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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Yeah, it doesn't look good for FCBD given the new boss' comments.
In other news, Alien Books (which includes Valiant) has struck a deal where it will be sub-distributed by IDW.
My main takeaway from this is that Ogilvie is a good businessman who said a lot of the right things.
I went through three bankruptcies at TWA and my main takeaway from that is that every new CEO they brought in was skilled at "saying a lot of the right things." Most of them left within six months riding a "golden parachute."
Yeah, I had the same experience at my newspaper, as new management teams came and went. Same biz-speak, same pointless pep rallies, same promises. At the end of the day, they went away a lot richer, and hundreds of us were laid off with a pittance for a "pension."
Back to Ogilvie: One of the things he kept saying is that he didn't want to fool with $5 units. That's a comic book.
It sounds pretty familiar, too, because that's why comics were dying in the late '70s -- the per-unit profit wasn't enough for national magazine distributors to want to fool with them. The direct market evolved as a way to make comic books more profitable per unit, by eliminating returns and streamlining distribution. But today is rhyming with yesterday, and once again the profitability of the standard comic book is being deemed unsatisfactory. And they're already overpriced for the entertainment value.
He mentioned $20 as his preferred price per unit a couple of times. Comics could do that, of course, by printing everything online first and then releasing albums of 3 or 4 issues of each title quarterly or so. Or go back to anthologies; Detective Comics with one issue of Batman, one issue of Batman and Robin and one issue of Batgirl. Gotham City Sirens Comics, with one issue of Catwoman, one issue of Poison Ivy and one issue of Harley Quinn.
This is all pie in the sky, though, because getting from Point A to Point B would likely cause fan outrage, a mass exodus of print readers and comics shops all closing. Tumbling the idea around in my head comes up with different scenarios, all of them dicey.
Maybe Marvel and DC could continue to do business as they do now with Lunar and PRH, and do albums for Diamond alone. Except that's a far more profitable business model than tons of $5 units, and PRH and Lunar would start clamoring for it, too. But it's not terribly profitable if it kills the golden goose.
Of course, maybe guys like Ogilvie wouldn't mind comic shops closing, and just selling his comic albums to Walmart, Target and Walgreens.
Then there's the possibility of trying both models, and seeing if a $20 package would even sell in non-LCS outlets. Or if print readers at comic shops would, unexpectedly, embrace them.
I don't know. Maybe this is the beginning of a revolution in how comics are made. Or maybe nothing will change. Or maybe something in the middle. But comics started out as a throwaway product from fly-by-night publishers using the cheapest labor possible and piggybacking on magazine distribution. Now they're a professional product with well-paid creators and a dedicted distribution system. But they've also gone from mass-market entertainment to, more or less, a niche product.
The likeliest scenario is that Ogilvie just sells off the comics-distribution part and keeps the games and merch.
Just thinking out loud.
One of the things he kept saying is that he didn't want to fool with $5 units. That's a comic book.
Floppies, flimsies, periodicals... I think I've just got my new term.
And they're already overpriced for the entertainment value.
They are.
Or go back to anthologies...
I don't have to tell you the problem with anthologies.
Maybe this is the beginning of a revolution in how comics are made.
We can only hope.
But they've also gone from mass-market entertainment to, more or less, a niche product.
That is true.
I don't have to tell you the problem with anthologies.
You could tell me. Weekly Shōnen Jump has been running in Japan since 1968. 2000AD has been published in the UK since 1977. Is there something unique to American audiences that makes you think that an anthology comic couldn't succeed here?
Here's the problem with anthologies as I see it (feel free to disagree): no matter how many features there are, you end up paying (an ever-increasing amount of) money for features you don't have any interest in. That's why I dropped Comics Revue, for example. More recently (2010) I bought the new color version of Dark Horse Presents ($8 for 80 pages), but not only did an increasing number of the features not appeal to me, but the ones I was most interested in ended up being collected in single-volume editions anyway.
That's interesting, but to me, it doesn't explain why, if anthologes work well in other countries,the wouldn't work well here.
I don't know WHY, but traditionally they don't.
The Baron said:
Weekly Shōnen Jump has been running in Japan since 1968. 2000AD has been published in the UK since 1977. Is there something unique to American audiences that makes you think that an anthology comic couldn't succeed here?
I’m curious about Japanese and British comics. Never mind anthologies. When did Japan start producing comics/manga? They remain very popular there, so the industry is doing something right. Every time we talk about British comics we seem to talk about 2000 AD. Are the only comic books in the UK 2000 AD and all the American comics? Were other British comics driven out by the American ones?
I don’t know specifically why anthologies are a problem, but a lot of factors have driven the U.S. comics industry to where it is today.
The first mistake was artificially keeping the cover prices at 10 cents, 12 cents, 15 cents for decades while simultaneously decreasing the page counts.
Next, the American public was way too receptive to the Frederick Wertham madness. Puritanism has always had an unfortunate hold on the American public. I’m sure this never happened in Japan. Was there a similar reaction in the U.K.? The Comics Code, like the Hays Code in the movies, basically neutered comics and made them less interesting to the public. Also, every time a comics reader was portrayed in a movie or TV show, the character was stupid and/or childish.
Even under the Comics Code, a newsstand on the street or a magazine section in a store would be seen by the general public. Well designed covers with intriguing scenes would attract new and returning readers. Unfortunately, the accumulated bad reputation was already driving many away from comics.
This led to the distributors revolting against comics because the shelf space they took up wasn’t justified by the low profits. The direct market came along in the nick of time to save the industry. The bad part is that the general public doesn’t have a desire to seek out comic stores. Many people don’t know that comics still exist. Since they are writing for a captive audience that mainly wants superhero stories, very few stories in other genres will sell to enough people.
To save themselves, the Big Two rely too heavily on writing for a collection. When I started reading comics there would usually be three complete stories in a single comic. A comic with a single book-length story was a major event! So, John Q. Public, after hearing all his life that comics are less than a dollar, finds out they are $4-$5 apiece. If he can get past that shock and buy one he will very likely get a fragment of a single story. He will never buy another comic.
Reading anything, not just comics, seems to have rapidly gone out of fashion here. Little kids get hooked on video games instead of starting out reading comics. All the superhero movies haven’t helped. Watching a superhero movie doesn’t inspire people to read about the same characters in a comic book.*
The phrase “circling the drain” comes to mind.
*The movie snobs lament that the superhero movies (which have saved movie houses) are taking screen time away from “serious” “movies for adults.” Without them, there wouldn’t be enough ticket buyers to keep the doors open.
When did Japan start producing comics/manga?
I don't know, but Lone Wolf & Cub is from the '70s.
Every time we talk about British comics we seem to talk about 2000 AD.
We talk about Eagle quite a bit (or used to).
Also, every time a comics reader was portrayed in a movie or TV show, the character was stupid and/or childish.
Movies and TV used comic books as a kind of shorthand, equating comics books with stupidity. As Don Thompson used to say (paraphrasing), "Illiterate people don't read comic books; illiterate people don't read anything."
A comic with a single book-length story was a major event!
The term "three-part novel" still cracks me up.
John Q. Public, after hearing all his life that comics are less than a dollar, finds out they are $4-$5 apiece. If he can get past that shock and buy one he will very likely get a fragment of a single story.
I was thinking about this very thing yesterday when Cap commented that comic books are "already overpriced for the entertainment value." At $4-5 bucks a pop, that $24-30 for a complete story. Maybe the answer lies, not necessarily in doing more "done-in-one" comics, but is writing the kind of comics in which each chapter can be read as a standalone part of a whole... you know, they they used to be. that's what I was getting at yesterday when Cap said, "Maybe this is the beginning of a revolution in how comics are made." and I responded, "We can only hope."
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