As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the magazine industry has seen better days. Overall readership is on a slow decline, resulting in lower subscriptions and lost advertising revenues. It looks like C. F. Payne is not the only artist being affected by it. I just learned that Disney Adventures, the snazzy comic-book magazine, is officially no more. The November issue (currently in stores) is the last one to be published by the company.
Here’s the announcement from Ad Age, as quoted by Heidi MacDonald on her blog “The Beat”:
Disney Publishing attributed its decision to an effort to better focus resources and maximize long-term growth potential through new magazine and book initiatives.
The demise of Disney Adventures, which was introduced for tweens in 1990, closely follows the end of fellow child soldier Nick Jr., which MTV Networks closed with the April issue. It isn’t clear that there’s any particular exodus of children from magazines, but proliferating competition and rising costs are knocking out big magazines at a fairly regular clip these days; adults for their part have lost Premiere, Jane, Life and Child so far this year.
This is disappointing news. Disney Adventures has been a fun comic-book magazine consistently loaded with quality artwork. It’s one of the few magazines at the checkout stand I would actually pick up and thumb through. Occassionally I’ve even bought a copy just so I could drool over the artwork and keep up on the latest “trendy” art styles for kids. Recently I’ve even thought about putting together a submission package to send them in hopes of landing some work. Looks like that will never be. (Ya snooze, ya lose.)
Fellow fans can still enjoy some of the Adventures content. According to Wikipedia, Disney Press recently released theme-based collected volumes of various Disney Adventures comics (96 pages each):
Comic Zone Vol. 1: Lilo & Stitch
Comic Zone Vol 2: Gorilla, Gorilla
Comic Zone Vol. 3: Disney’s Tall Tails
Comic Zone Vol. 4: Kid Gravity
Magazines have traditionally been a solid and consistent place for illustrators to find work (although they don’t pay what they used to). Someday in the future I’d like to write a blog post about the effect of the decline of print media on illustrators.
Thanks to Tom Bancroft for the heads-up. Also, check out Tom’s blog which he runs with fellow artist Rob Corely. It’s nifty!