Ad Age reports that after 17 years, Disney has cancelled Disney Adventures magazine, with the November issue the last one.

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.

While DA still had a healthy circ of over 1 million, ad pages were down — a common complaint among magazines — and that sealed its fate.

DA was of course, The Beat’s old stomping ground for many years, and this announcement fills us with a bittersweet feeling. With its vast circulation, and stand alone comics spin-offs, “Comic Zone” this was one of the lone lights for children’s comics during the darkest days of the comics industry, and over the years published such cartoonists as Jeff Smith, Evan Dorkin, Art Adams, Christine Norrie, Rick Geary and many others. Selling ads was always a challenge however, and the slowly eroding ad market for magazines couldn’t have helped.

But it was fun while it lasted, creating the comics adventures of TailSpin, Rescue Rangers, Toy Story, Timon & Pumbaa, Pirates of the Caribbean and many others. The “DA Kids” grew up to read and buy comics and helped show that comics weren’t just for grown ups after-all.

This entry was posted on 08/24/07 at 9:41 am and is filed under Kids' comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.