We noted here last November that Claypool Comics — a small firm issuing three long-running black-and-white comics — was in jeopardy. Like all comics these days, Claypool relied on Diamond Distributors to get its product to market, and Diamond had decided that certain items, Claypool's titles among them, did not meet a minimum profitability. There was a brief grace period while Claypool tried to get its sales up to the point where Diamond would continue to carry them but now the ax has fallen. The last issue of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark will be #166, the final issue of Soulsearchers and Company will be #82 and Deadbeats will also end with #82. The storyline of Deadbeats will continue in some form as a web comic.
This is a shame on many levels. They were all solid, well-crafted comics that obviously had some following. In an industry where a lot of titles are considered successes to last three years, Claypool's books had been around a very long time. Obviously, they were doing something right. It just wasn't right enough for the current marketplace.
There are many possible ways to look at what this means for comics. It could mean that the readership (or perhaps just the retailer community that orders what its thinks will serve that readership) favors short-term stunts over long-term consistency…or maybe that it favors Big Names, period. All comic publishers who aren't DC or Marvel have had to contend to some degree with a mindset out there that holds that if it ain't from the Top Two, its worth is suspect. There are also the views — and I don't suggest that either is invalid — that the market is simply glutted and that it's in sorry need of a second major distributor.
I think Claypool may also have suffered from the fact that, unlike the top companies these days, they were in the business of publishing comic books. They weren't a self-described multimedia company that was out to produce movies, video games and other merchandise utilizing properties they introduced in comics. They were just publishing comic books and they couldn't make a go of it. Like I said: A shame on many levels.