Word on the street is things are a bit crazy down here. Most will get big fat checks to spend money on things as we spread the virus around when business is up and running again.
Some miracle drug gonna save us all, though…may have some undesirable side effects. And don’t confuse it with fish tank cleaner.
Looking forward to one crazy summer…
Thank you for sharing that. The author was fairly accurate in his March 26 estimate. But the real world had actually outpaced his model (not good). I believe the US approached 780 deaths on March.24, and at 1000 by March 26th. That’s 25% higher than his prediction. Scary.
This will definitely be one to remember. All I want at this point is for the NFL opening day not to be affected.
Came across this the other day. I found it funny. Video montage of Italian Mayor’s yelling at their people.
Did my retailer cohorts read this weeks Marvel Mailer? They deleted a few lines but kept a few as well. Sounds like they are going forward with pdfs on comixology. I hope im wrong because that would be a disaster for everyone who sells physical copys.
I’m pretty old school … I don’t think a .pdf or a Digital copy will ever fully supplant a real, hard copy … if that were to happen long term, even common back issues would likely see a bump …
This weeks Marvel Mailer was a cut-and-paste of last weeks. Didnt see anything new. Marvel is slacking,.
If people are buyibg pdf they are less likely to reinvest that money in the same issue physically. If shops are stocking this issue coming back after the long hiatis it could spell disaster in terms of cash flow for those shops. Imho.
They deleted a fee lines inbetween paragraphs and intentianaly left stuff in. Its that one paragraph that says “ hey we are still doing weekly comics” that has me wondering about digital format.
Diamond deleted the next two weeks worth of FOC fron the system. Future FOC starts at around 4/6. Are they listening to Droigo and his hopes that things are back to normal by then ? 
Things will not be back to normal by April 6
Comixology is what got me collecting again. I’d be reading and run across a cool character. I’d wonder do I have their first appearance and I was sucked back in. I’m glad I was because I’ve met a lot of like minded people here and over on the cgc forums.
Our country is run by criminals that value the almighty dollar over human lives but if they reopen everything it will be disastrous. I’m in retail and we’re still working and considered essential. We have nothing but big groups of people coming in and not maintaining a safe distance. A fair amount don’t even buy anything and kids are running around screaming and touching everything. It’s maddening to put it nicely. I have the feeling that everyone will be sick if people don’t start using their heads here in NY. They have face masks but don’t want us to wear them because what will the guests think?
Seems like we can all use a little help.
SO Diamond is doing a survey for Retailers. Im having a hard time finding the right words for this question :
What types of assistance would you find most helpful when product shipments are able to resume?
IMHO - Credit terms? staggered delivery? Deeper discount?
I dont live week to week. But i would think Credit terms would help those that are in a pinch coming back. Not knowing how the supply will resume I would think staggered delivery would ease the burden and yes, Im greedy… I want a deeper discount 
What do you think?
You answer, “All of the above.”
Answer “yes please.”
If anyone thinks Diamond is going to make mass credit available for Shop owners that don’t already have it, I’d call that extreme optimism … although I have never used or asked for Credit from Diamond, I know some that have … their Credit Department is pretty Draconian … buying a vehicle on Credit is easier …
Staggered shipments is all I would ask for … dumping a month or more of product on Shops is a recipe for disaster for many … Credit does nothing but postpone things … I like to pay as I go …
Deeper discounts … ?? They could not even get that right in my this weeks order … “We think it will be applied sometime in the future when things get back to more normal …”
I hate saying this but this is exactly what happens when publishers depend solely on one lone distributor. It’s a single point of failure if they can’t deliver, then everything starts to fail. I’m in the IT business and you never set yourself up for failure in such ways or you find yourself “out of business” …
When the '90’s crash was on and Capital City (a much, much better Distributor) became absorbed by Diamond, during this mish-mash, Marvel, under Ron Perelman at the time, purchased Heroes World and made them the sole distributor for Marvel Comics … when Marvel abandoned distributing through the Direct Market distributors, there were about ten remaining in business … while Capital City and Diamond commanded about 85% of the market, there were smaller Distributors …
Heroes World did not have the capability of handling Marvel’s sales volume at the time … in addition, shops were then required to place at least 2 monthly orders, one with Heroes World / the other with Diamond or Capital … the additional cost of shipping caused many Shops to close, not to mention Heroes World was simply a fiasco … errors in shipping and in billing were very, very high … and caused some Shops to quit the business as well …
This also caused the smaller Distributors to lose 40-50% of their sales, and essentially, drove them out of the Market … Geppi began a campaign with which to take over all remaining distribution, Milton and John at Capital City were doing the exact same thing …
DC then cut a deal with Geppi, giving him exclusive distribution of DC Comics / Direct Market … the ‘word on the street’ was, Geppi’s contract allowed DC an option to buy Diamond from him at any time as part of the deal … and, that agreement could still be in place to this day …
During the negotiation phase between Capital and publishers, Geppi simply offered publishers a better deal, a better piece of the action, than Capital did … Dark Horse and Image went with Geppi … leaving Capital a tiny fraction of what it had had previously in the Direct Market … later, Geppi began to chisel down the deal, by threatening lower Previews exposure, etc … not just on Comics, but TP’s / GN’s and peripheral goods … in order to beef up his own piece of the action …
Geppi, on a side note, also bought AnotherUniverse.com …
By then, Diamond had exclusive contracts with DC, Image, Valiant/Acclaim, and Dark Horse … thus, the writing was on the wall for Capital … Geppi, essentially, molded the Comic Business into what it is today … I don’t like him, I will never like him …
I’ve broken bread with Geppi more than once … he is an arrogant, self serving person that cares much more about his own bottom line than the Industry as a whole … and that’s a sad commentary …
So, there’s a little history for you … 
I’ll add, on a personal note, at the time, I was fortunate to have developed a good relationship with a Newsstand Distributor, thus, I boycotted Heroes World and got my Marvel product from them …
The Newsstand folks had a route … a truck would pull up, the driver would bring in boxes of product, there was no shipping cost, and after a month or so, if you had books left you did not want, you could strip the top of the cover off them and give them to the driver the next time they came around, and would get invoice credit for the books …
The main downside was, you could not order an exact number of any particular book … the shop would get what it would get, based on sales in the past of that title …
Digital is the future. Times like these make people realize that. Publishers need to make money and they cant on new books because they are beholden to the notion that physical books are still relevant. Readers will buy digital if the physical option isnt there, which is where we are at now. Same applies to new movies being offered digitally direct-to-consumers now because movie theaters are closed.
Back to the topic, since Diamond has April 1st and 8th books in hand, they should ship those orders to retailers. UPS is operating just fine so Im having a hard time trying to understand why Diamond cant ship those books
my understanding is that 2 of their 3 warehouses are closed down. so if the product is sitting in the other warehouses, how would they get them to all the retailers? in that scenario, only a fraction of the people would get something. Basically cost Diamond more to operate and send the out than to just sit nd hold them.