Another comic publisher didn’t make it through the minimum order cuts through Diamond Comic Distributors. Classics Illustrated will however continue to be printed and distributed, it will just go through other venues.
Complete press release follows the jump.
Press Release
In early April 2009, Diamond Comic Distributors notified Jack Lake Productions Inc., publisher of Classics Illustrated comics, that due to “new operating guidelines and benchmarks,†they are dropping solicitation and distribution of the full Classics Illustrated series.
President of Jack Lake Productions Inc., Jaak Jarve, commented, “That this is another example of a knee-jerk reaction to the tough economic environment everybody is struggling with to get through.†He also added, “Ironically, here we have an American intellectual property (consisting of 325 classical literature titles) which are being dumped in favor of spandex-super-hero titles. Oddly enough the American-owned and -produced Classics Illustrated series is being welcomed more by foreign publishers than our own North American publishing community. Maybe those foreigners are investing in the knowledge that classical literature will help teach our children to cope with the realities of the real world much better than these caped-crusaders who like jumping off high buildings. Splat! That’s all I have to say.â€
Jaak further mentioned, “Given these new circumstances, we ask all our loyal customers and retailers to continue to order these new republished Classics Illustrated titles directly from Jack Lake Productions Inc. at our website http://www.jacklakeproductions.com or call us at our toll-free number 1-800-269-9206.â€
Classics Illustrated titles will continue to be sold and distributed by independent distributors, book stores, BudsArtBooks.com and Amazon.com.
Jack Lake Productions Inc. is proud to announce that since September 2008, Classics Comic Store Ltd. out of the UK, managed by Jeff Brooks, has been selling and distributing Classics Illustrated titles into the UK, Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
The company is also proud to announce that in March of this year, !Editions, a publisher out of France, picked up the worldwide French rights for the 1990 First/Berkley Classics Illustrated titles.
In 2007, Papercutz picked up the worldwide English rights for the Classics Illustrated First/Berkley series as well as their own deluxe 144-page adaptations of classic literature. Since 2006, Egmont has been re-issuing 4-title Classics Illustrated volumes in Scandinavia. Since 2005, Modern Times S.A. has been selling and distributing Classics Illustrated Juniors in Greece and Cyprus.
3 Comments
Let them durn ferriners have their moldy ol’ CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED line. We in the U.S. will be perfectly happy to have the Roy Thomas line of Marvel classics with modern creators using modern production techniques.
Let them durn ferriners have their moldy ol’ CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED line. We in the U.S. will be perfectly happy to have the Roy Thomas line of Marvel classics with modern creators using modern production techniques.
Pfft. The original C.I. line likewise continued abroad long after the American editions stopped. It’s a common misconception that America is the only comic book market, but not only is it not true, I don’t even think we’re the biggest one anymore…
We’re nowhere near the biggest, not with Duck books and Il Topolino regularly selling in the seven-figure range in Italy alone.
And, while CI stopped being distributed as floppies in the U.S. by the early 1970s (giving =that= era’s Marvel a chance to move in on the market, as well), there were book-format and digest-format small-publisher reprints going on almost constantly into at least the 1990s. It’s just that they didn’t find any sort of modern audience thanks to Eisenhower-era art and story techniques. That kind of thing has a following in Europe, but it doesn’t really hit the spot with American readers, always looking for something fresh and/or unique; even old-school CI’s most ardent defenders have to admit, the title was never either of those things.