Sorry that I misunderstood your comments regarding sales of TwoMorrow magazines. I’m glad you’re doing well. I don’t have any subscriptions personally, but I do pick up some of your mags from the Beguiling in Toronto where they rack them.

First, perhaps Diamond should actually see how their customers’ brains are wired instead of having some expert in their sales department make those calls- I thought Diamond was a distributor yet they make decisions on what will sell instead of actually letting the free market do that for them. If the magazine doesn’t meet the minimum the orders aren’t placed and it doesn’t get solicited again. Pretty simple.

Also, Diamond maintains a phantom “minimum” order yet their Previews catalog contains hundreds of gee gaws and collectibles in the back that surely can’t be expected to meet that same minimum order barrier. I have found the Comics Foundry web site interesting and informative and looked forward to a print edition. 900 registered users and all the ones who never registered probably would have taken a glance at it too, but as Mr. Morrow points out- even if Diamond had decided to carry it there’s not much chances retailers would have bothered to take even a sideways glance at it.

The industry is being suffocated by the idiocy of a distributor and a majority of retailers who seem to only know how to sell what’s already selling and refuse to see much interest in allowing new products to come to market. Marvel and DC pump out massive number of products to squeeze Two Morrows publications and the Comics Foundry magazine off the shelves.

The circular logic seems to go that people won’t buy it so retailers and Diamond won’t waste their time with it but since they won’t waste their time on it, people never see it and have a chance to buy it… or not. Is it any wonder that thousands of readers have left comics? Stores are maxed out ordering the entire line of Big 2 products and simply don’t have the cash flow or shelf space left to order much else.

One has to wonder if Diamond’s real problem with Leong’s magazine is it’s potential to damage one of the publications of an “exclusive” publisher thus putting Diamond in a position of collusion or even racketeering. Maybe a call from a lawyer can rewire some of brains of the the pin heads at Diamond.

Our mags are mostly black-and-white, with color sections on occasion. DRAW! always has a sizeable color section. However, other than working through some small regional distributors, we’ve not attempted large-scale bookstore/newsstand distribution since the days when we were publishing Comic Book Artist magazine. Our mags are niche; we know it, and we’re doing just fine in the direct market. We also have a healthy subscription base.

So our B&W format is working great. But these new postal rates are likely to kill a lot of our direct orders from overseas readers.

My goal is to increase sales in both the Direct Market, and through subscriptions. The sizeable amount of money we put into our mass mailing to comics shops was part of our attempt to reach the Direct Market. And our upcoming digital editions are an attempt to reach people that can’t find our mags in comics shops.

It all works together. Frankly, I wish Diamond didn’t force us to stick our magazines in the “Magazine” section of Previews, and then our Books in the “Comics” section. It’s hard enough to find us in Previews; now people have to look in both places. But that’s their policy, so we’re stuck with it.

Tim says his book in in the same format as the TwoMorrows books and says they should get distributed too.

And at the same time TwoMorrows publisher bemoans his lack of success in the DM, despite FCBD and calling up 500 stores offering them free samples to try.

Maybe Diamond knows via the TwoMorrows experience that a b&w, 80 page $6 magazine format doesn’t work in comic shops? And for professional reasons doesn’t want to spread that around so they suggest color because they think it would help sell the book?

Perhaps Tim should seriously consider doing Comic Foundry in color like Diamond suggests. Otherwise, he could get his wish and would later end up bemoaning the lack of support among comic shops.

Regardless, I do wish Tim and the Comic Foundry the best of luck, an alternative to Wizard is a good thing.