The Economy Strikes Again
From the press release: "... while our readership has been fanatically loyal during its run, both Danny and I feel the magazine has reached a point where the economy is taking a toll on its circulation, and the increasing amount of time involved in its production might be spent more productively elsewhere. So we've jointly decided that #20 will be the last issue."
I know in my household that we've started to cinch the belt a bit, even talking about getting rid of a few things (cable) to save some cash. One can only imagine that things are going to get worse before they get better. DC has started to cut runs and in walking into my local comic shop and seeing the massive wall of new comics makes me wonder if the market can bear the amount of comics out there. I worry about some of the smaller publishers, those that might not have the backing of a huge corporation or stock holders, if they make one wrong move, it could mean the end of them. This is a dangerous time to be a small business owner - of which most creators and publishers fall into that category - and I hope them the best to survive this tumultuous time. Be sure to check out Two Morrows Publishing and see if there might be something you could buy for someone for the holidays.
Comments
It is a good thing for the comics community; there are too many comic books on the shelves. Maybe the rest of comic book companies will put out a better product, lower prices, and show more appreciation to the fans who keep them in business!
I agree 100% with Erma. The current economic situation might have a positive repercussion in the comics market. Culling the herd regarding comic books has been long overdue. Multiple titles with outrageous prices have forced me to severely limit any comic books I purchase, and this has been the case for years, prior to the current economy. Instead of milking the formulaic cash cow, perhaps the companies can concentrate on making good….stories. The smaller publishers may suffer, however, and I agree on that point. Perhaps if readers had better access to these other titles instead of the plethora of maintsream books at the comic stores, they’d have a better chance of survival.
In walking into my local comic shop, I am near always astonished by how many comics and the price of said comics. They range from three bucks to sometimes five to six bucks per mag. I hope the good stories win out. It’d just be sad to see the small publishers that do make good stories lose out to the economy and the inundation of comics, some mediocre, out there today.
The market corrects itself.
There are way too many titles out there and a lot of them aren’t that good. The good creators, and the good characters, will mostly win out.
I too agree that consolidation should take place. I think this is kind of the strategy that Didio is taking DC : less titles, more concentration of characters per title. Less is more sometimes and I think this is how I can get back into the DCU.
Yeah, the market is so bad that Marvel is raising it’s prices and putting out more variant covers…!? Besides, most stuff they put out is crap anyway with a few exceptions. Makes no sense whats so ever. It’s a shame that the smaller guys are going to lose out while the CEO’s @ Marvel keep trying to milk the fans. Where were these people during the implosion of the 90’s? *sigh* It wasn’t that long ago.