Preconception
I hear a lot, recently, about the "nobody likes a loser" phenomena. Generally, this is applied to folks discussing the top 300 books, and month to month trends. Someone will say "wow, FABULOUSMAN has dropped so many percent in the last few months."
Then people turn around and say "Don't say that! Don't point that out or you'll doom it!" Much like the run on banks sparked by a whisper about shrinking deposits, people will flock away from the banks (or books) in discussion simply because they look like losers.
The same is being said about books like DRAGON HEAD now, since Tokyopop announced the changes in its retail model. "People will stay away from the next volumes because they're set up to lose," say some folks.
People, some perspective. The only folks who follow these trends and this sort of publishing news represent only the tiniest fraction of comics/manga readers. Most people don't know or care about such minutae. They don't know that STUPENDOUSLAD is going to be cancelled until they see it on the stands: "BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT! LAST STUPENDOUS ISSUE!" Just because we are motivated to turn all the rocks over and get every scrap of information we can, doesn't mean that the general public thinks the same way. Books will come and go with nary a ripple and the rest of the world will carry on.
In brighter news, wasn't that latest issue of ALL-STAR SUPERMAN just fab gear? Someone please give Grant Morrison the keys to the kingdom already.