DFC Up For Sale (RePost from the downthetubes blog): Comments?

[John Freeman]

Sad news for British Comics: David Fickling's wonderful weekly subscription comic experiment, The DFC, is up for sale, following a decision by The Random House Group to cease publication.

If no buyer is found, the title will close on 27th March, ending with Issue 43.

Launched as a weekly, subscription-only comic in May last year, David Fickling and his team have every right to be proud of the comic they created with the help of a host of brilliant comic creators ranging from 'big names' such as award-wining author Phillip Pullman and Garen Ewing to lesser-known but quickly-recognized talents such as James Turner and Sarah McIntyre.

"It's been a hard couple days for everyone involved," comments Sarah on her LiveJournal, which has resulted in a huge number of responses from fellow creators and DFC readers saddened by the news. "E-mails have been flying and phones have been ringing," she reveals, "mostly contributors expressing how sad they are about it, but also saying what a wonderful thing The DFC has been, how we made some amazing comics, some great friends, and that we will always be proud of it.

"I'm not looking forward to the inevitable flock of British naysayers, those guys who sit around on internet blog sites and say 'I told you so'," she added. "Yes, David Fickling took a huge risk with this comic. But he also started up a lot of careers in comics that are going to go far and got us really excited with his enthusiasm and dedication. And I respect him so, so much for that, and want to say that I am proud of him and fond of him and I hope the rest of the comics community will be supportive to all the people who put so much of themselves into this project."

Philippa Dickinson, Managing Director of Random House Children's Books said: “We are very proud of The DFC and the reaction it received from families, schools and especially the children who have enjoyed reading it. It is an innovative concept which we have been very happy to back. There can be no successes without taking risks, after all.

"Unfortunately, in the current economic climate, we have decided that The DFC is not commercially viable within our organisation.

“David Fickling, the staff at The DFC, and all the comic’s contributors have worked tirelessly to produce what is an amazing weekly publication and we would be delighted if a buyer could be found who would like to take The DFC on as a going concern.”

Back in September last year, publisher David Fickling told downthetubes he had high hopes for the project, which utilised the networking and marketing opportunities afforded by the Internet previously unavailable to comics publishers.

"By using the Internet, you can market and reach everybody, more or less, and to enable your potential audience to receive the product directly and spread word of mouth about it in a very natural and experience-based way," he told downthetubes. "It's a good way to reach people.

"This doesn't mean I'm not interested in selling it The DFC in shops: far from it," he added. "I'd love to sell it in shops and it will, eventually, it's just the order in the way things have to be done to make this work. It's a more practical way of starting the comic off, in way that's sustainable.

"The DFC is also a primer for something bigger in many ways, which for me is the restoration of the form," he enthused. "It's not about being clever and being Internet only as a gimmick. It's a river down which we can flow."

"It's a real shame that it's ended so soon," says James Turner, creator of the title's Super Animal Adventure Squad which has been running in The Guardian recently, "but it's been an absolutely fantastic experience and I'm really proud of what everyone at The DFC has acheived."
"It's a very sad day," agrees Frontier artist Andrew Wildman, as does Paul Harrison-Davies, whose new strip, AstroDog, was being lined up to appear in the title The DFC -- he'll now be seeing a new home for it. "It was a wonderful comic," says Paul. "Getting in from work on a Friday and seeing it on my table gave me a nice comfortable feeling that I'm really going to miss."

"A real shame, since it's the most positive comic creation to come out of the UK in the last twenty years," feels comic creator David Hailwood, one of several creators who'd been pitching to the title. "I'd hoped Random House's clever internet sales strategy would protect them from the recession, but unfortunately not. At least they've brought forth a wealth of talented creators to the public eye; let's hope they find a way to stay there!"

Indeed so: let's hope we haven't seen the last of Frontier, Mirabilis, Super Adventure Animal Squad, Mo-Bot High or any of the other wonderful comic strips The DFC has featured so far.

• We hope to have more on this as the story develops - stay tuned. Several of The DFC's creative tea, including publisher David Fickling, are members of the downthetubes forum -- why not join up if you haven't already, or stop by and wish them well?
• Read the September 2008 downthetubes interview with David Fickling
• Visit The DFC web site

[John Freeman]

This is really sad news -- I do hope a buyer can be found.

I'm sure I join everyone here in thanking David Fickling and his team for trying to make this project work and doing their best to promote it as well as proving a launch pad for the professional careers of a host of new and exciting British comics talent.

I'm sure we haven't heard the last of The DFC gang, the characters and strips and we've definitely not heard the last from its creators. Good luck to you all!

[John Freeman]

Lew Stringer has just posted his views on the troubles for the title on his blog:

http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2009/03/dfc-dead-folded-cancelled.html

Sounds as though the subscription-only model had some problems he has not mentioned publicly until now in terms of erratic delivery and missing issues. The quality of the comic aside, that kind of thing can scupper any title and I'm surprized Random House let it slide on that front, although I imagine subscriptions would, as with other magazine publishers, be handled by a third party.

[azurechan]

That's incredibly sad, the DFC had stellar production values and some lovely content, I guess it was a bad time for a good thing.

[Zakarya Anwar]

Dang. Bad news, man.