Disney-comics digest #324.

[John Jacob Jingleheimer Elmo]

David A Gerstein <David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu> writes:
>	Greg Elmo

"Elmo" is a handle; Greg's my real-world-name.  Just FYI.

>                 said that Gladstone was such a "marginal" company
>that he was glad to have ANY regular Duck comics.
>	Actually, Gladstone is doing pretty well right now from what
>I've been told.

Doing well relative to Gladstone history, perhaps.  Doing well?  Not at all. 
"Well" is reaching more than two hundredths of a percent of the population.
Dell used to pull a percent or more.  The "Disney Afternoon" shows reach
a percent.

>By "marginal" did you mean that they were barely
>making a name for themselves, Greg?

Yep.  Awareness of Gladstones is almost nil.  Even in the full service
comic stores near me which sell twenty or more copies of Bone, Gladstones
are ordered in the low single digits and sell out within a week--and orders
*never* go up.  Thank the deity I use a subscription service or I'd never 
see all the issues.

If Gladstone is to become large enough to resist Disney corporate stupidity,
it's going to have to get aggressive:  Direct mail inquiries to store owners,
telling them to order more *because Gladstones sell out*; subscription
ads in Disney Adventure Digest (1e6 copies a month!); pressure on Marvel
to get the Gladstones in point-of-purchase displays, etc.  The market
exists; it just doesn't know the Gladstones do.

	greg
--
"It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism
while wolves remain of a different opinion."
--William Ralph Inge D.D.
  
elmo (morrow at physics.rice.edu,morrow at fnal.fnal.gov)