Comics have undergone a lot of major stylistic changes since I started reading them, but the biggest is the change to the "arc" format, which grew up around the same time as it did on TV (amazing to remember that TV shows didn't used to work a season as a chaptered story, but they didn't - not even early BtVS did that, so it's recent). And like television, which can be caught up to later on DVD, the trade paperback collection is seen as the endpoint for these types of stories... only what's getting lost in the process is the same stuff I'm missing in television: the story that's complete in itself, clarity and consistency of characters as symbols, and a whole lexicon of comics "language" tools that new creators forget to use because they've fallen out of fashion. New readers can't just pick up a comic and enjoy it - you have to commit to someone's vision, which to me takes a lot of the fun out of surprise in finding quality in "disposable" entertainment. Essentially, comics are being turned into novels with pictures, and while I like novels, they're not comics, nor should they be.

Gah, sorry about the comics lecture. It's a subject near and dear to me.