Its been about 10 years since I have done this. The first thing I have noticed is...no Previews!
I learned about 2 weeks ago my LCS has canceled his Diamond account. As someone who has ordered all off his comics from Previews for about 30 years. This was quite a shock. I\ve also worked there before, and I understand his problems. Hell, they haven't even had a sales associate in over 10 years.
So, all of the books will be between Penguin, Lunar, etc. Anything that is Diamond only he is trying to work out. A new dynamic for me for sure. I do understand his frustrastion. Shorted on comics, damaged comics, and just being left in limbo.
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I remember "Thoughts While Filling Out Previews"! I used to make note of all my orders each month, then I'd try to go back to that thread for comment when the items from that month actually shipped. It became to difficult to keep track of what with late shipping and whatnot, so I eventually transitioned over to "Your Favorite Things of the Year!" and commenting when the things I ordered would actually ship. I feel yiour pain, though, and I'm also familiar with some of the headaches retailers have to put up with from the owner of my LCS. From what I hear, I wouldn't be just too surprised if Diamond went out of business before to long.
I always liked this thread... but things are so sprawling now! Good luck keeping track of everything.
And "Your Favorite Things" is also a remnant of another bygone thread...the Cappies. Man, that was ages ago now!
Yeah, that's right. I had forgotten about the thread's original raison d'être.
Now, for old time's sake, here are some thoughts that occurred to me while filling out the November '24 Previews, #434.
I've been thinking about what I might do if Diamond goes under. Apart from periodicals, the vast majority of what I collect these days are pre-orders, for which I receice a substatial discount. Cap's weekly "Comics List" and "Comics Guide" are excellent sources for determining what's shipping in a give week but, discount notwithstanding, if I don't know when things are solicted, I won't know to order them.
Thanks for the kind words all. I've thought about bringing it back a few times over the past year or so, but I was afraid it would be too negative with me spending a lot of space bitching about prices, or storylines I thought were terrible.
A couple of other things the owner of my LCS shared in a long post. His bill has gone up about $1000 per week over the past year. He has a pretty small shop (as Jeff can attest to), and shops don't have terms, they have to pay that bill every week. Also, he pays on average $3.50 per comic. If you figure the average comic in $4.99, and he gives a 20% discount to subscribers, he is making about 50 cents a books on people like me.
Apparently, he has also toyed with stopping new comics altogether and only sell back issues. His ROI is just so much higher on those.
Last Wednesday's Diamond comics shipped to my LCS on Monday, but today is the second week in a row they have failed to ship on Wednesday.
Diamond's response: "We're workingon it."
This is the third week in a row Diamond has not shipped on time. for some reason, Previews did ship, but only three copies. I inquired about it, so I got one. My LCS also receive two nonconsecutive issues of Comic Shop News.