How to keep events from disrupting regular storylines

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

And to make a lot more money from them to boot.

Do it this way. Say in June of a particular year, you want Superman to take part in an event. The issue that's going to be printed that month will be #31.

Instead of pre-empting the regular #31, go ahead and print that one, but also print a one-off issue in June where he takes part in the event. You could maybe call it 31-E, for "event." Not only would that let your regular storyline proceed without a bump, but you'd make more money there, by publishing two issues instead of one.

Superman's regular creative team wouldn't need to produce issue 31-E. You could get someone else to do it.

Then, when you collect the event in a trade, you could make more money than you're making now from those trades by including the one-off "E" issues in the collection.

That's less disruption and more profit for you.

[Mister Ed Horse of a Different Color Find all posts View Profile Close Mister Ed]

But isn't the whole reason they do tie-ins as part of a comic's regular numbered run, instead of just doing them as one-offs, is to try to draw the readers who are just reading the regular run of the comic into buying the event? If you make the tie-in easy to skip, more people will skip it. I agree your method would be less disruptive, and far less annoying to readers who have little or no interest in the event, but whether it would make them more money depends on how many of the readers of those titles would just go ahead and skip the extra issue (and likely the whole event) since it is now easily skippable, and how many would go ahead and buy an extra issue and/or buy into the event as a whole. I confess I don't know the answer to that.

They used to do something LIKE that by having the ANNUALS for various titles being the tie-in to an event. It seemed like those tie-in Annuals usually had little impact on the happenings in the regular monthly titles.

[W.West Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close W.West]

Also, it may not be more profit as you still have to produce the thing. Pay the talent. Fit it in the schedule. Is it done by the regular Superman team? Yes? Then the main book will suffer. No? Then it'll probably be deemed as skippable.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

They'd easily make more money that they're making now, if for no other reason than that the crossover floppies would be getting reprinted in trade form. They're not getting collected now. And those issues would sell well in trade, because they'd be bundled with the issues of the event itself, which to many people is a must-buy.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

And I bet the writers would love this.