And that's not even counting the 2 million dollar Kickstarter for the game... that's one hell of a dedicated fandom. The average marketer would kill for something like that.
This isn't some generic advice on how to sell a comic -- it's about a very specific aspect of the process. Your comment is completely irrelevant to anything Ellis had to say here.
The comic book industry at a minimum would have a writer, artist, editor. In reality they have an entire ecosystem of people because they are a corporation.
If it wasn't for the proceeds from doing movies with non-creator-owned IP, I doubt that Marvel and DC would still exist.
I would love it if they went subscription based for access to old digital releases and pay-as-you-go for 6 month old content.
There's a lot of former comic book geeks who have gotten out of the habit because shelling out $100-150 a month on comics is kind of ridiculous when you have a mortgage, day care, and car payments and don't even have time to read comics anyways.