Dear Fans and Friends of Young American Comics,
A lot has happened in the last couple of years. One piece of great news is that our son, Jonah was born in late March of 2008. He is a complete joy and we are eagerly looking forward to seeing his first crayon scrawls on paper.
As you of course already know, many people in this country have struggled with the economy over the last few years. Small businesses have been especially at risk, and YAC was no exception.
The rising costs of gas and air travel hit us hard, making it increasingly difficult to travel to conventions. When the airlines decided to start charging for luggage, it was the final nail in the coffin. If we could no longer travel to conventions, we were losing a large part of our sales and promotion.
Comic shops across the country have also been hurting, of course, and that directly translates to them buying less. In general, most comic shops don’t carry a lot of independent books (and minicomics even less so), so our sales to shops dwindled to nearly nothing.
And of course, you the fans have had less money in your own pockets as well. We would much rather you spend your money on food and rent than comics, though, so no hurt feelings. 
What you may not know is that YAC was always funded out of our own pockets. We didn’t pay ourselves a paycheck and often took a loss, especially on minis and group projects. When we found out we were pregnant, we knew that we needed to adjust some priorities: it was foolish of us to continue to invest in what seemed like an already sinking ship.
We dragged our feet for quite some time, like a long-term relationship going sour. We were hesitant to quit on YAC, but had no capital to work with, and were beginning to feel burnt out of comics in general. We decided to use the New Year to “officially” go out of business.
Visit the YAC Store for our Going Out of Business Sale!
All of our leftover stock has been drastically reduced in our store: All trades are $5, all minis are $0.50 and all T-shirts are $5. Get them now, because when they’re gone they’re gone. Nothing will be reprinted. We’re also offering free shipping (to the US, via media mail) for all orders over $20.* This sale is good for one week, until Monday, January 19, and at that time, the YAC store will be closed for good.
* please note that you will be charged shipping for your order as you check out. We will refund your shipping costs.
We also would like to take this opportunity to thank you all. Our years running Young American Comics were ones we will always look back fondly on. Thank you for all of your endless support. Thank you to everyone who visited us at a convention, purchased something from the store, told a friend about us, or submitted something to a group project. It’s a cliché but true to say we absolutely could not have done it without you.
Here are updates on a few of our projects:
Snakepit:
Ben Snakepit is a force to be reckoned with. We’re so glad that we helped Ben get his book out to people over the years, but he simply out grew us. We simply could not keep up with the demand or schedule for his quarterlies. Ben is now working with our friends at Microcosm Publishing. He will no longer be putting together quarterlies, but instead yearly anthologies.
The Mighty Offenders:
We’re very sad to see the Mighty Offenders be placed on permanent hiatus, but couldn’t be happier to let you know the cause for that hiatus: artist Joey Mason is now living in Los Angeles and working on The Spectacular Spider-Man (Saturday mornings on The CW.) The first season is currently running in reruns and the second season premiers in March 2009.
Group Projects:
We received a lot of fantastic submissions for What’s In The Box, but unfortunately, not enough to publish a new trade. On the same note, we received several submissions for Lost Lunches & Crash! Boom! Bang!, but were unable to find the capital to print them. Those of you who put hard work into your submissions, we hope that you enjoyed the exercise and apologize that we weren’t able to follow through.
If you put together a comic for one or more of these group projects, we encourage you to post or publish it and share it with the world. We loved so many of your entries and regret that we weren’t able to put them out for you.
52 Comic Challenges:
We may pick up this idea and dust it off in the future, but have no concrete plans in place.
We’ve always relied on you to spread the word: about our books, our projects, about indie comics in general. And now we ask you one final time: if you know of anyone else who would like to take advantage of this sale, please point them to the site. If you know any shops or distros who would like copies of Snakepit Quarterly or the BIZMAR Trade in bulk, let me know by email (coreymarie@gmail.com) and we can work out further discounts.
One more time, let us say thank you to all of you for your continued support over the years. To our fans, we hope that you’ll continue to support independent comics. To our contributors, we hope that you’ll find even more new and innovative ways to bring creativity and fresh ideas to comics.
Sincerely,
Tod and Corey Marie Parkhill
Young American Comics
