I'm not sure what you're saying here, but I stand by my theory. There were several experimentations throughout the 70s that were clearly aimed at reversing the downward spiral of comics sales. Besides the tabloids, which showed up in places like Toys R Us, there were those "variety pack" bags of 3 or more comics designed to be hung from pegs in drug stores and groceries, and later the "digest" size books tailor made for "point of purchase" sales in supermarkets. It's obvious to me that comics publishers were looking for ways to find new audiences through vendors not interested in hosting a spinner rack, and via formats that promised retailers more profit than 5 cents or so.
Well, perhaps I should have phrased myself better: the idea of "let's find new markets/new audiences" is a very modern, 1996+ mentality, where today, for a variety of reasons comic book stores don't do as much business as they used to. This is a mentality that doesn't make sense when projected onto the previous era, where comics have the one-two-three whammy of subscription/direct sales/newsstands.
Though those Toys R' Us reprint editions are a lot of fun. The first Jim Starlin LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES story I ever read was in a cousin's.
All things considered, I'm sorry it didn't work out, as I see the move to direct sales an ultimately destructive one in terms of both sales and art.
This is a common point of view, advanced by people like Warren Ellis who bites the hand that feeds him and has a passive-aggressive relationship to fan culture (an attitude that he intentionally cultivates, Madonna-style, for image purposes). But I don't buy it at all: direct sales have absolutely nothing to apologize for whatsoever.
Comics should be thanking the direct sales market every single day because prior to it, comics were in super-bad shape for all the reasons Uncle Mxy describes. Though the recent DEPENDENCE on the direct sales market by the comics industry is unwise, the direct sales market is a pillar of comics sales. It's no exaggeration to say Direct Sales saved the comics industry in the late seventies and early eighties: imagine a system where, unlike newsstand vendors, who return 30%-40% of the product they don't sell for a refund, 100% of the comics are sold (and the ones not sold that month become "back issues"). In other words, it's a can't-lose strategy from the point of view of a company. DAZZLER was just one of the crazy success stories thanks to Direct Sales letting a comic get an audience.
I can understand why this view has such prevalence: it's easier to ignore social and historical trends like the decline of literacy and the small business, and the rise of television as the dominant means of entertainment. I mean, why think big picture when it's just so much easier to scapegoat Comic Book Guy from the SIMPSONS?
Beyond the format changes, let's not forget the infamous DC Explosion followed by the DC Implosion. They were scrambling to figure out how to target new audiences, in new places, with mixed results at best (with 20/20 hindsight, of course ).
DC was in a pretty bad state during most of the late seventies and early eighties, and their problems cannot be pointed to as being typical of comics as a whole.
There's a very specific reason when discussing the comics industry at this time, I talked about Marvel: At the time we're talking about, Marvel WAS the comics industry.
Unlike today, where the two companies are more or less neck in neck, at this time DC was a small company compared to the business Marvel was doing, with a small fraction of the comics market.
When Jim Shooter, head of Marvel at this time, was asked why DC had a royalty system in place for creators but Marvel didn't, he said that DC could afford to do so because really, only one DC comic regularly sold over 100,000: TEEN TITANS. On the other hand, just about every one of the "major" Marvel comics (AMAZING, AVENGERS, CONAN, etc.) sold over 100,000.
A comics store owner friend of mine, whose store started in 1982, once told me that the very first year his store sold 800 issues of UNCANNY X-MEN each month...and only TEN issues of ACTION COMICS.