The Four Color Media Monitor

Publisher's Weekly writes more about how Diamond Distribution is making it harder for independent publishers to get their output marketed as pamphlets, and does tell how pamphlets are clearly not going to be the future of the market. Some publishers are even trying to move away from the specific format altogether:

On the other hand, some comics publishers are moving closer to the book market and away from the comics shop market's longtime emphasis on serials and on the super hero genre. Peggy Burns, associate publisher at Drawn & Quarterly, an art comics publisher that does not emphasize periodicals, said, “we are not really affected by the changes, and have not changed how we distribute.” Burns says the house is moving away from the periodical format, claiming, “there is obviously no future with pamphlets [comics].” While they continue to have success with the serials of Adriane Tomine’s Optic Nerve and Jason Lutes’s Berlin, according to Burns D&Q will not continue to serialize Kevin Huizenga’s Or Else, Gabrielle Bell’s Lucky, or Sammy Harkham’s Crickets. Instead they are “working with the authors to do books instead of pamphlets.”

I'm glad to see that someone understands how pamphlets have worn themselves out, if through no fault of their own, and how book format, big or small, is what comics will have to continue their existence in. I don't know if DC and Marvel understand that yet, though, and with the way things are going there, it may take longer for them to rework their own approach.

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