After nearly six years of weekly publication, PW Comics Week, Publishers Weekly’s email newsletter on comics and graphic novel publishing, will switch to a monthly schedule effective beginning next month. Although we are changing the frequency of the newsletter, the change will not diminish our overall comics coverage. Publishers Weekly will continue to cover graphic novels and comics in the book industry and traditional comics industry, publishing news and feature stories through the PW website and PW Daily as well as in our new monthly graphic novel newsletter.
Since PW Comics Week was launched in the fall of 2005 many things have changed, both here at Publishers Weekly and certainly in the comics and graphic novel marketplace. We believe there are more effective ways to provide coverage of a fast changing graphic novel and comics marketplace than a weekly newsletter.
Over the last six years we’ve managed to keep our readers up to date on how the category has evolved and on the rapid growth of book format comics publishing since 2005. PW Comics has been instrumental in educating trade book publishers about the rapid growth and popularity of graphic novels and the growth of sales in traditional bookstores. At the same time, PWCW has also worked to educate traditional comics publishers about the trade book industry, the growth of a new generation of comics readers interested in reading comics in a variety of genres and buying them both at comics shops and at general bookstores—as well as the digital comics marketplace to come. We have made it a point to focus on the role of librarians and teachers in shaping this new marketplace for comics and graphic novels; how they have brought new readers to the category by highlighting the growth of serious nonfiction comics and promoting the use of comics in schools.
None of this will change in our new format. We'll publish just as many comics stories as we have in the past, if not more, and get them online faster. And look for our comics coverage to be published regularly in the PW Daily and in Children’s Bookshelf newsletters as well as in the print magazine. Remember that all of PW’s comics coverage can also be found on the PW comics department page at PublishersWeekly.com/comics.
Our first monthly newsletter goes out on May 10. Thanks to all of our readers, advertisers and supporters over the last six years. It’s been a terrific ride so far and we think the best—both the best graphic novels and comics as well as the best of our coverage—is yet to come.
