Gladstone's advertising

Ed Berndt eberndt at mirage.esd123.wednet.edu
Wed Nov 23 19:09:04 CET 1994


Hi everyone,
  This is the first time that I have written.  Gladstone's and Marvels 
advertising is simply terrible.  On top of that their distribution system 
is awful.  I cannot find either gladstone or marviel disney comics here 
in the Tri-Cities (Pasco, Kennewick, Richland).  I am having severe 
withdrawal symptoms since I have been reading Disney for 35 years.  I 
have every Disney Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comic from 1957 through 
1991.  After that I have only some of them because they are next to 
impossible to find.   I guess I will have to subscribe by finding 
Gladstones address from one of their comics I purchased before the 
promblem in finding them came about.

  Why do they not advertise and why is their distributin system so bad. 
There are many people that I know that would buy Disney comics except 
that they cannnot find any of them.

  I am very puzzled by this.  Well, sorry, I just had to get it off my 
back, withdrawal symptoms you know.  :-)

Have a good day,

Ed Berndt
Basin Elementary                                      * *
E-Mail Address: eberndt at mirage.esd123.wednet.edu       @
:-)   :-)    :-)  :-)  Have a good day. :-) :-)       <->

On Wed, 23 Nov 1994, DAVID.A.GERSTEIN wrote:

>       Dear Folks,
> 
>       Matti Maenpaa explained where Gladstone's readership comes 
> from, then explained that the strength of that market meant that 
> further advertising wasn't needed.  Well, let's start the inevitable 
> argument.  ;-)
> 
>       You see, KIDS are overlooked when Gladstone's comics aren't 
> advertised!  I have talked to dozens of kids who are great Disney 
> fans and who, when shown Gladstones from my collection, loved them.  
> Many of them started buying them after seeing those I showed them.
> But none of them knew that the comics even exist.  Comic shops have 
> no advertising for Gladstones anywhere in them.  Neither do any of 
> the comic fanzines, dull as they are, which are popular with the 
> younger crowd (tripe like "Wizard", I mean).  Those fanzines don't 
> have articles about Gladstone 99% of the time.  Is it because ducks 
> aren't hip?  Face it.  Marvel BUYS DOZENS of ads in "Wizard."  Hence, 
> "Wizard" covers Marvel extensively.  If Gladstone began buying ads in 
> that pathetic (but well-read) magazine, Wizard would probably look 
> more kindly toward covering their publications.  Did anyone notice 
> how the "Diamond Previews" catalogue magazine has devoted less space 
> to Gladstones since they stopped buying a one-page ad?  Sad to say, 
> money is everything when comic-world power moguls splash praise on a 
> concept and series.  (The one exception to all of this, BONE, seems to 
> have been praised by the moguls just so that they could make 
> themselves look good.  It is one of the best new comics in literally 
> decades -- already a classic -- but the media's hype about it seems 
> unfortunately transparent to me.)
> 
>       When I went into a German comic shop, I saw the German reprints 
> of Gladstone albums on a specially-prepared cardboard stand made by 
> Ehapa.  The stand had a huge head of Donald at the top.  When I 
> bought some random comics, I took them out of the shop in a bag which 
> had Ehapa's logo on it and huge illos of CBL Album covers there, too. 
> Ehapa makes those bags and sells 'em cheap as dirt (or maybe even 
> GIVES them away) to comic shops as part of a promotional scheme.  
> THIS is what Gladstone really needs to do.  Sure, they're surviving 
> now.  But you never know what you can do until you try.
> 
>       So how are Marvel's Disney comics doing?
> 
>       David Gerstein
>       <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>
> 



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