The Beat has confirmed an LA Times report that Nickelodeon Magazine, the last studio kids magazine, has been canceled:

Viacom is shutting down Nickelodeon Magazine this week and will lay off about 30 staffers. Launched in 1993, the magazine, with a circulation of more than 1 million and a total audience of more than 6 million, was for many years an important promotional platform for the children’s cable network and provided a steady stream of cash. The magazine even once was a National Magazine Award finalist and also led to a few spin-off products.

The fate of comics editors Chris Duffy and Dave Roman isn’t specifically known yet. The loss of the magazine comes as a blow to the comics community — in addition to developing such popular comics properties as SpongeBob and Avatar: The Last Airbender, Duffy and Roman hired the cream of the crop of indie cartoonists, from Sam Henderson and Johnny Ryan to Laura Park and Jason Lutes. It was one of the few places where cartoonists of this ilk could get paid decent rates for their work, which makes it all the sadder. In addition, they published stand-alone comics collections and sponsored the first Kids Comics Awards.

While this leaves an obvious gap for kids comics, it leave a gap for comics in magazines in general — once a key way for cartoonists to make money and gain exposure, the implosion of the magazine market has taken this avenue with it. Or as Ryan Sands tweeted:

Nick Mag was a great venue 4 indie cartoonists: Laura Park, Jason Shiga, Johnny Ryan, Elio, Kupperman. Now there’s just vice, GR & arthur

GR means Giant Robot.

Above: A Richard Thompson drawn cover for Nick Mag’s comics section. Much more art and history of the magazine can be seen at the Nick Mag Comics LJ, which we urge all to visit as a token of remembrance of a great magazine. There is a post up just from yesterday with a LAURA PARK 3D COMIC.

Was talking to a good friend the other day, one I had worked with back in my magazine publishing days. (I worked at various publications, trade and consumer, for several years, including a long stint at Disney Adventures.) He reported that he and just about everyone I had worked with on staff have been laid off from their current jobs at various magazines. One of them just up and moved to Florida with the advice, “Go back to school and look for a new line of work.” He also said he had answered an online ad for a Art Director job and been told that there had been 550 applications for this single post.

It goes without saying that In This Economy, in every field, even people who are at the top of their game are now struggling, It hadn’t previously occurred to me, though, that an entire class of professions is being swept away, as surely as the people who used to set hot type no longer exist. Not necessarily creators, but the people who put things together, photo editors, page layout people.

Will they find new ways to make a living aggregating Twitter content, I wonder?

Art by N.C. Wyeth.

The Beat has learned that editor Rob Simpson was recently laid off at Dark Horse. Simpson, an industry vet who formerly worked at DC, was the Senior Editor in charge of Dark Horse’s prose books line, which includes original novels, nonfiction, a series of Playboy Interview collections and various fantasy novels — including the recently launched Neil Gaiman Presents series. Although Dark Horse would not comment directly, they did release this statement from owner Mike Richardson:

In recent years, Dark Horse has dedicated a great deal of time and resources to move outside of the traditional comics medium with ventures into publishing prose novels. Due to the well known facts of the current state of the book market, and cutbacks at the chains for these types of books, we are placing these efforts on hold for the time being. This is in no way indicative of the health and vitality of any other division of our business, or the company overall.

Although any layoffs are looked at as part of the Great Recession during this time, comics are still getting off fairly lightly, at least on the creative side, with only a smattering of layoffs. It’s painful for anyone, but far less than the massive cuts other aspects of the entertainment industry have been experiencing. We hope this trend continues.

As for Simpson, he’s a real professional; we’re sure he’ll land on his feet even in this harsh time.

Tom Tomorrow reprints correspondence that indicates that things aren’t any better for alternative weekly comics than they were a few months ago.

To no one’s surprise the “temporary” Village Voice Media suspension of cartoons continues indefinitely. I haven’t been contacted myself, but one of my colleagues got this email:

I had said we would review syndicated cartoons after the first quarter, so wanted to get back to you.

Sadly, the results were disappointing, so we’re going to have to extend our moratorium on syndicated cartoons for at least another quarter.

Wish I had better news. I hope we can resume our relationship when things finally turn around.

Well, shit.

Rumors flew yesterday that Wizard had canceled Anime Insider, its J-culture-themed magazine, and Newsarama confirmed:

In an email to Newsarama, Gramling writes, “…after several years of producing Anime Insider magazine, Wizard Entertainment has decided to discontinue its publication. The last issue will be Anime Insider #67. We thank our dedicated staffers for all of their hard work, and we thank our readership for their loyal support.”

Johanna Draper Carlson rounds up other recent comics magazine expirations, including Comics Now! — the last issue came out in September, now officially canceled. Comic Foundry and Write Now! are also mentioned, although it should be noted, Comic Foundry ended because its creator just didn’t have time to do it anymore, not really because of economic factors.

Is Comics Comics still coming out? I forget.

Hello, Amazon! All six of the remaining Virgin Megastores in the US will be shutting down by summer:

After nearly two decades of rocking the music world with a mix of brash stunts and splashy CD releases, the remaining six Virgin Megastores in the United States will shut their doors this summer in another blow to recorded music.

The hipster shops received their branding from billionaire founder Sir Richard Branson and remained profitable, but the real estate firms that own the U.S. chain determined they could command higher rent from new tenants.

“I’ve been pushing back a little bit on the notion that this is just another casualty of the music industry,” said Simon Wright, the chief executive of Virgin Entertainment Group Inc.

The two stores in New York, at Times Square and Union Square, were both profitable, but not as profitable as the planned new tenants, a Forever 21 or –gah — a CVS? Yet another case of greedy real estate developers chipping away at the fabric of life as it was once lived.

We can’t speak for the other US Virgin locations — San Francisco, Denver, Orlando, and Hollywood — but this means that in Manhattan, the only remaining big places to buy a CD or DVD will be B&N and Borders — and we wouldn’t count on the last named being around much longer either. By our reckoning, the last freestanding music store in Manhattan is Other Music on 4th Street, which got its start as a small, quirky indie alternative to then-giant Tower across the street. Turns out the quirky place is the one where riffling through the racks is possible.

While online shopping, piracy, and Netflix made leaving your house to gather electronic entertainment unfashionable, we still find all of this horrifically sad. Don’t misunderstand — we only buy a few physical CDs a year, but it was always exciting to go to the Virgin store and see all of the physical world of pop culture laid out in front of you, from giant posters for the latest American Idol grad, to the new Home Improvement boxed sets, to comics and books and…stuff. The actual proximity of clashing visions and ideas was — and is — exciting and inspiring, far more so than displays of more skanky clothes to meet guys in.

Maybe we’re just overoptimistic, or nuts, or something, but we totally see the best comics shops — like Forbidden Planet, just a few steps down from Union Square Virgin — as the new record stores, the cool place where you went once a week to get your fix, look “cool” and check out trends. The audiences are far smaller, to be sure, but in the current retail environment, size doesn’t really matter.

It’s youth cultural shift of a seismic proportion from even 15 years ago. But perhaps it helps explain why comics shops sales aren’t sliding quite as quickly as the rest of the economy.

The DFC is a less-than-a-year-old British comics weekly for kids, recently launched in a market where new comics products have an uphill battle. Backed by Random House UK, the magazine had gotten a warm reception and contributions from heavy hitters like Phillip Pullman, but now, The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log reports the subscription-only publication will be canceled at the end of the month unless a buyer is found — not very likely, all involve glumly agree. Joe Gordon writes:

Obviously this is a big blow - we were all really excited at the launch of a major new British comic (such a rare event these days) and as regular readers will know its proved to be popular with adults and with kids (as Molly showed in her reviews with her dad Richard). And of course it offered a major new vehicle for British comics talent - that’s going to hurt, losing both that outlet where their work could be seen and enjoyed as well as the obvious loss of potential earnings (and the worry is that if a buyer isn’t found and the DFC does cease after issue 43 it will put off others from trying to launch a new British regular comic even when the economy picks up).

Contributor Sarah McIntyre has more at her LJ.

§ That story about how magazine/book distributor Anderson Media was trying to charge magazine publishers 7 cents an issue to distribute magazines is now playing out. Over the last few seeks, Anderson has closed its door and laid off employees. Now, several book publishers are trying to force it into bankruptcy:

In court papers filed in U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan, publishing companies Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Random House Inc and Simon & Schuster Inc said they are owed a combined $37.5 million.

Under U.S. law, creditors may begin an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding to force a debtor to confront the debts they are owed. The alleged debtor has about 20 days to object to the filing.

A phone number for the Knoxville, Tennessee-based company has been disconnected.

§ On a more positive note, the old adage that cheap entertainment thrives in a recession is holding up as box office is up 16 percent over last year:

While much of the economy is teetering between bust and bailout, the movie industry has been startled by a box-office surge that has little precedent in the modern era. Suddenly it seems as if everyone is going to the movies, with ticket sales this year up 17.5 percent, to $1.7 billion, according to Media by Numbers, a box-office tracking company.

And it is not just because ticket prices are higher. Attendance has also jumped, by nearly 16 percent. If that pace continues through the year, it would amount to the biggest box-office surge in at least two decades.

Box office analyst David Poland suggests that the surge is due more to the great appeal of PAUL BLART, a premise whose implications we’re not entirely comfortable with but, okay.

§ The Beat has obtained more information on recent layoffs at Viz. The two editors laid off were long-time vet Ian Robertson and Carol Fox, who also worked at Tokyopop in the past. Several other people from production were hit, including designer Carolina Ugalde.

Despite the unrelated departure of editor Marc Weidenbaum a few weeks ago, we’re told that Viz is still moving forward with its plans for original manga.

§ News sites and Twitter were abuzz all yesterday afternoon with news that seven more staffers were laid off at Wizard magazine, including SVP Joe Yanarella, operations manager Jodie Westhoff, art director Eric Goodman, associate editor David Paggi, and staff writers Kevin Mahadeo, Rachel Molino, and Steve Sunu. Yanarella was a long time veteran at the magazine and had taken over convention operations in recent years; Benji Dejohn will now run the Chicago and Philadelphia shows. Editors Mike Cotton and Andy Serwin remain on board.

ICv2 scored an interview with CEO Gareb Shamus, who said that the cuts were part of a move to working more with freelancers:

“What we decided to do was open up our freelance budget dramatically,” he said. “We have some really amazing writers out there that we wanted to be able to bring into the magazine.”

We also asked about the changes in conventions, where Benji Dejohn is now running Wizard’s shows in Chicago and Philadelphia. “Benji has event experience in his background and he’s done a good job in sales for us,” Shamus said of the move.

Shamus also spoke to the site about increased competition from Reed Exhibitions starting a Chicago show, but pledged to stay the course.

§ Finally, as widely reported, the great newspaper crisis has claimed its first (but probably not last) victim: The Rocky Mountain News will cease publishing today after nearly 150 years. Among the 200+ staffers cut loose are editorial cartoonist Ed Stein and sports cartoonist Drew Litton.

There’s lots of economic news floating around this week — most of it bad — but here’s the latest on what’s going around.

§ Cuts at Gemstone Publishing, which publishes Disney licenses, EC reprints and the Overstreet Price Guide. An email to Publisher Russ Cochran got the following response:

We have unfortunately been forced by circumstances to close the West Plains, Missouri office of Gemstone Publishing. This included laying off five staffers here. I personally have worked with these people for over thirty years, so this was a very difficult decision, one that was painful for all involved. Going forward, I am still a part of Gemstone and we will be moving The EC Archives project to our York, Pennsylvania office. We fully expect to be able to get EC books and the Disney titles back on track, I look forward to continuing my association with the great EC material for years to come.

According to a Diamond mailer, Gemstone’s Free Comic Book day offering has also been canceled, due to production delays.

§ In other Diamond news, via ICv2 ,there will be only one Retailer Summit this year, in Baltimore, Oct. 11-13, with the games-oriented Fort Wayne, IN summit canceled.

§ Word is going around that there have been layoffs at Lebonfon, the Canadian printer publisher which specializes in comics, especially from smaller publishers. Whether this is related to less work because of the lesser demand in comics printing due to Diamond’s new policies, or the general downturn in the world economy, is unclear.

§ It was widely reported this week that there were layoffs at Viz Media. CEO Hidemi Fukuhara issued the following statement:

Viz Media is in the process of refining its focus and is restructuring to adjust to changing industry and financial market realities. Viz feels confident that with these changes, the company will be more streamlined to face the current economic climate.

According to Tina Anderson, the cuts involved 12-15 staffers, including two from editorial.

§ Publisher Richard Nash is leaving Soft Skull Press to take on new projects. Soft Skull has offered many comics projects over the years, including David Rees’ GET YOUR WAR ON, and books by Nate Powell and Megan Kelso.

Nash told PW, “This is about the future of publishing. I really want to be engaged in helping figure out a new model for independents. And I am enormously optimistic. I’m not going to do consulting or freelancing, in the sense of eupemisms for ‘I don’t have a clue’ or ‘I’m getting the hell out of publishing,’ but as a way of doubling down, betting it all on the future of publishing, and it’s easier to bet if you have a clean slate rather than a legacy project.” Nash also indicated he looks forward to having time to “play with others,” after working “70-hour weeks for eight years inside the Soft Skull pod.”

§ Kodansha, the Japanese publishing giant, had its biggest annual loss ever last year:

Advertising revenues declined under the effects of the recession, and a drop in magazine and comic sales led to 135.058 billion yen (about US$1.4269 billion) in overall annual sales, a drop of 6.4% from the previous year. This resulted in a loss of 7.686 billion yen (about US$81.2 million) for 2008 — the largest annual loss in the company’s history.

Revenues from the magazine division, including comic magazines, were at 93.7% of the previous year’s levels. The book division’s revenues was 92.1% of the previous year’s revenues, while advertising revenues stood at 89.8%.

The article makes reference to Kodansha’s long brewing plans for an American manga publishing arm, but states there has been no news since the initial announcement.

§ Finally, there’s this.

There’s been a lot going on since Diamond’s new benchmark bombshell, with several alternative distribution sources cropping up, notably Ka-Blam and their Print-on-Demand ComicsMonkey. However, a much lower discount than retailers are used to might make this a less popular option.

A few more industry figures have commented, as well. Harris Comics’ Bon Alimagno writes about it on his LJ and Blog@ — it’s an interesting viewpoint from an established publisher which makes most of its money outside the direct market, but still has enough of a stake in that channel to be affected:

I’m not sure if it has sunk into the mind of the average comic shop goer what setting these rules mean. The new rules place a huge emphasis on initial sales, in a direct market largely resistant to anything different and new. A year from now it’s very likely what few non-superhero comic books you are used to seeing at your local comic book shop may disappear unless you frequent one that already features a wide ranging selection. The direct market is a vicious cycle: comic book shops are widely considered the best place to buy superhero comics, so most of the people who frequent these shops are people who read superhero comic books. Retailers who order comic books do so on a non-returnable basis. They have to place their bet on what comic will and won’t sell. If they bet wrong they are stuck with extra inventory that may never move. More often than not they’ll place their bet with a sure thing, something with a consistent track record or built-in fan base. Retailers then order mostly superhero books. Anyone looking for anything else will more often than not find a very limited selection appealing to their tastes, so they stop coming, leaving the store increasingly in the hands of superhero comic book readers.

Non-Big Four publishers will often find their books under ordered. In cases like that, they’ll hope that word of mouth and positive reviews stir interest in their titles and lead to reorders. Except now reorders are limited to sixty days, not that much time to grow an audience.

Creator James Owen also has some thoughts, which reflect his long time in the industry and shifting role:

I’ve had more than my fair share of disputes with Diamond over the years. Some were private, some were public, some were epic-level public - as I was one of the few publishers, along with Viz and Kitchen Sink, to sign exclusives with ‘the other side’, Capital City, during the Distribution Wars. But I want to point out - and I cannot stress this too strongly - the only times I had a conflict with Diamond was when they had dropped the ball on something they were actually obligated to do, and then tried to sweep it under the rug, or when the reps we were dealing with treated I or my colleagues in an unprofessional manner. Never because they weren’t doing something I simply wanted them to do, that they had no obligation to do. What this usually meant - and why I have a LOT of sympathy for all of the smaller publishers right now - was that one Diamond rep or another was sloppy and/or arrogantly dismissive of whatever issue I or my other small press friends were having. Books would be listed incorrectly - and options to remedy this were limited to a low-priority correction (read as: retailer packing papers), or a re-listing for the next month - which would devastate our projections and cash flow. Shipments would go astray, which might hold up payment - which could break a small press if it happened at the wrong time. Situations like those were anger-inducing because they were errors in the actual business Diamond was engaged in: solicitation and distribution of product.

Nothing about this is cut and dried — the other day, we mourned the loss of Kevin Huizenga’s OR ELSE, but Huizenga himself seems to be going towards the notion that little comics aren’t a viable option for cartoonists any more — and by modern alt-cartoonist standards, Huizenga is incredibly prolific. Sammy Harkham managed a slim 32 pages of material since 2006 in CRICKETS, and while excellence in any dose is always welcome, that definitely stretches the idea of “periodical.”

As readers, we’re more fond of the MOME model — a regular anthology of dependable quality that allows folks to stockpile material for eventual spine-out presentation. Is MOME a sales blockbuster? Probably not, although it doubtless sustains. The regular comics anthology has become an economic dead zone in the current superhero/Vertigo/WildStorm/Marvel marketplace and unless the Japanese model somehow catches on here, it seems likely to stay that way.

As Owen alludes, this isn’t a Diamond BAD/creator GOOD thing, or the reverse. The comics distribution system is much healthier than it has been, due to a steady supply of good product. We’re currently undergoing the worst worldwide economic crisis since the Great Depression — Diamond is just another leaf in the storm and we’re all going to have to find new ways of doing business.

Bonus: Owen draws a parrot!

Even as Reed Exhibitions was announcing a new comic show for Chicago, they were also announcing that Book Expo Canada, Canada’s biggest book show of the year, has been canceled after a slew of big exhibitors, including Random House, pulled out:

Reed will also not move forward with plans to start a new consumer-oriented event in the fall in Toronto. While BEC was faced with a growing number of publishers who said they were not planning to attend BEC this year, as recently as a few weeks ago Reed had still hoped to put on BEC and launch the Toronto event. Greg Topalian, senior v-p for Reed Exhibitions, said, however, that it has become clear that there is not enough interest in the Canadian publishing industry to make either event a successful stand-alone operation. Reed was willing to run a smaller traditional business-to-business fair and complement that with a consumer show, but, “at the end of the day, there wasn’t enough signups for either,” Topalian said. “We’ve worked for a number of years to find ways to change the show or to have it evolve, but when you get to the point where your customers say you aren’t valuable any more it’s time to move on.” He said that while he would never rule out trying to do some book-related events in Canada in future years, “as of today, there will be no events in 2009.” With the closure of BEC, Reed, parent company of PW, said it will now concentrate its energies on having BookExpo America serve the needs of the North America publishing and bookselling community.

However, a replacement is being sought:

Less than 24 hours after Reed Exhibitions announced that it was closing BookExpo Canada and not starting a new consumer event, different parties in Canada began to explore the possibility of establishing a less expensive annual gathering that could meet the needs of the industry’s different constituencies. Susan Dayus, executive director of the Canadian Booksellers Association, said she was disappointed by the decision, adding that the association still believes “there is a need for a national gathering of booksellers, publishers, authors and others connected to the book industry.” She said the CBA is looking at the possibility of launching a new event this year. She noted that the association had always held its annual general meeting in conjunction with a convention and said the CBA will immediately begin exploring the feasibility of putting some sort of show together, but was uncertain what form it would take.

Meanwhile, Newsarama collected some thoughts on Reed’s other moves — moving New York Comic-Con to an early October date, and starting a show in downtown Chicago — from industry observers:

“I think adding a con is a total to-be-determined,” replied McLauchlin. “It’s also a risky move, especially given the economic climate. We are living in a day and age where the U.S. economy can lose 60,000 jobs in a day. Parallel to job losses, many potential exhibitors have commensurately lowered marketing budgets. It’s happening everywhere. Take a look at sponsors flooding out of auto racing. Buick is ditching its sponsorship of Tiger Woods. The volume of media just sent to the Super Bowl was way down. It’s happening on a macro- level, and as above, so below. I’d guess that whatever budgets the Upper Decks or Sony PlayStations or 20th Century Foxes might have to throw at marketing for 2010—the stuff that might creep into the comics world—will be down as well. I think Reed adding a show will add some competition for the tightening marketing dollar.

“Moving a New York convention on the calendar won’t matter one whit. It’s effectively a zero sum. I think they’ve already moved this show around already anyhow, right?”

As for our own thoughts? Aside from the Passover problem, April was an ideal time for a big comics show in New York — spring renewal, blooming flowers, hope, and optimism. It was also the perfect time to kick off the summer movie slate. That said, early October in New York is pretty much the most perfect time of the year — crisp fall days, the tang of apple cider, pumpkin ale, the start of the crunch of leaves underfoot. However, it will come at the end of the summer movie cycle and just in time for Christmas movies, which may not be fan friendly as the summer crop.

But you know, we love New York any time of year. Could I leave you running merrily through the snow? Or on a wintry evening when you catch the fire’s glow?

§ Cartoonist Matt Bors sits down with Kevin Allman, editor of The Gambit, an independent alt-weekly out of New Orleans, to talk about the recent weekly comic holocaust. The result is sobering but informative:

The cutback in cartoons has less to do with the budget than it does with page counts going down. Let’s face it: you guys aren’t paid shit for what you do, and it’s got to be infuriating to feel like your measly $25 is the first place editors look to cut. We don’t. It’s a space issue.

Johanna Draper Carlson notes that you can’t buy Kozue Amano’s ARIA #4 any more, even though it just came out in December.

Aria Book 4 came out at the beginning of December. I had some credit with a mail-order retailer, so I asked them to send it to me, along with several other graphic novels, at the beginning of January. I just got the shipment, but Aria 4 wasn’t in it. It seems that it’s sold out from Diamond.

Now, these folks are good, so I’m assuming that since they didn’t mention “we’ll try again later” that that word was final. For comparison, Amazon lists it as shipping “within 11 to 13 days”, not a good sign. (The longer a period they list, the less chance you’ll ever be able to get the book.) Borders and Books-a-Million says 2-4 weeks. Barnes & Noble simply says “not available”.

ARIA is a very well reviewed title that even made PWCW’s Critic’s Poll finalists list. We were even thinking of grabbing a copy but now that doesn’t look so likely.

Now Carlson has updated her blog with news that Tpop has cancelled a bunch of titles, including ARIA #5:

DEC084265 ARIA GN VOL 05 4
DEC084271 CAUSE OF MY TEACHER GN 4
JAN094444 DEMON FLOWERS GN VOL 05 4
JAN094443 DEMON SACRED GN VOL 01 4
SEP084286 DOT HACK SIGN MANGA NOVEL SPECIAL ED 4
JAN094447 ELEMENTAL GELADE GN VOL 11 4
DEC084256 GET BACKERS INFINITY FORTRESS GN VOL 03 4
JAN094449 INITIAL D GN VOL 34 4
JAN094445 JYU OH SEI GN VOL 03 4
JAN094448 KING OF HELL GN VOL 23 4
JAN094455 LOVE HURTS AISHIATTERU FUTARI GN 4
DEC084261 SPEED GRAPHER MANGA GN VOL 03 4
DEC084269 TACTICS GN VOL 08 4
JAN094436 THIS UGLY YET BEAUTIFUL WORLD VOL 01 4
JAN094450 TSUKUYOMI MOON PHASE GN VOL 13 4
JAN094441 VB ROSE GN VOL 06 4

Sammy Harkham says that CRICKETS, his comics series from D&Q will end its current format; Diamond’s new policies is once again the reason.

Wanted to just let those favorite few of you out there to know that my comic book, Crickets, has been cancelled due to changes made by the major comics distributor that effectively made it impossible to continue in the comic book format. Crickets #3 will come out in some DYI form in the next couple months…after that, I dont know exactly. While I am really bummed about this, as I feel I never even really got started on it, I appreciate all the people who supported it when it was coming out. Thanks. To the future.

Kevin Huizenga told the Comics Reporter that Diamond’s new minimums were partly behind his ending OR ELSE, as well:

“Obviously the Diamond thing plays into it, but it wasn’t central… yet it kind of is. We could probably meet the minimum if we tried? But Love and Rockets becoming a book felt like, this is it, if there ever was any doubt. The comic book is a weird holdover, like a coelacanth. I guess if I do this right now I can always feel like it was my decision.” He added, “I’ve been thinking about it for a while and now seems like a good time.” He also suggested that maybe the traditional alt-comic, one-man-anthology format wasn’t a particularly good one for him, either, “and probably not for comics in general, going forward.”

So the new economic realities have already killed books by Harkham and Huizenga. This is NOT the kid of trimming we were hoping for. And if you want to know the kind of trimming we WERE hoping for, just hit us up on IM, but the short version is: stinky movie comics, meaningless celebrity comics, somebody’s badly-drawn horror book, and all those other ultimately forgettable books that languish on tables in endless artists alleys of the id. And yes, there are good books to be found there, but you should ask yourself: Are these really as good as Kevin Huizenga?

Over the last week or so we’ve noticed a dramatic increase in pr from people hoping we’ll go look at their comic book .pdf and give it some attention. Clearly, everyone is desperate for some buzz. We are sad to say that we here at The Beat are going to have to be extremely stingy with our buzz from here on out. There is only a finite amount of it to go around, and the good books are going to be the ones to get it. We cannot allow our buzz catalog to expand indefinitely.

Above and beyond this, yes, the indie pamphlet is dead. More on that…later.

Nikki Finke reports on layoffs at Fox, including MySpace. The departments cut include the Comics division. We can confirm that marketing manager Sam Humphries, who spearheaded the many comics-related features at MySpace is among those laid off. No word yet on whether the popular MySpace/Dark Horse Presents and Cup o’ Joe features will continue. The Dark Horse series included creators from Joss Whedon to Larry Marder and the results have been collected into two well-regraded anthologies. The weekly Joe Quesada interview feature is also considered a must-read by people who follow goings on at Marvel. BOOM! had been releasing complete comics through MySpace, so it’s become a fairly significant element for several comics companies.

Humphries is another one of the recently laid off who is so smart and capable that we expect him to come back at the head of the next thing.

§ Cartoonist MK Reed shakes her fist at doom with a resource-filled post that includes alternative distributors and other places where you can sell comics besides Diamond. Recommended.

§ Speaking of other channels, Rik Offenberger talks to Haven’s Lance Stahlberg about the other game in town:

NRAMA: If a publisher finds they can’t meet the new benchmarks, can you help?

LS: That’s exactly why we’re here. Part of our mission is to help bring independent comics to the market. We give deserving titles a chance when Diamond won’t. We still have a submission and approval process, and you may get taken on consignment, but we boast a wide range of titles that cater to many tastes. Every new book we offer is treated the same.

We’ve been in business for a year now since we acquired and re-branded Cold Cut. In that year we’ve more than tripled our warehouse space, our inventory, and our active orders. Haven is definitely a viable alternative distribution channel, especially for newer stores just getting into the market who haven’t been conditioned to think of Previews as their only source for product.

Haven is going to try to step into the breach for comics that can’t make Diamond’s numbers, and will even start taking advance orders, which is a huge step.

§ Richard Bruton has a big overview and commentary.

§ Even The New York Times covered Diamond’s move.

§ Red 5’s Brian Clevinger also looks at the picture, but shows fighting spirit:

Let me put it plainly.

The basic model of getting new independent comics into shops is dead. Oh, it’ll do fine for Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, IDW, and maybe one or two others. But everyone else? Everyone out there working on a new project for publication right now? The old model no longer applies.

The good news is that this isn’t bad news.

• And then there’s MAD going quarterly. As the above shows, we still need MAD Magazine.

Mark Evanier points out that MAD is one of the most recognized brand names in comics and is unlikely to disappear:

Being a lover of its heritage, I’d be the first to trash Ficarra if the current MAD was unworthy of its name. It absolutely is not. But this kind of decline is very common in the periodical business. Playboy, this year, will only publish eleven issues and it isn’t because the public is losing its interest in gorgeous nude women. Even before we all began living on the Internet and doing 90% of our reading there, magazines were on the way out. And since everyone got a computer, it’s only become worse and worse. MAD has evolved to survive, adding color and advertising when that was necessary…but it can’t escape the fact that people just don’t read things on paper these days.

MAD will not go away. It’s too valuable a brand name to ever disappear. (National Lampoon is still around. It just hasn’t been a magazine since around 1988.) Today’s announcement probably translates as follows: “We need to keep the name alive and to keep key staffers and contributors in the family. But it’s losing money and we’re going to scale it back and minimize those losses while we figure out what to do with it.” Its new configuration is not a long-range plan…and maybe that long-range plan, whenever they arrive at it, will restore MAD to its former glory in some venue.

§ Contributor Tom Richmond comments:

MAD’s real problem is one they cannot avoid… they are a magazine. Name me a single magazine, outside tabloid trash peddlers, that isn’t struggling badly right now. I suppose that’s all about content also, right? TV Guide used to sell over 20 million copies a WEEK, and now they sell about 3 million copies… I suppose the quality of their TV schedules has badly declined. Playboy used to sell over 7 million copies an issue and today they are at 3 million copies…. of course we all know the quality of naked women has decreased dramatically since the 70’s.

§ As does Evan Dorkin:

This wasn’t just bad news because of our possibly losing a client or work, I feel really bad about the troubles the magazine, as well as the publishing world, is going through, and this just brought it home. I know that Diamond’s recently released policy changes will affect us more, SLG relies heavily on re-lists, and the small press will be crippled, further, by the new minimums, but the comic industry has always been, as Dan Vado put it, “built on jelly”, and I’ve been here for almost 20 years making minimal to moderate comic book money, so this comes as little surprise. But I wasn’t aware of how bad magazine distribution has become, and a venerable magazine like Mad, a comic but in some ways never thought of as a comic, well, seeing it take a gutshot like this shakes one up. Or at least me. There are people who live off their Mad income, we’re not one of those, and I can see this affecting a lot of freelancers who relied on 12 issues of material for their income. There’s going to be less room for folks like us, who came to the party late, and have less of a track record, but hopefully we’ll still pick up a gig here and there. I hope the new plan works out alright and Mad can stay on the shelves for a good while longer, there’s still a large fan base there, but publishing is just so squeezed. Jeez.

§ BTW, if you want to play along at home, you can see MAD’s yearly circ at this chart. It’s a pretty typical picture of erosion, with the huge problems at newsstands in the late ’70s that led to the creation of the direct market clearly shown, but also some odd RISES in circ, including one from ‘06 to ‘07. But then an even bigger decline for ‘08.

Yesterday, cartoonist Tom Tomorrow revealed the dire news that his strip, This Modern World, and all other weekly cartoons were being canceled by Village Voice Media, publisher of the Village Voice, the LA Weekly, and 13 other newsweeklies.

This still leaves me with eighty-odd papers, as well as Salon and Credo, so it’s not a fatal blow. And believe me, I wasn’t so naive as to imagine I was going to get through this economic mess without taking some hits. Nonetheless it’s a serious chunk of major cities to lose in one fell swoop (don’t get me started on the joys of consolidation this morning). Anyway, if you live in one of those cities and think this is a bad decision, you might want to share those feelings with the local editor. Politely, it should go without saying. And keep in mind: it’s not just my cartoon, it’s all of them, so put in a kind word for my compatriots while you’re at it. The only thing any of us have going for us in a situation like this is reader support.

The Minnesota Independent confirmed the cuts. We’re too bummed to get dressed and run to the corner to get a copy of the Voice to see which other strips were running. Their comics page mentioned only Tomorrow and Mr. Fish, but there were others.

Today, Tomorrow has updated the situation and runs a quote from Derf who says it’s doom-time:

OK. This is it. We’ve reached the apocalyptic final struggle for the future of cartoons.

Village Voice Media is the largest group of weekly newspapers in the biz. It is suffering from the ills that have befallen the rest of the newspaper industry: dwindling revenues and withering readership. Their corporate response, which was delivered to me Monday, is to “suspend” all cartoons across the chain, said suspension to last at least through the rest of the first quarter, and quite possibly beyond. That’s right. NO more cartoons. None. This is very probably a fatal blow to me. Not only is it a significant income hit, but these are six of the largest and finest papers in the weekly industry. I’ve been in the pages of some of these publications for years. The Riverfront TImes was one of my first papers. I started run- ning there in 1991! This isn’t about me “sucking ” either. Since I won the Robert F. Kennedy Award in 2006, one of the highest honors bestowed on a cartoonist, I’ve been losing papers steadily. The reason cited is always budget cuts. Always.

Jen Sorensen was also cut from the Voice, and puts it into more economic context:

Now, cartoons are cheap content that keep a certain number of readers habitually picking up the paper week after week. Those readers might not take the time to write the editor if they disappear; they’ll just stop picking up the paper. Or they’ll write us to complain. I do understand that low ad revenue means low page counts, which means space is at a premium. (Space is a mysteriously complex issue even in “normal” times.) But it seems to me that the few crumbs — and I do mean crumbs — these papers save by axing cartoons is self-defeating. Heaven help us if the cost of cartoons makes or breaks the industry.

Emphasis mine. Derf and Tomorrow urge readers to write to their local alt. weekly editors and complain about the cartoon cuts. It would seem counterintuitive in an era when everyone just pops onto craigslist to get an apartment or a used dresser to cut original content that readers might actually, y’know, enjoy, but we’re living in an economy of nickels and dimes.

Somebody better figure out a way to make money off the Internet…pronto.

Only the New York Post seems to have picked up on this story, but it’s a biggie. Another major magazine distributor has joined Anderson News in raising its rates to distribute magazine copies to newsstands by seven cents — regardless of whether the magazines sell or not, according to the Post. Publishers have resisted, but now Source Interlink has also increased its fees. Together, the two distributors control half of the US magazine wholesale distribution network:

The remaining big distributors - Jimmy Pattison’s News Group, based in Atlanta and Vancouver, British Columbia, and New York-based Hudson News - have not sought a fee hike.

But if all magazine distributors follow suit, publishers worry it could sock them with an additional $1 billion a year in expenses at a time when they are contending with plunging advertising revenue and sagging newsstand sales.

Already, publishers predicted Anderson News’ price hike would cost them an additional $200 million a year.

“We’re in for it now,” said one worried publisher after he got the Source Interlink news. “It’s great to say, ‘Screw Anderson,’ but who are we going to get to replace them?”

Like Anderson News, Source Interlink claims it needs the fee hike to survive.

Ya gotta love the Post’s old skool reportage on this. Considering that magazine distribution is an old skool business with lots of ties to people who might appear in Martin Scorsese movies, it’s appropriate. We’re not too hep to the background ourselves, but our guess is that if this is remotely true, and these rate hikes go into effect, the magazine publishing world is going to look a little like central Florida after a Category 4 hurricane.

The Beat has confirmed that DC Senior Editor Bob Schreck was laid off yesterday. Other layoffs, expected in the wake of Warner Brothers’ companywide 10 percent reduction, include Subcriptions Manager Christine Sawicki and several MAD Magazine personnel. The magazine-related layoffs certainly reflect the general crumbling of the entire magazine business.

As for Schreck, the layoff is more of a surprise since he is generally considered one of the top editors in the business. Starting at Comico, he also worked at Dark Horse, where he edited SIN CITY and MADMAN, then co-founded Oni Press (with Joe Nozemack) and then moved to DC where he worked on THE DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN, ALL-STAR SUPERMAN, and ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER. He moved to Vertigo two years ago, where his office was developing several new graphic novel projects, including THE NOBODY by Jeff Lemire.

Schreck’s departure won’t take effect for several months. Given his track record and long list of friends in the business, it’s unlikely he’ll be gone for long.

The Beat has confirmed that Diamond laid off 13 employees yesterday, including the managing editor and designer for the recently canceled Diamond Dialog magazine. In addition to the layoffs, wages for management and other staff were reduced. According to a letter sent to staff by COO Chuck Parker, the cost cuts were a result of the generally poor economy and a four percent decline in sales in 2008.

While these layoffs are confirmed, rumblings of layoffs at DC are rampant this morning. We’ll have details as they emerge.

• On Monday, Rich Johnston reported that Top Cow has laid off two of its top people, VP of Sales and Marketing Mel Caylo and VP of Editorial Rob Levin. We’ve received the email from Levin confirming this…but he will be attending New York Comic-Con with Top Cow for those who might wish to talk to him regarding potential projects. Caylo and Levin are both well respected, so the cuts are becoming deeper.

• Much talk about Warner Bros.’s plans to cut 800 jobs, but based on what has been reported, it doesn’t seem that DC Comics will be directly affected.

Warner Bros. Entertainment is eliminating 800 jobs, or about 10% of its global workforce, becoming the latest media company to take drastic cost-cutting measures amid a deepening recession.

About 600 people will be laid off across all divisions of the studio’s operations, and 200 cuts will come from open positions not being filled.

Forbes reports on how the ASTRO BOY movie is squeaking through the tough times as Imagi Studios, the production company, searches for funding and so on:

Their boss, Douglas Glen, Imagi’s chief executive, had just come back from the American Film Market in Los Angeles, which was devastated by the gloom and doom spanning the globe. “If markets don’t return to some semblance of normalcy, it is going to be difficult to keep operations going,” an ashen-faced Glen told a visitor. Only two months before he had triumphantly secured $30 million in financing for his movie animation company. Then $20 million of it fell through.

Imagi wasn’t the only moviemaker in trouble–the whole industry was crippled by the credit crunch. In November at the Film Market “it was absolutely bleak,” says D. Jeffrey Andrick, managing director of Continental Entertainment Capital, a Beverly Hills company that serves as a merchant banker specializing in the movie industry. Continental brought to Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people )The Spirit, the $50 million-plus Frank Miller film that opened on Christmas Day. “It may have been the worst environment I’ve seen at the American Film Market.”

We’ve reported on this before, but one of the few remaining Virgin Megastores is to close soon, since designer clothes are more profitable than CDs, DVDs and graphic novels:

Last June, a Vornado executive told Reuters that the store would shut down in the first quarter of 2009. The decision to close the store appears related to real estate and the value connected to the location. That executive was quoted as saying that Virgin pays only $54 per square-foot when the market rent in the area is about $700 a square foot.

So, while the store, which does an estimated $55 million in annual volume, is profitable to the tune of $6 million, according to sources, the space would be even more profitable for its owner with a higher rent tenant. Vornado bought the 180,000 square foot retail component of the Bertelsmann building, which houses the Times Square store, in 2006, and will lease the space to Century 21, according to reports.

With Times Square closing, there are only five Virgin stores in the US, and the Union SQuare outlet is the last big music store in Manhattan. The Virgin Megastores were early adopters of graphic novels, and one of the first bookstores to rack them in quantities alongside other books. While the number of comics sold at these five remaining stores may be negligible, symbolically, it’s yet another sad day at retail.

No wonder Marvel is putting its money back into the direct market.

And a word to the wise: you may find fewer people than you think are still willing to pay $60 for a tank top and $400 for a blouse.

Actually, as reported in the NY Times, the space is going over to Forever 21, a cheap, trendy clothing store. Blechhhhhhhh.

We’re sorta pressed for time today because of a conflicting deadline but wanted to draw your attention to two comments, in case you didn’t wanna go there.
First, Carr D’Angelo of Earth-2 in Sherman Oaks explains that, that contrary to a big story in the LA Daily News yesterday, his store is doing just fine.
Correction: There is no 20% drop in yearly revenue at Earth-2. 2009 is actually up slightly from 2008. We’re not hurting. But that wouldn’t have fit into the series theme.

If you click through to the Daily News site, you will see that the article is part of a series titled “Hard Times on Ventura Blvd: Is it a Boulevard of Broken Dreams?”

Second, Bill Willingham stopped by to expand on his thoughts on superheroes and all that, and it’s definitely worth a read.