John Jackson Miller analyzes 2008 year-end comics sales
Number cruncher John Jackson Miller looks at Diamond's yearend figures and concludes that in 2008, the industry moved sideways:
Now, to 2008: As noted, the industry didn't so much grow or slip as move sideways....
Further posting delayed
THE BEAT has a lot in the queue to be posted, but we've been delayed by what one might term "affairs in the world of men." We'll be back as events allow.
UPDATE:...
Recession Watch: MAD goes quarterly
If you've been following along at home today with our news stream, the announcement that MAD Magazine is going quarterly will not be such a shocker. Matt Brady has the news.The venerable humor magazine...
Recession Watch: Magazine distribution woes continue
Only the New York Post seems to have picked up on this story, but it's a biggie. Another major magazine distributor has joined Anderson News in raising its rates to distribute magazine copies...
DC layoffs include Schreck
The Beat has confirmed that DC Senior Editor Bob Schreck was laid off yesterday. Other layoffs, expected in the wake of Warner Brothers' companywide 10 percent reduction, include Subcriptions Manager Christine Sawicki and several...
Recession Watch: 13 laid off at Diamond
The Beat has confirmed that Diamond laid off 13 employees yesterday, including the managing editor and designer for the recently canceled Diamond Dialog magazine. In addition to the layoffs, wages for management and other...
More Diamond stuff
Newsarama finally gets Diamond's recent changes on the record from Bill Schanes. Those following the story will probably have read the whole thing, but it's worth discussing a bit -- most of the changes...
Still out of it
Stately Beat Manor remains a vale of sickness and disease, as both The Beat and Future Mr. Beat had to skip all outside Inauguration festivities in exchange for sneezing. We did mount a short...
Oni’s Joe Nozemack on new Diamond policies
While we're sipping soup and all that, Joe Nozemack, publisher at Oni Press, was kind enough to send us some brief thoughts on Diamond's new ordering policies and we wanted to get them out...
New Diamond policies expected to have massive effects
Diamond Distribution, the largest and practically only North America distributor of periodical comics, is in the process of rolling out a few new business processes, and the results could be a very different landscape...
Comics status report: Hibbs Division
Last Friday's "Tilting at Windmills" column by Brian Hibbs sums up the comics zeitgeist circa last Friday pretty well. A few bullet points:
• Just how bad the fubar over the SPIDER-OBAMA variant covers...
Recession Watch: Bye bye, Virgin UPDATED
We've reported on this before, but one of the few remaining Virgin Megastores is to close soon, since designer clothes are more profitable than CDs, DVDs and graphic novels:Last June, a Vornado executive told...
