For about as long as the direct market 10 has existed, ongoing series — meaning individual single-issue titles that do not have a planned end — were viewed as the surest way to sell a comic. While every type of comic had its merits, it was believed that finite releases like miniseries, one-shots, and even maxiseries 11 were a tougher sell for the Wednesday Warriors who frequent comic shops each week than the titles where the next adventure is always just a month away. That perceived reality shaped the market, as comic publishers leaned in and made the ongoing the dominant single-issue comic variety in the market.

But then, something changed.

Around 2019, or maybe a little before, 12 a shift began which found publishers becoming increasingly intrigued by the powers of limited series. It’s easy to see why. While issue #9 or #27 or, god forbid, #453 can be viewed as tough sells to customers, if only because how could such a late iteration of anything be friendly for readers both new and old, #1 is easy as pie. Slap that number up in the corner, throw some variant covers on it, get that hype machine going, and you have a surefire path to a sales ceiling. And that’s the beauty of a limited series. Embracing them means a new #1 is always just around the corner.

Maybe that’s why that trend continued onwards and upwards, at least in theory, until I finally had to find out whether it was really happening a piece I called “The Age of the Limited Series is Here.” In it, I explored what my gut instincts and the data were saying about that moment in time for single issue comics, and I discovered that sure enough, comics that were finite in length had become dominant. 13

Now, it must be noted that this was a weird time for comics. It was during the pandemic bump from late 2020 to late 2022-ish that coincided with a surge of collectors either entering or returning to the medium. That meant those first issues were extra appealing, as they offered both the steak of a jumping on point for readers and the sizzle those speculators so desperately desired. How could publishers hope to resist?

That was a different time, though, and that surge was ultimately followed by a low point for the direct market, as those speculators and collectors disappeared for places unknown, before the current high point we’re in — one powered by readers and newcomers to the single-issue comic format — began when Absolute DC debuted in October 2024. While much has changed since I wrote that look at this trend, that obsession with finite series amongst publisher remained, and it started to grate at veteran readers who were raised by ongoings, as I know all too well. It went from a sales tool to a pain point, as the potency of the ongoing shifted from a core tenet of the single-issue format to a charming relic from yesteryear bestowed upon only an honored few. 14

That was the belief at least, as the overreliance on stories of a finite length became a popular talking point in recent years. And yet, a recurring feeling has nagged at me. While the way this moment was viewed still suggested that limited series were dominant, varying conversations and observations had started to suggest that maybe, just maybe, perception might not match reality in this current moment. Were ongoings — or at least intended ongoings, as every ongoing is always a month or two away from becoming something less than originally planned if sales aren’t there — making a bit of a comeback?

There’s only one way to find out.

The way to do that, of course, is blindly stating that what I believe is true.

Just kidding! That might be a prudent way to generate interest, but it’s not how I operate. Instead, I elected to dive into the data to determine which direction this trend is headed, which publishers are fueling it, and the overall shape of the market. This time, I decided to get a bit more data than when I previously looked at this subject, and in the process, I wanted to largely avoid periods I’d already covered.

So, instead of looking at smaller cross-sections of time and publishers, I expanded it to include two month periods — July to August — and to look at every publisher with direct market distribution in 2016, 2021, and 2026. Why those months and years? The former might be obvious. It’s the month we’re in as well as the one that preceded it. The years felt like the correct choice because it included the one we’re in, the last year that I did not look at in my previous examination of this subject, and the one directly in-between those two. That gave us a nice before and after from my previous piece.

The data I used only included direct market publishers and single-issue comics from those periods, and each was defined by what the title was intended to be, meaning a limited series, ongoing, or one-shot. From there, I took all of that data, did spot checks to ensure everything looked right, and then lumped everything that was intended to be finite (meaning one-shots and limited series) together and compared it to ongoings across those three years. While it might not be 100% on point, as there’s some level of eye test guiding the data, it’s certainly close to it, and it gave me enough data to put together some charts for comparison.

One last note. While this does involve multiple years and multiple months in hopes of giving us a larger and more representative sample, there will always always be fluctuations on a monthly and yearly basis. That means this data only represents this data, and it’s safe to say that every month and year wouldn’t behave in the exact same way, 15 even if each section will be headlined by my takeaways.

So, without further ado, let’s dig into those charts — each of which will highlight the percentage of all individual titles (not including variants) that were finite by nature — to get a better sense as to where everything is headed and which publishers are driving it.