Today’s Publishing News Round-Up

* a lot of comics commentators out there noticed before I did that DC Comics has delayed or canceled or virtually canceled by way of delaying a bunch of their Showcase titles. The released list of not-gonna-see-its in the discount line include a second Jonah Hex volume and one featuring Captain Carrot. This is worth noting as one of the greatly appealing things about having a line of discount trades emanating from a big publisher like DC is the possibility for the more obscure characters or concepts like Suicide Squad to receive their one trade's worth of reprints in this format.

* Johanna Draper Carlson takes a look at the new publisher Transfuzion deciding on a publishing strategy that includes not accessing the direct market of comics and hobby shops through their traditional supplier, Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. She actually warms up to it by post's end. I'm a bit more conflicted. While I see the virtue in recognizing market realities and devoting one self to your comics beyond that market's ability to immediately make a place for them, I do think there's a danger in bringing comics into the market through whatever door without the kind of marketing and publishing support that gives them a chance to succeed.

* Here's press copy from Viz's Naruto Nation effort, where they're accelerating the production of the popular series of graphic novels in order to kind of re-boot it at a more popular point in the serial this winter. I think that bears watching, as there's just not enough of a track record to determine whether or not manga fans will buy three episodes of a serial in a month, and the effect on the market in general is unknown. Direct Market shops seem to have traditionally done poorly with a sudden flood of material, but the more important bookstore market Not only is the immediate effect on sales worth watching, but one should also keep an eye out for a hangover effect come the new year -- it's usually the sales effort after the one hitting strangely with fans that suffers, not the divergent effort itself. On the other hand, this could be a roaring success. Still, with the size of that properties fan base, those are some giant dice being rolled.
 
posted 3:10 am PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives