Diamond Fucking Over Comics Industry

[Mike McC]

The News.

In short, Diamond is changing it's minimum purchase order from $1500 retail to $2500 wholesale. Being they're pretty much the only comic distributor in town, this is going to fuck over a LOT of independent comics and small press.

[Amake]

I guess the trouble is no one buys comics. Top selling paperback collections struggle to reach numbers in the hundreds? That's frightening.

Clearly we need to do something about those "vijjagames" and "digital-movies" the kids are spending all their time with so they may discover the glory of comics. While they still have a chance.

[phil_]

Thanks for responding, IQ. I didn't want the first response to be my stupid question.

So, what exactly is Diamond? The article makes it seem like they publish a catalog for comic shops. Do they distribute DC and Marvel stuff or not?

I don't really care about the effect this will have on the industry (since I've never bought a comic book), but I can't stand not understanding something like this. I never heard of Diamond before this, and that's just unacceptable.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by phil_

Thanks for responding, IQ. I didn't want the first response to be my stupid question.

So, what exactly is Diamond? The article makes it seem like they publish a catalog for comic shops. Do they distribute DC and Marvel stuff or not?

I don't really care about the effect this will have on the industry (since I've never bought a comic book), but I can't stand not understanding something like this. I never heard of Diamond before this, and that's just unacceptable.

Diamond handles all the distribution to "direct market" locations, IE comic book shops.

From what I understand the main difference between "direct market" and general retail is returnability. If supermarkets or Barnes & Noble or someone can't sell a particular comic or magazine their arrangement with the publisher allows them to send it back for refund/credit towards their next month's order. With a comic shop once a comic is shipped it is considered fully sold, with no option to return.

I don't know whether Diamond also handles distribution to non-direct-market outlets or not.

[Amake]

I have heard of them, but vaguely. Wikipedia says:

Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. (often called Diamond Comics, DCD, or casually Diamond) is the largest comic book distributor serving North America. They transport comic books from both big and small comic book publishers, or suppliers, to the retailers. Diamond dominates the direct market in the United States, and has exclusive arrangements with most major U.S. comics publishers, including Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, Image Comics, and Marvel Comics. Diamond publishes PREVIEWS a monthly catalog showcasing upcoming comic books, graphic novels, toys, and other pop-culture related items available at comic book specialty shops. The publication is available to both comic merchants and consumers.

[Mirai Gen]

Chances are that if you have a comic book store near you, Diamond distributes comics for them.

I think it was Marvel that cut them a deal years ago that essentially fucked over the industry for anyone else who wanted to distribute comic books so now Diamond is literally your only option.

Having said thus; This sucks, Beavis.

[Mike McC]

Pulled this off of Brian's twitter: Total Digital Distribution: iVerse Reacts to Diamond.

In short: iVerse is a company with a distribution model of full digital releases direct to consumers in formats formated for portable devices and desktops, gearing torwards an eventual trade release. Plans for an iTunes-like storefront also included.

[Kurosen]

Let me just say they do an amazing job of reformatting pages for the screen. It's not just basic cropping or slicing up pages to shove them into an iPhone. They asked for copies of our pages at print resolution with all the lettering on separate layers so they could move stuff around to best fit the screen.

I was doubtful they could reproduce comics pages on the iPhone without the use of zooming in to pan-n-scan, but I was wrong. They really go that extra mile to make it look like a natural fit. Hell, we get to sign off on the reformatted files before they go on sale just in case they screw something up.

I'm not sure if this particular model of digital distribution is the answer, or if iVerse is the company to pull off digital distribution through whatever model succeeds, but going digital in some form is the only way independent publishers are going to survive.

I see what webcomic creators are pulling in profit-wise on their print collections compared to what creators get at Marvel/DC, or indie publishers like Red 5. I suspect if indie publishers or mainstream creators had a decent idea of the gulf between those two models, they'd have jumped for digital distribution years ago.

[Mike McC]

How does Atomic Robo fare with these new developments?

[Kurosen]

Robo's fine, I think. We've consistently sold well above the new minimum. We expect to lose some sales starting with Vol 3 because we've had to jack our price up to $3.50 and everyone's buying fewer comics anyway due to Marvel's $3.99 price gouge + recession, but we should be fine.

My worry is for new titles and new publishers. I talk about it at some length over here. The short version is that this will probably work out to be a net positive for the industry. One or more parties will take up the titles and distribution that Diamond is dropping, and more comics will have more choice to be distributed in more ways than we've ever seen before. It's just a matter of surviving to that point.