This piece is brought to you by my sponsor for my trip to ComicsPRO, Third Eye Comics. Third Eye is a comic and pop culture-shop chain with eight locations on the East Coast that also has an incredible online store that offers fast and cheap shipping. Whether you’re a reader or a creator, Third Eye can help you find the books you need.

The direct market, or the side of the comic industry comprised of a couple thousand comic shops around the United States and beyond, is a mercurial space. Sometimes everything is on fire (complimentary), and the varying retailers, publishers, and creators involved are joyous because of that. Other times everything is on fire (derogatory), and key stakeholders cannot help but worry, so worry they do. There rarely seems to be a middle ground, besides when the status quo oscillates between high times and low ones.

No matter what is happening, though, there are always concerns. Concerns about how long the high times will truly last. Concerns about when the low ones will end. Concerns about product, about process, about anything you can imagine. Whether they come out in conversation or on social media, one thing is sure: they’ll come out eventually. It’s understandable, too, as retailers and publishers know their businesses better than anyone, and with that knowledge comes awareness of the challenges they’re dealing with — even when everything seems to be going well.

That’s why it was unclear what this year’s ComicsPRO would be like. For those that don’t know, ComicsPRO is a trade organization for direct market comic book retailers that recently held its annual conference in Glendale, California, an event that found publishers presenting their upcoming slates to retailers while shops…well, talked shop with their partners in the industry, amongst other things. It felt likely that this would be a rosy affair given how strong 2025 was for many retailers, but it was hardly certain.

That’s not atypical. Nothing’s ever certain in the direct market, a space that changes as quickly as the stories told within it, and it’s much the same for the varying groups that comprise it. Sure, things seemed good, but who knew what umbrages might lie beneath the good times that were had in 2025?

And yet, those resentments were largely absent from the discussions and presentations held during the event. That’s why if there’s one thing that stood out from this year’s conference, it wasn’t about any specific complaint or controversy, but a collective effort oriented on answering a crucial question: How do you continue to build when things are going so well?

The emphasis wasn’t on rethinking how business is done in the direct market but fine tuning it so everything continues to grow, and that made ComicsPRO 2026 feel like a singular and unique event that reflected a singular and unique time in comics — one that could prove to be just the beginning, if everyone plays their cards right.