Numlock Sunday: John Jackson Miller on the opaque future of comics

By Walt Hickey

Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition. Each week, I'll sit down with an author or a writer behind one of the stories covered in a previous weekday edition for a casual conversation about what they wrote.

This week, part two of my conversation with John Jackson Miller, the author and archivist behind one of my favorite data resources, Comichron.

If you’re just joining in, you should read the first half of our conversation from last week, where we talk about why the comic industry had to shut down, why it’s structured in the idiosyncratic way it is — several big publishers, one single distributor for the entire industry, and a zillion mom-and-pops to sell them — and the rollicking business history of why that’s the case today.

Today, we’re looking forward — DC breaks from Diamond in an unprecedented pandemic play, and what that means now — but also back, as there’s some pretty significant news going down in uncovering the history of the comics world.

John can be found at Co…