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Sunday, July 02, 2017

Two UK comics to close

Cover of No.8 from the DC Thomson website.
I'm very sorry to hear that both D.C. Thomson's Danger Mouse and Panini UK's Doctor Who Adventures are to cease publication with their current issues. (Danger Mouse with No.12, and DWA with No.24). Both were excellent magazines, with originated comic strips and features. I really thought they would last longer but the children's market is a very competitive area, with numerous titles packed into the shelves, fighting for attention.

There is hope that both might return though. I understand Danger Mouse ended because of its short-term licensing contract, so I suppose it's possible it might be renewed one day. Likewise, Panini say that Doctor Who Adventures is only on hiatus, so perhaps that will be revived when the new series of Doctor Who begins on TV later next year.

For more about the DWA hiatus, see John Freeman's report on the Down the Tubes blog:
http://downthetubes.net/?p=38607

3 comments:

Double Vision Comics said...

A shame on both counts. From what little I saw of them, these were very nicely presented mags with limitations on how far gifts are allowed to dominate the bags and good variety of content.

What went wrong? Possibly these days even heavily branded licensed comics have limited appeal even in their native media despite global audiences, due to the gargantuan amount of competing content out there in God knows how many types of iteration.

Are we making excuses for the limited appeal of comics/'comizines'? I don't think that's necessary: no matter the duration of its run, any such title benefits all others through shelf-presence etc, as long as the issues arrive in a timely manner.

Unknown said...

My 6 year old son loved Dangermouse and, like all DC Thomson titles, its covermounts were of better quality than other publishing houses.

Lew Stringer said...

Yes, it was a quality publication. If good comics like that and DWA can't survive it just shows that the news trade isn't attracting the audience it should. Messy, cluttered shelf displays and high cover prices don't help though. Perhaps mainstream publishers need to focus on bookshops, comic shops, and conventions, like The Phoenix does?

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