Well, it looks like things for Marvel and the comics industry in general are going better than I thought:

• Marvel Prepays Bank Debt by $10 Million
• Comics Clamber Back from the Brink
• Marvel swings to profit with help from Spider-Man

(Some of this is pretty old news, but I haven't been paying attention)

I wonder how long this current upward trend can continue... I want to believe that comics sales follow the quality of the output, which in my opinion would track perfectly with the slump that began in the mid-nineties and continued unfettered through to 2000. Obviously, inflation and the encroachment of anime and video games were big contributors to that slump, but it's not the whole story. Comics rather sucked through most of the nineties. The Lee/Liefeld wannabes, the multiple embossed dice-cut holofoil covers, the 22 straight splash pages, how everybody started wearing bandoliers, strapped a beltfull of pockets on their thighs, ran around with dinner plates on their shoulders and two-fisted toaster guns. It was a horrid time.

But now, comics are good again. Marvel is making a lot of bizarre and rewarding editorial decisions, and the industry is following them back into prosperity. Of course, the Spider-Man flick is a huge part of this, but we know from the X-Men film that a blockbuster alone can't get people to buy comics if they aren't any good.

Maybe if comics continue not to suck, things will continue to get better. Eventually, the pulp will be left behind, and we'll be readin comics online, but that's not the death of the artform so I can live with it (even though I prefer paper aesthetically).

So, way to go Marvel! And everybody, quick! Sell your collection before the bubble bursts again!

BTW, go check out these guys... they are why I didn't give up on comics while the mainstream was still sucking (yeah, I know, everybody's list looks like this):

• James Kochalka
• Jordan Crane
• Brian Ralph
• Alex Robinson
• Mike Allred