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We’ve been waiting a long time for someone to sit down and ask Eric Reynolds what he thinks about Diamond’s benchmarks, and Chris Mautner finally stepped up to do it himself. The general thrust is that…the indie periodical was already looking a little green around the gills:

Let me put it this way. I think some publishers are probably using this new policy as an excuse to curtail their pamphlets than I think it’s a hard cause and effect. I don’t begrudge anybody doing that, but my point is the writing was already on the wall. I think publishers were already steering away from periodicals by and large. I read an interview with Mike Richardson not too long ago prior to the Diamond policies talking about how they were really scaling back the pamphlets and they’re one of the few publishers that’s still been really agressive in that format.

1 COMMENT

  1. I wish I’d thought to speak to Eric. Wait, I did, on January 19.

    It’s always nice to hear Eric speak at length, though.

  2. Each day – this coy reference to ‘pamphlets’ is really beginning to piss me off.

    A pamphlet to me are what you plunk down fifty cents or so for a little mini-comic you see xeroxed at APE – something that I see most customers struggle to dig down their pockets for when they want to contribute something or anything to a guy trying to help make the money back on his table.

    It’s just so belittling to be referred to as thus – as something I’d love to do – only affording to publish one or two issues a year , to be lumped in this category.

    Ok – vent over, carry on.

    ~

    Coat

  3. I propose the terms “sub-magazine” or “saddle-ridin’-sallies” in lieu of pamphlets. They’re far more fashionable.

    In all seriousness, I believe [pamphlet] is the official term for any publication with no spine and less than 48 interior pages, according to either ISO or UNESCO, I forget which. That’s probably why it stuck…

  4. There’s nothing inherently wrong with pamphlets. “A Modest Proposal” was a pamphlet. I think it’s a perfectly reasonable description of the things. They’re not “magazines” in any conventional sense (not big enough, only one feature); calling them “comics” is no use to tell them apart from other format. “Pamphlet” may have acquired derisive overtones, but it has the merit of being accurate plain Englsh.