April 13, 2009:

THE BLUEWATER COOLER: Publisher Darren G. Davis rants and raves about the comic industry: ISSUE 13

So I got the new Wizard Magazine, you know the one with Michelle Obama "Rule the World of Comic Books". There was not one mention of the "Female Force" comic book, which happened to be the #1 selling indie book for April. They wonder why they are loosing readers and employees. There Anime magazine just went belly-up. I give Wizard magazine about 3 more issues, until they are gone or Marvel buys them. This would be the perfect fit since it should be called Marvel's Wizard. One gets tired of seeing Wolverine stories.

APRIL 14 UPDATE: I just got an email this morning from Karen Evora from Wizard. She is letting everyone know that after 15 years she is leaving. Wow - to me the wrtiing is on the wall now for them. She was selling ad sales for them and one of the nicest people in comics. I really do like her a lot. She always had class at Wizard. So I am guessing something happened to set her off, or she got let go. She is selling ads for other comic book compnays as a freelancer and Wizard is not mentioned in the magazine. This is a bad thing for Wizard because they have let go a lot of the lifers there. We wish Kaern the best of luck - but we are glad she is off and starting her own thing.

One might think that this whole Wizard thing bothers me. It really does because I used to look forward to picking up the magazine each month. Now I would rather pick up Geek magazine. Wizard is trying to be what Geek is, a good solid pop culture magazine. I just looked at the Wizard cover and noticed that it is not the #1 magazine of comics entertainment and pop culture anymore. They used to state that one there.

You know, I know Bluewater is not the biggest fish in the world, but there are so many good comics that should be covered in Wizard. Image Comics has some new ones that look great.

I wish that magazines like Comic Foundry would still be around. It is also sad that Starlog is gone. That was an iconic magazine. More people are reading the news of websites now. I do like the web, but I do like sitting on my couch reading a magazine. My eyes can only take so much of looking at a computer screen.

On the “Female Force” stuff. We just delivered the 2nd printings of the Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. It looks like we are close to selling out of those too. We over printed these books again by 20% to handle the new orders. We are planning on doing new covers of the Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton comics for the 3rd printing. Vinnie Tartamlla is putting them together, just in case we do sell out.

We also delivered to Diamond, Vincent Price Presents #7 and #8, The Vincent Price Gallery, 10th Muse 800 #2 and #3, Plan 9 From Outer Space…Strikes again, Warlock #1 & #2 & War of the Elementals #4. We are making sure all the books are spaced out so they do not come out all in one week.

I got some pages from the “Female Force “Princess Diana book and they are amazing. This could be another big one for us.

Until next week!

Darren