The End of CMX, Two Days Later

Two days ago, I gave the middle finger to DC for shutting down CMX.

I don’t feel much less angry about it today. I loved CMX as a manga fan. They put out great titles that should have received more love from other fans, let alone their parent company. They didn’t get that and I assume that’s why DC is closing CMX. One big hit can’t ALWAYS pay for all the losers.

But the biggest reason I said “fuck you, DC” was because it was obvious to me that DC never understood what it was doing with CMX and regarded it with the usual up-turned nose attitude a lot of comics fans take towards manga fans, illustrated best, I think, by David Welsh’s reaction post at Manga Curmudgeon. It was pretty clear to the manga blogging community in general that DC didn’t care about CMX whether it made money or not and that hurt the most.

I can’t say I hate DC in general. I certainly do not hate all the writers, artists, editors, accountants, marketing managers or anyone like that. They did not kill CMX, the highest echelons of DC did. Even then, I can see where those executives were just making another business decision. If an imprint is losing enough money to make your boat sink deeper into the water, why bail yourself out pail by pail with leaky buckets when you can just stop the hole from leaking entirely?

I understand it. If I were running DC, maybe I would have done it myself (albeit, very very very hesitantly), but it doesn’t make me less sad or less angry to understand that. Why? Because I’m a fan and I always have been, even if now I can go to Comic-Con as an industry member.

For more commentary about the CMX shutdown, visit Deb Aoki’s summary of blogger reactions at About.com. I’m not the only one who said “fuck you!” to DC.