist. Anyway.

Personally, I’m not sure why this hasn’t been enacted already.

You’d have new stories for the faithful at the same time you’d have classic

46