The best way to scale this down to lesser-known acts is to reduce the barriers to entry for both the comic and the audience.
More specifically, if comics had a free service or tool that allowed them to set a price, upload some content, and have a promotional site like he had for his show it could work wonders. YouTube does this pretty well, but what he's done is much better (though there's a lot of benefit to having lots of videos in one place with good discoverability). Recording and editing is also getting cheaper every day.
To lower the barrier for the audience, shows for new acts would need to be even cheaper or free. Once they build a following they can start charging more.
The iTunes model is almost certainly the one to follow here: sell it cheap and go for volume. If the content is good and the barrier is low, people will eat it up and the artists will get their fair share and more. The middlemen in this equation are really the biggest problem right now (for so many reasons).
You're describing a solution I'm spending my life trying to make happen! I'd love your feedback on it: http://gumroad.com — I think this is a huge need.
I think I've seen Gumroad before (here on HN?) and thought it was an awesome idea. Just took a look at your other work and I've gotta say - thanks for building such great stuff!
More specifically, if comics had a free service or tool that allowed them to set a price, upload some content, and have a promotional site like he had for his show it could work wonders. YouTube does this pretty well, but what he's done is much better (though there's a lot of benefit to having lots of videos in one place with good discoverability). Recording and editing is also getting cheaper every day.
To lower the barrier for the audience, shows for new acts would need to be even cheaper or free. Once they build a following they can start charging more.
The iTunes model is almost certainly the one to follow here: sell it cheap and go for volume. If the content is good and the barrier is low, people will eat it up and the artists will get their fair share and more. The middlemen in this equation are really the biggest problem right now (for so many reasons).