In response to my post on Free Comic Book Day rejecting webcomics, Bill Williams of Lone Star Press expressed a lack of surprise, saying The middlemen in the print arena are afraid of getting cut out and do their best to bury the indy digital creators. I have books and comics by Bill Willingham and others available for free at WOWIO and I cannot get a press release run on a major site. I thought this presented intriguing ground for […]

It’s tough to be a comic publisher these days. Superhero publishers are pumping out more connected comics to suck up more of the regular customer dollar. Art comic customers are switching to graphic novels. Retailers have hundreds of small press publications to choose from, and many don’t want to stock shelf copies without some indication of customer interest, driven by the publisher. When one publisher tried a new method of building customer interest, through that perennial of marketing, the “free […]

It’s that time of year again… Archie Comics is the only major publisher I’m aware of that still publishes its Statements of Ownership, Management, and Circulation, a post office requirement to use certain mail classes. That means we know what circulation numbers they’re reporting to the government. Here’s the figures I’ve seen so far for Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation. The first number is the Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months; the second is No. Copies of […]