Maggie's World Begins, Comics Buyer's Guide Ends with #1699
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
The press release concerning cancellation of Comics Buyer's Guide with #1699 appears on the magazine's website.
It's been a delight to have had the opportunity for the last three decades - plus a prior decade with the magazine's creator, Alan Light - to communicate so wonderfully with comics collectors, comics fans, and comics professionals. Over the years, we were able to reach out in a variety of ways, including coming up with the term "Done in One" (to identify stories told completely in one issue, announced in CBG for April 5, 1996). We also helped create a trade journal that was the inciting force behind the Free Comic Book Day outreach project that Diamond Comic Distributors implemented and that continues every May. Don and I were excited by Krause Publications' challenge of revamping an advertising newspaper into a full-fledged information resource. It has been an energizing challenge to adapt to the changes of the field, as it grew from a niche interest to something popular enough to command the covers of national pop-culture magazines.
John Jackson Miller has provided a look at the history of CBG on his website; check it out!
How about me? Hey, the same week that Krause Publications announced the end of CBG saw the first installment of my contribution to a new outlet for me: a monthly post on Comic-Con's "Toucan" blog. Hope you enjoy it!
Onward!
22 comments:
The announcement of the end of CBG is, for me, another occasion to thank you Maggie (and Don!) for giving me space in CBG.
First, on the front page, with a byline and BIG news! Then deeper inside with interviews of the key retailers of the mid to late '80s.
Then, as a columnist in Comics & Games Retailer magazine where the Free Comic Book Day plot was hatched.
I'm bookmarking this page and the page on the Toucan.
As ever, best to you, Maggie!
Joe
Dear Maggie:
It is sad news, indeed. But it was inevitable with the way the publishing industries are going.
CBG provided my only link to the industry I love through the 90s, when I dropped out for financial reasons. When I came back, after a few issues, CBG became a monthly and I found I no longer had any use for the format as the internet took over.
As always, the very best to you, Maggie, and all those involved with CBG.
Rick Dee
Maggie,
A thousand thanks for all the information, enlightenment and sheer entertainment you and Don and all the rest have given me over the years. God bless!
42 years. 1699 issues (481 of them mine). Not bad. Not bad at all.
Maggie,
I enjoyed reading CBG over the years. I have the new issue on my reading pile. While I'll miss the magazine, I hope I won't miss seeing you in the future!
Regards,
Lee Hester
Maggie, what a great start for Maggie's world! I wish you very well, and look forward to all the STUFF you're going to get involved in now! And all those projects you may find time for now, too.
What a run. Thanks so much for yours and Don's tremendous contributions to our field.
To this day I miss the weekly newspaper format. SOMETHING changed in content along with the format. Best of luck and many thanks to you (and Don) for so many great years.
CBG was for quite a long time my primary source of Comics related News
(and the occasional Argument with Harlan Ellison ;)
I was a subscriber for close to 20 years.
I will certainly miss those old days when I would pull it out of my bag and read it during breaks at work...frequently accompanied by curious looks from co-workers.
Looking forward to your Toucan Blog.
Ray Feighery
Seattle, WA
Thanks so much, Maggie, for providing so many years of what seemed less like a magazine and more like a friendly and amazingly knowledgable group of people to hang out with. I loved getting CBG in the mail and can hardly believe I'll never pull it out of the mailbox again.
So sorry to learn of the demise of CBG.
My subscription started in late 1982, when it was still TBG. I was 18, and I had never even heard of a comics-related publication before here in Nova Scotia. No such thing as a comics store anywhere close to where I was living at the time.
I can't overstate how much CBG meant to me during those late teen, early adult years. I was in university but made time to read comics. Yep. I was single. Oftentimes, the arrival of CBG every week would be one of the highlights of that week for me.
I stopped reading and buying new comics in 2008, and had moved away from CBG in recent years. Nothing personal. But I will always have those memories of the 1980's and 1990's when I read CBG religiously.
My thanks to you and Don for all your hard work and dedication to this hobby. I wish you all the very best.
An upcoming post on my blog will provide more deets on my feelings about CBG.
Bev Keddy
Halifax
www.bevboysblog.com
As a collector whose junior high years in the late 70s were buoyed up every Friday by the arrival of TBG in the mailbox, I felt such a thrill to speak to you in 2002, when eBay -- whose collectibles division I was doing media relations for -- had me interview editors at various collector pubs about the site.
Predictably, many editors and publishers were cool towards eBay, whose existence had devastated the advertising base of so many fan/collector papers and zines. Some could barely contain their anger. Most were tremendously depressed (I do think that's the word) that the knowledge and lore that was the real substance of these publications, apart from the ads, seemed of so little value to readers that once the selling moved online, they dropped their subscriptions. It was a feeling I shared, actually. Those were some sad interviews.
But you weren't sad, Maggie! You were quick to point out that you'd seen CBG through various different versions already, over more than a couple of decades, and that you had contributed or edited other fan pubs, too. You said that somehow, somewhere, the info (the history, the lore, the geek's details) always survived, and that the geeks, fans, readers and buyers always found it. And supported it. Somehow! (As for the people who seemed not to care about content, you pointed out that they'd probably never cared: When the sales moved online, so did they, because sales were their only concern.)
Yours was a sane, healthy, smart and refreshing perspective. Obviously I've never forgotten it. I'll never forget your courtesy in taking my call, either, or the years of delight I had courtesy of TBG/CBG. It comes as no surprise to see that you're already on to your next gig. Congratulations, and thanks!
Kyle Hall
Dallas, Texas
Sad day but thanks for all the year of great reading and information.
Maggie,
1699 issues - wow - you and Don and Alan and many many more hasve left a thoughtful, positive mark on our hobby - most of the good stuff I ever collected came to me through ads in the Buyer's Guide, and it was the first place where I read articles on comics history back in the early 1970s --
Paper doesn't preserve very well and I hope some enterprising publisher will consider going back through the CBG archives and reprinting some of the best articles from each year - or each decade --
Jack Butterworth
Hey, Alan Light! -- Are you ready to pick it back up and resume publication with #1700? :)
I subscribed with you starting with #27!
-- David
The copy of the Antique trader came yesterday, and I almost missed the cover add on about the end of the CBG.I feel somewhat shocked. This is the end of an era. I started reading and then subscribing in the late 80's, after my son got me interested in comics. I met you and Don at a Chicago Comicon in the early 90's, and got your autographs on a CBG special issue. Thank you and Don for keeping the CBG going all these years. The publisher should have done a farewell #1700 issue.
Thanks, John Spruhan
I have been following the TBG/CBG since the mid 1970s when my dad brought home the first issue, yes I endured pulling stapes out of newspaper (and ruining several copies in the process).
I mourn the loss of CBG and wish that #1700 would have been a goodbye issue for all the fans.
Good luck on everything Maggie.
Been following TBG/CBG since 1975; remembered having to pull staples out to open the issue and ruining quite a few with my ten year old hands.
Remember trying to buy with my dad coverless/poor condition issues of "Young Allies" though the mail (slow process but fun).
It is a giant shame that #1700 could not have been a goodbye to all retrospective issue. Sad! I bought CBG at my friendly neighborhood comic shop, and am glad I did; I do not want the Antique Trader at all.
Best of luck, and I am praying someone with more vision can resurrect CBG (you know comics, does anything stay dead forever-except for poor Uncle Ben-Sob!).
Maggie best of luck in your future ventures.
And is it okay if I hope someone out there can jump all the legal hurdles and put out the classic TBG/CBG on CD/DVD. Please.
I can hear all the back issues yellowing and crumbling out there and I want to cry.
Mitchell Rentzler
Just wanted to comment... some of my fondest childhood memories involve going with my father to the downtown newsstand, him to get his various papers and coin collecting magazines, me to get my weekly copy of CBG. Thanks to you, Don, and everyone else for making it a great publication. Reading about the ins and out of the business and fandom helped create a life-long comics fan out of this reader. Thanks again.
Dear Maggie
We never met personally but only through the CBG. I went to the New York City July 4 Phil Seuling Comic Conventions from 1970-1985 along with Creation Conventions. I was a budding comic book animation artist at that time who graduated from the High School of Art and Design and wanted to get into drawing comic books. I had cartooning friends who talked allot about comic books and drew them . We would gather at the Comic book conventions to meet our favorite editors and artists in the field. It was an exciting time for a kid out of high school. I now live on a farm in South Dakota away from the big city. I remember how exciting it was to meet Jack Kirby, Harlan Ellison, Will Elder, Carl Barks of Walt Disney Uncle Scrooge fame. I still have the first issue of OverStreets Comic Book Price Guide. I remember CBG was an odd publication for New York but a great promoter in the growing hobby of collecting comic books. Maggie you have always been a great promoter and supporter of the comic book industry. After many years I came back to CBG and started reading the comic book reviews. CBG reviews started me to buy comic books again. Dollars were always a concern for me and I wanted the most entertainment for my money as comic books got more expensive. I never thought the comic book hobby and paper publishing would be gone or reduced allot in my lifetime. Comic book superheroes and television were a very much part of my life. I remember the costumes, movie and television stars that promoted their latest projects. Comic books was a boys world and your presents for promoting and organizing broke that world. You legitimized comic books from trash to high art. Reviewing and covering the business and news of the comic book world was like reading about your favorite movie star or book author. Where do you go to find about the latest conventions or publications? I'm sorry to see the publication stopped. CBG started me to buy again but this was not to be. The computer age is here and children of the television era and radio era are being replaced by children of the computer and internet age. I was surprised on how fast the publication stopped publishing because I bought it at Barns and Nobles or the news stand. There was no information in the last March issue of 2013 that CBG was stopping. I hope something opens up at Disney, Marvel, Archie or DC for you. They should thank you for your support Best of Luck
Armen J
South Dakota
Maggie, I uploaded pictures to my google account and clicked on share, then entered your name.
Let me know if you received them. I will check the computer and your blog page over the next week.
Thank you for what you do.
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