I know there's more to comics than what is produced in the US ( bandes dessinees in Europe and manga in Japan) but seeing how I live in the US I'm going talk about what is available to me here.

Anyway I got back to comics after a huge break right at the time when both big publishers have relaunched their line up and I have noticed a few things :

DC New 52 Rocks ! I had never ever read DC comics before and I have to say I am very very impressed by the quality of what they are releasing as well as by the pricing. I came to it through digital comics ( Comixology app) and after sampling a few I have decided I would follow the main series through hardcovers/paperback releases ( I'm european and I don't really like getting a few pages every week and having to wait for what happens next, + it's actually more cost effective to get the hardcover/paperback. The other cost effective alternative would be digital as DC has a good strategy of reducing the price of a digital title once the next one has been released but in the end I like to hold print of my comics when I can.

I am more on the fence with Marvel Now . Some of the stories might be great. But Marvel is doing some things that I really hate :

- Releasing some comics twice a month. So following some of the series gets expensive fast, especially because of the next point.

- Pricing the huge majority of the comics at 3.99$ ( DC only prices 5 and the price can be justified by a higher page count for those at DC, not so much at Marvel).

- Inconsistent digital pricing. Digital comics cost the same price as print and their price doesn't change when the next issue is released ( whereas DC, Images and others do this). After 1-2 years the price gets dropped arbitrarily to 1.99$. The only good thing Marvel does in the digital word is that every 3.99$ comcis comes with a digital code and they do weekly 0.99$ sales of old comics...

- Terrible graphic novels pricing.. ( no wonder marvel does so poorly in graphic novel sales in bookstores). Marvel releases hardcover containing 4 or 5 issues for 23-25$. You can find those discounted down to 14.50$ or so.  DC by comparison will have hardcover priced in the same range but with 50% more pages as they aggregate more issues and each issues sometime contains more page . Same thing with paperback where Marvel is inferior to all the others editors too. 

Images is doing some very good things with Saga, Walking Dead and Chew among others. On top of this everything I said about DC applies to Images ( good digital pricing, even cheaper paperback graphic novels,....).

In the end right now I am reading the following :

- The Conan run of Dark Horse ( I'm making my way through the graphic novel paperbacks)

- Fables by Vertigo ( reading the Deluxe hardcover as they are actually competitively priced ( hardcover = 1.6 paperback price and about 1.8X the content ( the price ratio is actually 1.9 but most retailers discount hardcover more than paperback so in the end the hardcover wins..).

- Watchmen

- Kick Ass ( finishing vol 1, getting Kick Ass 2)

- Saga ( can't decide if I want the single issues or the paperbacks, been reading digital so far..)

- Walking Dead ( hardcovers, once again, very price efficient)

- About to start Justice League and Batman New 52 in hardcover( not as price efficient but you have to wait 6 months more for the paperback and I can't..)

- probably will go to Green Lantern and Green Lantern corps New 52 in paperback ( can't justify buying everything in hardback...)

- Wolvering and the X-men in digital edition ( but I only buy when they are down to 1.99$ so I am 1 year back from the latest issue..)

- Witchblade digital right back from the start ( got a way to go I am on issue 4, but at 1.99$ it's not so bad).

 On my next list :

- Chew, Sandman, Hit Girl, probably more Marvel digital but it will have to be 1 year behind as there is no way I am paying Marvel 4$ ofr a digital comic...

You know what's funny though, you walk into a library, Borders, Barnes and Nobles etc. And the manga section is still always bigger than the comics section. Hell my high school and middle school libraries had more Manga than comics. (They are placed side by side and just labeled comics though)

Now the question is, why did the American comics industry crash while the Manga industry is still thriving?

Yes I live in the U.S.

No seriously though why did it crash.

The American comics industry crashed in the 90s because of speculation, collectors and flooding of the market by bad quality titles...

It's actually doing a lot better these days.

In 2012 the comics industry was a 715 million$ business ( best numbers in 19 years) and revenue has been growing very nicely for the last 2 years.( both print and digital which is quite a surprise, you would think digital would grow while print drop but both have been growing nicely.)

The manga industry is actually however shrinking ( down 43% since 2007). One Piece is doing crazy good, the rest of the Mangas not so much......

You won't notice this much though if you only walk into bookstores because around 2/3rd of comics sales in the US are done in Comics stores...

One of the main reason comics have been growing again is the following :

- successfull relaunch by DC of its main line of comics

- Walking Dead phenomenum...( walking dead graphic novels are selling like hot cakes). heck Walking dead number 100 single issues sold over 300k copies..

- Graphic novels. 20 years ago it was a small market for comics and now it's becoming very big as pretty much every single issue comic gets reprinted in a graphic novel compendium...

Surprised to see Chew mentioned. I have two hardback volumes of Chew. I enjoyed them a lot.

You need to check out Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse. It is pure badass.

I have a few hardback volumes of Walking Dead too.

I have one volume of Viking: The Long Cold Fire and it is pretty gruesome.

Comic stores eh. That makes sense then.