I find Previews an incredibly depressing publication. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

It's not so much the front end. The part with the four major publishers does its job well enough. Everyone sets out their wares, and books are duly advertised. Image's pages have a charmingly egalitarian feel to them, stubbornly insisting on one page for every book. It's hard to imagine any other publisher that would give AGE OF BRONZE equal prominence to SPAWN.

'I dread to think how few copies some of those publishers must be shifting.' For that matter, Marvel's section has improved as well. It seems to have gone largely unnoticed that they quietly abandoned the "No solicitation information" policy a few months ago. These days, the books do have a one-liner of plot information again, but seem to have kept to the wise policy of not giving away all the stories in advance. I realise this is a minority view, but I vastly prefer it to the days when every publisher used to announce the death of supporting characters in the solicitations two months before the actual comic had even got around to foreshadowing it.

No, the front end of Previews is fair enough. And it's not really the back section either. The bit after the comics is sort of depressing, when you consider the bizarre range of merchandise that comics have found themselves bracketed with. I can't imagine who's shelling out their hard earned money for a Neon Genesis Evangelion: Asuka Langley Swimsuit Resin Statue, or a replica William Wallace Scottish Claymore ("As the actual Wallace brandished"). But I'm sure they'll be very happy with their purchases.

It's the bit in the middle. The endless list of publishers you've never heard of, trying to sell you their comics in the space of one square inch.

Now that's depressing.

By way of illustration, take a look at this month's Top 300. Now, of course everyone knows you have to take these figures with a certain degree of scepticism. Because they only cover North America; they don't cover re-orders; they don't cover sales through other distributors (where applicable); and so forth. And, of course, ICV2.com has a reputation for getting its estimates a few thousand low.

'Short of masochists, lunatics and Chris Ekman, it's hard to imagine anyone reading it.' Nonetheless, once you get below number 157, you've got estimated orders of below 10,000. Past number 188, they're below 5,000. Under number 249, the orders are below 2,000. November's number 299 comic in the direct market, OPPOSITE FORCES #2, has pre-orders estimated at 908 copies. Or, to use the slightly more reliable Diamond source data, 0.83% of the orders for BATMAN #610.

There must be considerably more than 300 comics listed in Previews. After all, the comics solicitations clock in at 357 pages this month. I dread to think how few copies some of those publishers must be shifting.

While I try to avoid jumping onto the "death of the direct market" bandwagon, it doesn't take much to realise that Previews is no basis for a healthy publishing industry. In theory, we're all supposed to support new comics through the important act of pre-ordering, since god knows most retailers won't order them otherwise - as the above figures tend to show. This would certainly work. But you have to be realistic about the chances of people actually doing it.

In theory, pre-ordering works like this.

Stage 1: You buy Previews. I repeat: you buy Previews, a magazine composed entirely of adverts. Many people do, but it still strikes me as a bizarre starting point. I don't get people knocking on my door trying to sell me the Argos catalogue.

Stage 2: You read it. Yeah, like that's going to happen.

Previews this month clocks in at 526 pages. Short of masochists, lunatics and Chris Ekman, it's hard to imagine anyone in their right mind actually reading the damn thing. It's twice the size of my telephone directory. You might go to the trouble of looking up the entries for particular publishers that you were interested in, but the idea of anyone reading it from cover to cover is ridiculous. There can't be that many people who stay awake long enough to struggle through to Vamperotica Entertainment on page 351 (who are soliciting VAMPEROTICA: LUST FOR LUXURA #3). Anyone who sets out with good intentions will probably be bludgeoned into submission long before that point.

Stage 3: You place an order.

Now, this bit is all very well if you've actually seen the comic. Placing a regular order for a comic you plan to follow makes perfect sense. It's really just saving you the hassle of looking for it on the shelf. But ordering the first three issues of a new series, completely blind save for a 150 word solicitation, on the offchance that you might like issue #1, is a rather less attractive proposition, no matter how much you might trust the person who recommended it to you.

And even if you didn't bother slogging through Previews, and are just relying on recommendations and publicity, there's still the very significant inconvenience factor of ordering so far in advance to contend with. Normal people do not generally order this far in advance for any other medium. The fact that comics expect it to happen routinely is a sign of something seriously awry.

None of this is intended to put you off ordering comics. I just can't see it ever being more than a marginal thing. The sheer inconvenience of ordering three months ahead for a 22-page pamphlet from a publisher in Indiana that I've never heard of is inevitably going to outweigh any curiosity I might have about the book from the solicitation.

There's a school of thought that says it's my duty as a comics fan to support new comics by pre-ordering, but this is total nonsense. I am both too lazy and too busy to pre-order, and believe me, this is not my problem. The reality is that I am the audience, I have a stack of DVDs waiting to be watched, TV waiting to be seen, novels waiting to be read, and actual work to do, and believe me, my life will not be noticeably emptier for the lack of these comics. Get the product into a store where I can impulse-buy it, and you might be on to something. Otherwise, thanks but no thanks.

'Nobody in their right mind relies solely on a PREVIEWS listing to sell comics.' It reminds me of the Edinburgh Fringe, the gloriously ridiculous arts festival held in my native city every autumn. The basic tenet of the Fringe is that if you can find anywhere in Edinburgh prepared to host your show, you can get into the programme. (The geographical limitation was imposed a few years back, after one enterprising individual managed to get listed with a show taking place in Dundee.) With no quality control whatsoever and a vast number of listings, the result is a startling array of frequently demented-sounding avant-garde dance performances in church halls, all competing for an overloaded audience that is almost guaranteed never to find their listing.

Of course, Fringe performers know this, which is why you can't move in central Edinburgh in August without being assaulted by two jugglers, four stand-up comedians, a mime troupe from Kazakhstan and a nice blonde girl from Rhode Island Student Theater, all trying to burden you with their flyers. Because it's the only way of attracting attention. If you're just trying to get to the shops, it can be very annoying.

And equally, nobody in their right mind relies solely on a Previews listing to sell comics. You'll note that CrossGen and DreamWave both have far too much sense for that and take out massive multi-page adverts duplicating the format of the four major publishers. Some try their best to achieve word of mouth promotion through the Internet.

Others are publications selling not to mainstream comics audiences, but to other hobbyists entirely, which is why they have achieved respectable runs despite almost never coming up in comics discussions. KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE is up to issue #76, SHANDA THE PANDA is on issue #37. Neither really impinges much on mainstream comics discussion. Perhaps they should - the prevailing wisdom that superheroes completely dominate comics is unnecessarily bolstered by the tendency to allow things like Archie and the DC cartoon adaptation books to slip beneath the radar since they don't play to our audience, which of course is the one and only true comics audience.

Anyhow, that still leaves the bizarre, hopeless comics that people have put real work into, which have nothing to promote them to me besides a tiny Previews listing, and which surely have no real prospects of selling a worthwhile number of copies. Page after page of doomed comics, destined to slip beneath the radar of pretty much everyone. Many of them probably deserve it.

It still makes a depressing read.

Paul O'Brien is the author of the weekly X-AXIS comics review.

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