Sunday, July 4, 2010

"Classics" Canned

A post on the Boom! Comics Forum message board confirms that the remaining solicited DISNEY CLASSICS hardcovers -- MICKEY MOUSE CLASSICS: MOUSE MAYHEM, DONALD DUCK CLASSICS: DUCK DANGER, and SUMMER CLASSICS -- have all been cancelled. Personally, I would rather see all the other Boom! softcover/hardcover collections go, while the CLASSICS books are retained. Granted, the collections have sold poorly, but Boom! made the error of releasing too many collections for the available market to bear. I hope that Boom! reconsiders this decision at some point in the future and allows the hardcover format to be preserved for "classic" material alone.

5 comments:

GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

I've said it before (well...I've THOUGHT it, at any rate): softcover woulda been a better way to go, even if it lacks the perceived cachet of hardcover. And yeah, Boom!'s dedication to rereleasing absolutely ALL of the contents of their comicbooks in trade paperback format is just bizarre.

Chris Barat said...

GeoX,

I think that Boom!'s decision to release EVERYTHING in multiple formats has hurt it on both the front end and the back end:

1. Once one realizes that a collection will be released soon, then why should one buy the original comics?
2. If one prefers the original comics so that one can follow a story as it develops, then why would one buy a collection?

I applaud Boom! for trying to make the regular comics more affordable, but what happens between slick covers should STAY between slick covers. The hardback format is perfect for special collections like the CLASSICS series -- let that be the extent of it!

Chris

GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Oh man, I'd forgotten that they're also releasing their monthly comics in HARDCOVER. That truly does seem pathological. You're absolutely right, especially given the highly variable, let's say, quality of the monthlies. I picked up the "Hunt for Old Number One" trade out of semi-morbid curiosity, and found it to be every bit as poor as your reviews suggested (they DID correct "poof bombs," but that's rather a drop in the bucket). Gemstone may have made bad business decisions, but they never would've done THAT.

Chris Barat said...

GeoX,

It pained me to see that the collected "Hunt for Old Number One" outsold any of the CLASSICS volumes in the direct market. "Hunt" and the LIFE OF SCROOGE reprint volumes are the only "classic" reprints to surpass the 1000 mark in d.m. sales. Just imagine what sales a good new UNCLE $CROOGE story
might rack up!

Chris

Anonymous said...

It's not just the classics, all the Disney HCs you listed are cancelled, as well as the HC collections of the Pixar books. The softcovers of the Pixar books are still coming out.

A retailer/Disney Fan