Diamond Comics Distributors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today. They also announced that they were selling off pieces of their large company - Alliance Games and Diamond UK were two mentioned today with others likely to happen soon.
What does this mean for the comic book business? Hard to tell for sure. Diamond has been losing pieces of the distribution business for the last five years and right now they're a comparatively minor player in the game. However, when it comes to small press comics Diamond is one of the few viable nationwide distribution options.
Remember that a Chapter 11 filing indicates an intent for the business to continue after a reorganization.
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I can't find anybody who distributes them in the U.S. The only clue I found was an invitation on their site for wholesalers, retailers and distributors to contact them for books. Which leads me to believe they self-distribute -- i.e, just ship books to anybody willing to pay for them -- and doesn't contradict in any way how we receive them, which is those gigantic dumps reflected in the places we get our comics. Since they're overseas (in the UK), it would make sense to ship in bulk. That's just a WAG, though.
They solicit through Diamond, though.
Oh! Where did you find that?
I mean they're in the pages of the Diamond catalog every month.
They do sell PS Artbooks -- just as they do publishers like Marvel. Because they're a whoelsaler AND a retailer. Some publishers (like Marvel) aren't exclusive to where they're distributed. PS Artbooks could easily be the same. So I'm not sure that means anything.
I'm curious though -- is DC included in the Previews catalogue?
No, DC is not included at all.
Marvel and Image and IDW, all of which have their own little supplements, are also listed in the Previews catalog. I complile my order from there, but I don't necessarily know from which source my LCS fulfills it. For example, I recently inquired about the "pencils only" version of Jack Kirby's Eternals which was solicited to ship last October. Believe me, I know how things often ship late, but sometimes thing do fall through the cracks for whatever reason, so I asked about it and the owner of my shop said he couldn't remember off the top of his head where he ordered it from. I told him I ordered it from Previews, but he didn't order it from Diamond. (I forget where he did order it from, but it should be out February 26.) The Comic Art of James Swinnerton is in a similar limbo.
It wasn't that long ago that Diamond was a concern because it had a near-monopoly of comics distribution. Things have certainly changed.
It would be an exageration to say that I expect it, but things have changed so much that I would not be too surprised if we end up with Diamond closing for good and something like Amazon Logistics or Barnes & Noble taking up the duties in its place. Between the marked increase in online shopping and delivery businesses and the decidedly diminished print runs that are the current normal, Diamond may turn out to be far easier to do without than we realize even now.
A likely side effect may be some degree of erosion of the expectation of comics release on wednesdays. There is not much incentive to keep that tradition.
The top six publishers -- which are at RPH and Lunar -- constituted 83.7% of the market in Q4. That leaves 16.3% of the market for Diamond, assuming they have it all, none of the individual publishers having more than 1% of market share. The overhead of dealing with dozens of small publishers is probably pretty high -- higher than, for example, shipping the same amount of books for one publisher, like Image (12.1%). It's not looking good for Diamond.
Here is retailer Brian Hibbs' commentary from FaceBook:
I haven't followed this closely, but I seem to remember Hibbs getting upset about Lunar becoming a distributor as it was already a retailer, and Hibbs thought that was unfair to other retailers. (Even though Diamond was a retailer, a wholesaler and a distributor.) And I don't really know why he's blaming DC for this, unless it's because they were the first of the big retailers to jump ship from Diamond.
Does that sound about right?
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