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<DIV>Since everybody is playing micro-managing Gladstone, so will I.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The comics Market in the USA is divided into three groups, neither of them
that healthy.</DIV>
<DIV>comic book shops, bookstores, and newstands-groceries-etc. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>as fans, comic books shops are what we are used to. There comics are color,
monthly,and non-reprint, however, you generally have to order your
comics months in advance, and most cater to guys in their 20s -30s who
read superhero and semi-SF comics.</DIV>
<DIV>bookstores, the bigsellers are magna books and books that look like
magna. There are Disney books there by TokyoPop. Magna sells well enough
that at least one book is on the Publisher's Weekly bestsellers list (although
this is usually a series). these are in black and white, digest, - the
bookstores i see usually have young teens of both sexes there. books are usually
reprints.</DIV>
<DIV>not as many spinner racks or checkout line racks with comics as there used
to be. Archie digests sell there (with numbers on just the low side of
X-men), these seem to cater to kids, and parents as a sop to kids - color
but digests are 80% reprints. Heavy Metal may still be selling good on the
newsstands too - last i knew it sold over x-men numbers.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>While we as adults know that Disney comics are good for adults as well as
kids (well Im not including the soccer kids), but most of the folks who go to
comic shops arent interested in non-superheroes. Obviously
this is why Gemstone tried to beef up the SF and superhero
content. I didn't care for the stuff at all, but I know
many of yall on this list did.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>While fans dont like reprints - the average person buying Archie digests
and Peanuts Fantagraphic books either want and enjoy reprints or dont care
if they're reprints. After all a good story is a good story.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I dont see any chance for Disney comics to do well in comic book
shops; and attempts at re-building the newsstand-grocery market hasnt been
that successful (and I suspect that the non-classic characters would do better
on the newstand, but that's not what folks on this list are interested
in).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There might be hope on getting those digest books out in USA
stores -in the magna section, but I assume that Gemstone tried
the color digest books out there - and I never saw them.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I hate being a pessimist, but it doesn't look good.....</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> steven rowe</DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>