Tuesday, 17 March 2009

So what is the DFC?

The DFC is, without a doubt, the best thing to have happened in British children's publishing.

Ever.

It is a weekly comic for kids with NO ADVERTISING.

Drawn, written, edited and produced by a really great team, printed on good paper, posted in a cool stripy envelope, it arrives every Friday and is devoured by those kids lucky enough to have a subscription.

My boys fell in love with it when the Guardian started to produce an insert in the middle of the family section of the Saturday supplement about a year and a half ago and we noticed a cryptic little credit "... brought to you by the DFC ..."

Googling 'the DFC' brought no joy for months, but then a holding page appeared and this quirky little secret was revealed.

It has been on the go for 41 issues so far but the most recent issue announced its imminent demise.

Random House announced this in a press release at the start of March, indicating that unless a buyer could be found, the DFC will end at issue 43.
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11 comments:

  1. Jim Medway17 March 2009 at 23:57

    Thanks for your support Barnaby. We're all doing our best to make sure things can continue in some shape or form.

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  2. Sarah18 March 2009 at 03:05

    Yes, thanks so much! I just linked to you on my blog. Awesome.

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  3. Gary Northfield18 March 2009 at 03:26

    Cheers Barnaby, I've popped up a link on my blog too :)

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  4. barnaby gunning18 March 2009 at 03:27

    Am trying to find out how 'much' random want to buy the DFC.

    Today's job is to get the word out...

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  5. Anonymous18 March 2009 at 03:48

    I suspect that a bigger issue than the purchase price will be the running costs of keeping it going until the economy picks up. If it was making money already they wouldn't have put it up for sale. :(

    Here's more links for your sidebar.

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  6. barnaby gunning18 March 2009 at 03:56

    absolutely, the 'cost' so to speak has to allow for running for long enough to actually make it work... someone at the RH end of things will have done their calculations ... and it is not like the DFC team have not put their all into it so far but I think there might even be marketing mileage in saving it

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  7. barnaby gunning18 March 2009 at 04:36

    and thanks for the links... I will add them in a little later today

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  8. Gary Northfield18 March 2009 at 06:00

    I don't know if I'm reading too much into it, but i always thought the "hold your horses" comment in this thread was curious...

    http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=2560

    Almost as if he had intentions to ride in and save the day!

    Gary

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  9. barnaby gunning18 March 2009 at 08:28

    Gary

    I think we need all the horses we can find

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  10. Anonymous20 March 2009 at 03:53

    OK, here's the thing, as you flagged up in your post, the DFC was really hard to find and get hold of. Surely this is an issue that has to be addressed when - I hope it's when, not if! - you manage to buy it. If you can't find it, you can't buy it! If you can't buy it... you know the rest.
    Good luck!

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  11. Anonymous20 March 2009 at 13:40

    Great idea Barnaby. Will forward this on. Best of luck ... All this is so sudden. I just assumed that such an awesome product would, well, continue forever.

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