Print runs of Disney comics

Cord Wiljes cord at wiljes.de
Sat Jun 15 22:48:15 CEST 2002


Gary Leach wrote:

> By simple count of copies per issue, have more Gladstones been preserved
> than Dells? Dunno, but I suspect so. The print runs for our last newsstand
> books were down to below 60,000, and by the end Gladstone was printing only
> as many copies of each issue of Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney's Comics and
> Stories as would fill the orders from the direct market. The print runs of
> these last issues probably have the highest rates of preservation of any
> Disney comics ever.

I also heard that half of the print run of the Gladstones was immediately
shipped to customers and shops abroad, which would further reduce the supply
of Gladstone back issues in the U.S.

Here in Germany we have two ongoing series of newsstand issues: "Micky Maus", which
is published weekly and mainly contains Scandinavian stories, and "Donald Duck Sonderheft",
which contained exclusively Barks in the past and for a few months now features a selection
of the creme de la creme of other Duck artists. You could say: Micky Maus is for readers,
Donald Duck Sonderheft for collectors. And while the print run of Micky Maus is dwindling away,
from 1.5 Million a few years ago to "only" 500.000 today, Donald Duck Sonderheft has recently
been switched to a monthly publication schedule while it was just bi-monthly in the past. And
the German edition of the Barks library is selling extremely well. So what we have here is
just the same development as in the U.S.: More collectors, fewer readers. And while I
like the collector's editions I also fear that there will be less and less children growing up
with Disney comics in the future.

Cord






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