F+W announced the closure of the Comics Buyer’s Guide with the March, 2013 issue.  This is the end of a 30 year run.  F+W stated shrinking subscriptions and advertising revenue prompted the shutdown.  You can read the press release here. This also includes the CBGXtra website.

Now that Disney owns the Star Wars Universe, as well as Marvel Comics, everyone was wondering how long before Dark Horse lost the comic book rights.  Well, according to the Blue Sky Disney Blog, not long.

 One of the things that many people wondered after Disney bought Lucasfilm was how long will this relationship continue? Especially since the Mouse owns Marvel, the largest comics publisher in the world. Well, it appears we now have the answer. The Suits in the know have determined that no new contracts will be given to Dark Horse after the current ones expire. So all new projects after 2013 will be handled internally by Marvel.

It’s not known yet if titles will be worked into the regular line up, or will Marvel create a special branch of the company that deals with Star Wars. It’ll take a couple of years for the old deals to work there course, but the stories that Dark Horse have coming down the pipeline will be the last. And you can expect anything new from Marvel dealing with Star Wars to arrive around 2015.

2015 is about when we expect to see the first movies.  The old Marvel series may be back on the radar!

CGC just hit the 2 million comics graded mark. CGC started grading comics in 1999 and their impact on the comic book collecting and investing hobby has been tremendous.

You can read the full press release here: CGC Grades 2 Million Comic Books