CBG, r.i.p.

[hondobrode]

That sounds correct.

Sad.

I still hope Krause gets smart and reprints some of the great stuff they've covered and issue it as a history of comics from the Bronze Age on. That would be so cool.

[verslibre]

This is a real bummer. I'd let my subscription lapse but I've read CBG for years. I have a four-foot-tall stack of them. I loved it in its fat squarebound incarnation. Those issues drip with great content and I always looked forward to the "Ten Favorite Covers" guest feature. I also bought the back issues of that one DC '70s SF anthology (six issues, IIRC, the name escapes me) because of CBG. I even have a couple of the newspaper style CBGs from the early 80s somewhere.

[dogwelder]

i have (had) a subscription for years. only because of the low rates i kept getting it. it became a shell of what it was in the old days. it used to take me all day to read it....the last issue i recieved only took an hour and a half. the classifieds was down to half a page. it was only selling about 3,000 copies.

so i guess i get about 14 issues of antique trader because its biweekly.........

[Captain Jim]

This certainly brings back memories. I started getting it back in the Alan Light days (anybody know whatever happened to him?). I really wasn't into the ads that much, but loved the columns. Back in the day, it was my primary source for info about comics (including the then-new independent publishers). When Alan sold it to Krause, I was ecstatic to see the new format by Don and Maggie Thompson. I read it cover to cover every week for many years.

But that was many years ago. In this day of online fandom and instant news over the internet, it's very hard for a publication like this to compete. My best wishes to Maggie, along with many thanks for so much entertainment over the years.

[verslibre]

it used to take me all day to read it

No kidding. I'd get through a chunk of work day with an issue of CBG!

[dan bailey]

it was only selling about 3,000 copies.

Yeah. The mailing statement from a couple of issues ago showed circ somewhere around 3,500. Under those circumstances, if anything it's a surprise it lasted till now. I realize that ad income, not issue sales, keep mags afloat, but of course the rates for the former fall when the latter numbers do.

so i guess i get about 14 issues of antique trader because its biweekly.........

And I'll be getting 24. Good grief.

Too bad that the plug was pulled without giving the contributors one final issue to say goodbye, as it were.

[MDG]

I had a sub to CBG in the mid-70s, then again in the mid-80s through the 90s, but I gave it up--even at the really low rates--when I stopped buying new comics. There were some good columns I always read, like Mr. Silver Age, but didn't want to pay just for that. Plus, I had a friend who'd give me an oral summary of anything interesting.

On a related note, a major LCS posted on his Facebook page that his store is being evicted after over 20 years. He's asking customers to help him find a new place that's still convenient for them.

My take on the eviction is that the owner of the complex the store is in is looking to rebrand it to something a little more upscale.

[Richard Bishop]

This is too bad. I remember reading this when I worked at a LCS in college and then when I managed a LCS just after I graduated. Always provided a lot of great information and topics for discussion.

[hondobrode]

I want to get the last issue.

[dan bailey]

Mine was sitting on my coffee table when I left this morning. If it's gone when I get home, at least I'll know who took it -- hondobrode.

(I'm pretty sure the cats will put up absolutely no resistance whatsoever.)

[hondobrode]

Too funny Mr. Bailey.

Did it show that it was the last issue ? Was it anything special like a retrospective ?

[dan bailey]

Nope -- in no way, shape or form. The issue was probably already in print when the contributors learned of the cancellation, I gather, sometime around the first of the month.

Which means that the last thing that will ever appear in the magazine's pages is a Peter A. David column that's a 20-or-so-year-old reprint. (Whether that was because of his stroke, I have no idea, but I guess the timing is right.) Sad.

[dogwelder]

[QUOTE=dan bailey;16442368]Yeah. The mailing statement from a couple of issues ago showed circ somewhere around 3,500. Under those circumstances, if anything it's a surprise it lasted till now. I realize that ad income, not issue sales, keep mags afloat, but of course the rates for the former fall when the latter numbers do.

thats where i got the number from................................i'm obsessed with mailing statements!


i really hope alter ego and back issue do not get cancelled anytime soon.

[SpeakerDad]

Daaang.....well this sad news. I haven't seen the latest issue yet...I better get to the mailbox!

[Rob Allen]

Tony Isabella said in his blog that he had already written his column for the next issue when he found out there would be no next issue.