Comic Book Magazines - Mobile Edition

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Comic Book Magazines
By Hervé St-Louis
October 25, 2002 - 12:10

Recently, someone asked on the DC Comics message board DC Comics message board if there was room in the comic book market for another comic book magazine. His company was thinking about publishing a new publication about comics. Here's my answer.

I advise that you be very careful. Without large marketing resources, it will be very difficult to establish a magazine in this market. Many other companies in the past tried. There were Comics Scene, Marvel Age, Musings and many more. They explored different formats and distribution mechanisms. Most failed.

At the moment, the only way to support a comic book magazine, would be to get in bed with the Previews magazine published by Diamond Comics. If you can manage a partnership or insert copies in Previews, you've got a lead in.

Anything else without sufficient marketing resources to reach the customer, would fail. The market is thinly spread and people only bother with a magazine if they have enough disposable income. Adults, notoriously have less than teens.

Finally, most of the things people asked, such as breadth, objectivity, timely news coverage are covered by Internet competitors with free contents. Notice that most have also failed. From what I've observed, Digital Webbing gets less support than Comic book Resources. Comic Continuum survives because of the low overhead and simple layout.

Consolidation has already occurred in the comic book market, and I think the slope is now in maturity/decline. Be very careful. But then again, it's not my money.