Dosnt DC have penguin house? It might be a pain in the ass for them to distribute the first fee months, but im sure they would get the equipment in and a system going fairly quick. Marvel im not so sure.
Is that your assumption, or do you have any data to back up your claim, MJ? How is it that the newest small indie publisher, Bad Idea Comics, has come out and stated that they are ready to go, but then you claim that most small publishers are never coming back? Why do you think that indie publishers will go out of business?
I think it may end up being that mid size publishers (idw, boom, oni press, etc. which is who I believe uncle willie is referring to) may be well and truly screwed…they aren’t small enough to be able to quickly pivot to self distribution…and aren’t big enough to be able to survive until diamond gets its act together again.
the really small indie publishers like coffin, rothic, counterpoint, etc. will be just fine imo as they appear to do quite well on platforms like kickstarter and indiegogo (and to succeed there you need to have the logistics of shipping/printing down to some degree). several also have their own webshops that have been around for quite some time, and while many rely on additional income from conventions…things like patreon, or companies like comicsketchart may already in position to provide that supplemental income.
the only bad part is that a lot of those small indie companies don’t involve more than a small handful of comic shops…
The point that really is the crux of things :: the Comic publishing market is highly fragmented with large players all the way down to small players …
Thusly, centralized Distribution is really a must … although I have made it clear for some time I am not a Diamond fan, they have served their purpose …
I believe there is room for more than one Distributor, I believe that Distribution should offer most all of what’s out there, just like Diamond does now …
Fragmenting Distribution, say DC and/or Marvel does there own, smaller Companies go with a more consolidated Distributor sounds good in theory … however, if Retailers would be expected to have, say, 3 separate accounts with 3 separate Distributors, that would then mean 3 separate orders per month, 3 separate shipments, etc, etc … each one adding additional shipping cost to the Retailer …
As well, Diamond makes it’s coin off much more than just comics … look at a Previews and see how much is devoted to peripheral merch … not to mention Alliance Games … Retailers gain additional cash flow from peripheral merch … I myself don’t want to lose that … Diamond Select and items not available at a Walmart are a great boon to Shops … just that point alone makes a case for Diamond in some form to exist …
I’ve been around long enough to have seen fragmented Distribution in real life … it was a mess, and was one of the reasons Diamond became the monopoly it is today …
Diamond has again extended the cut off date for March Previews Orders …
MAR20 initial orders due in 14 days . (By Friday 04/24/2020 04:59 AM ET; GMT -5)
I wonder if its diamond planing on being open begining of May. Especially with NYC coming out of thier inital wave of sickness. Top that with Trump saying he wants to open economy soon could be a sign of things to come. Next weeks FOC would be shipping that week or the next. This is going to get really interesting really fast.
I would not expect a re-opening of much in the 3 weeks left till May … NYC has a long way to go yet, Nationwide testing must happen for even pockets of the Country to open … Trump has little to do with things, it’s a State’s Right’s issue … there has been no National Lock Down (although there should have been) …
If I were guessing, July or August is what we’re looking at for gradual ramping up to begin … and, it will be slow …
1 Like
Ok Willie. What are your thoughts on this latest development with Diamond “Furloughing” employees?
That’s why I’m here too.
To their credit, the effected Employees will maintain their health insurance … the issue comes as no surprise to me … it would be a fairly normal thing to do considering the circumstances …
Also one must consider that April insurance premiums were likely already paid… so it makes sense they let them keep it, but for how long? If this shutdown lasts longer, we’ll eventually see them start the actual layoffs where one loses benefits as well, which makes sense if you’re a company without any cash, no cash coming in…
I know one past employee I worked for they paid the premiums on a annual yearly basis. So if Diamond does that, they could have them covered for a good while depending on when renewal is up.
I see it as confirmation that Diamond isnt opening back up anytime soon
Well, yeah … there is that … 
I dont like to swear. But O shit. DC just dropped a bomb shell. New comics April 28th. New distributors. Wow. Just wow.
I really don’t think the DC thing is that big a deal … although it is a nice gesture … it also raises some questions … here’s the list of releases ::
Batman #89 (3rd Printing)
Batman Giant #4
Daphne Byrne #4 (of 6)
The Dreaming #20
Nightwing #70 (2nd Printing)
New Comics available for sale on Tuesday 5/5
Batman and the Outsiders #12
DC Super Stars Facsimile Edition #17
The Flash #753
Green Lantern Season 2 #3
Hawkman #23
House of Whispers #20
Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity #4 (of 9)
New Comics available for sale on Tuesday 5/12
Harley Quinn #72
Justice League #44
Justice League Odyssey #20
Lois Lane #10 (of 12)
Metal Men #6 (of 12)
But isn’t this a better way to cut Diamond out of being the only one that prints comics?
Yes and no. The short answer is that its bad that a retailer is distributing for DC as it becomes the proverbial " Double Dip" scenario. Both Midtown and DCB Service get “distributor” discounts while being able to sell to the public at a potentially far lower rate then anyone else can give.
Its nice that Diamond is having competition though, competition is the great innovator of the industrial world.
One potential problem with multiple distributors is perhaps this industry isn’t big enough to support multiple distributors. The comic book industry was once able to support mutiple distributors, as the industry was printing hundreds of thousands of comics, per title, per issue. Publishers these days are printing only a very small percentage of what was being produced in the 80s & 90s. At that time there was also many, many more retailers selling comics (the Newsstand market et al). There was a reason why Diamond became the monopoly that they are. It is a result of prudent business moves by Geppi, and a severe fall in quantity of product and a severe fall in the number of outlets that carry and sell the product. We will see how things unfold, but I suspect that multiple distributors is going to cause more grief than it is worth, if it is even sustainable.
I welcome multiple distributors that brings more competition. Millions of companies operate businesses dealing with multiple vendors to buy products from to turn around and sell. It’s only as hard as the people running the business make it. Sure, getting all your product from one distributor makes your life a little easier but honestly, look at the situation we’re in now? The monopoly has fallen, they are not stepping up like others are doing, the monopoly is a single point of failure that is causing the collapse of the entire infrastructure.
I’ve written in the past about the History of distribution, so I’m not going to re-hash that …
Suffice to say that, due to the sheer number of SKU’s in the comic business, although multiple distributors are probably needed in order to foster competition and break the Diamond stranglehold, each player within that Market should offer as much of a full slate of product as possible …
Fragmentation that causes shops to be forced to order from multi-distributors is a losing proposition … shipping is not cheap these days, gets ratcheted up every year and eats away at the profit margin …
I’m all for competition, however, I really don’t want to deal with multi-distributors, most especially if they are in the Retail side of the business as well …