Comics UK

Hi all,

There was an in-depth feature in last week's Retail Newsagent focusing on children's magazines that I thought I'd share with you...

It gives the top ten ABC audited titles; in order of newstrade sales these are The Simpsons Comics, Doctor Who Adventures, Toybox, Girl Talk, Simpsons Comics Presents, Fun to Learn Friends, Bob the Builder, Disney's Princess, CBeebies Weekly and Fun to Learn Favourites.

There's also some information on summer launches - BBC are to launch In the Night Garden (pre-school based on the TV series) and All About Animals (girls' magazine). Titan are to launch Transformers (discussed elsewhere on the boards), Jim Jam and Sunny (pre-school) and Simpsons Treasure Trove. The latter is a "brand new handy A5" Simpsons title, published monthly, with two oversized issues a year - should be interesting to see how this does... And a new modern Rupert Bear magazine is coming out later this month (doesn't say who's the publisher of this one)...

There's also a quote from someone at BBC magazines, saying sales dropped by 47% when they tried removing free cover gifts. Which presumably explains why it's now difficult to find a comic without one.

Best,
Chris

Yes! Rupert

Re "...Simpsons Treasure Trove..." the "...brand new handy A5 Simpsons title..."
By coincidence, I've just discovered a blog devoted to Australian comics, which includes an article on Otter Comics who publish an A5 repackagaing of the American Simpsons comic. I don't know if the UK title repackages the Australian repackaging, or what, but the article at http://comicsdownunder.blogspot.com/200 ... iever.html is a fascinating look at the Australian newstrade comics industry, and links to lots of articles on the history of Australian (and British -- see the interview with Jeff Wilkinson who drew comics in both countries) comics.

David Simpson