Agreed. The rot has been there for a long time. I think it was Axel Alonso who jammed his foot on the crazy pedal, accelerating the decline. I believe, and I could be wrong here, is that Alonso was fired for going too balls-deep with identity politics, wrecking the brand in the process. It's not that Disney didn't want identity politics - they want it along with profitability. Good luck with that!

I'm confident enough in this surviving through smaller operations. While the shipping costs and lead-times for crowdfunding are a problem, I can't argue with the quality of the books I'm receiving. I just yesterday received Impossible Stars from ya boi Zack - exactly the kind of book I wish I would be finding on the shelves. Zack actually made a good point in this. While it'll probably never be enough to support a network of comic shops, you don't need that many customers to make a good living. If you can turn out 2 or 3 projects a year, getting a thousand or so regular customers, then you have at minimum a promising side-gig. Pull in 2-3 thousand customers for campaigns and you have a well paid job - even more so if you don't live in a stupidly expensive city.