Mary Alice Wilson of Dark Star Books in Yellow Springs, Ohio has been following the recent Talk Back discussion regarding the availability of All Ages comic book (see "Buddy Saunders of Lone Star Comics on Comic Book Content") and had this to say:

I have been reading with great interest the input of the retailers on Buddy Saunders' original post and responses to one of Steve Bennett's columns.  I too deplore the paucity of all ages comics.  Had a women come in for Castle Waiting (she'd heard about it years ago, but NOW wanted it) and we had a trade paperback we couldn't put our hands on... and it's now being published as a pricey hardback.  Now we've found it and have to find her.

In my store, for teens, I'm having to go more and more into prose books.  Somehow, the major publishers looked at Harry Potter and Twilight and said, "hmmmm... something's going on here.  Those books sold beyond belief... what can we create that is at least similar in tone and complexity?"  And so we get Percy and the Olympians.  We get the 10 volume Pendragon books.  And we get my current favorites, Hunger Games and Catching Fire (one more volume to come!).  There are literally dozens of other young adult series that the kids are eating up.  And the younger ones are being well served as well.  Get a Simon and Schuster or Random House catalog and look at the array of product for the pre-teens.  I just don't understand how come if the publishers of books can figure it out, the publishers of comics apparently cannot.  

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