Coronavirus knocks out direct market - Diamond stops deliveries

[Vampire Savior]

IDW is about to go bankrupt from what I hear. I doubt the company is in any shape to take on a bunch of DC Comics.

[skyvolt2000]

IDW is about to go bankrupt from what I hear. I doubt the company is in any shape to take on a bunch of DC Comics.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/idw-r...201500616.html

This says otherwise.

Although I doubt they would ever bother with DC books.

IDWP: Halted most new product releases through the direct comic market in late March when Diamond, the comic industry's sole direct market distributor, suspended operations. IDWP pivoted to focus on back catalog, digital sales, direct-to-consumer sales, foreign sales, and book market channels. IDWP has extended full returnability on all new direct-market releases through July to encourage orders from retailers. IDWP furloughed or laid off approximately 20% of its workforce during the quarter. The majority of furloughed employees have since been recalled.

Revenue: The increase in consolidated revenue was driven primarily by delivery of IDWE's Locke & Key Season 1 episodes. The increase in IDWP revenue resulted from increased sales of backlisted comics and books through Amazon and other non-direct market channels, digital offerings and games, partially offset by a decrease in direct market sales. The decrease in CTM revenues reflects the pandemic-related closing of many clients, including Broadway shows, and CTM's suspension of operations in March.

Pretty much Locke & Key on Netflix is really helping them.

[Ascended]

IDW was just a random example guys.

[Digifiend]

Honestly, the only companies unlikely to be licensed to are Marvel and Boom! Studios (Boom was part owned by Fox and is therefore now part owned by Disney)?

[Flash Gordon]

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/the-...iamond-demand/




It's pretty much Batman, Hal, Barry, WW, Aquaman, Superman, Supergirl, Teen Titans and JLA.

No Naomi, Far Sector, Young Justice, Nightwing and the rest.

What is their fixation on Wally World? That's the last place where they should be focusing efforts.

[skyvolt2000]

What is their fixation on Wally World? That's the last place where they should be focusing efforts.

Wonder Woman

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...1-billion.html

“ The increase in sales was led by the graphic novel book format, in particular continued growth in sales of children's graphic novels, sold via the bookstore channel, which includes chain bookstores, online retailers, mass market stores, and Scholastic Book Fairs. And while the book format led sales growth overall, sales of periodical comics in the comics shop market were also up by about 5%.”

Well this is 2019 before COVID came along, but this is still surprisingly good news.

[Ascended]

Always nice to see a little bump in annual sales.

Some interesting take-aways too; graphic novels outsold floppies and by a sizable margin, that's new. And 2019 was the year when DC really began to dig into the OGN format with all the YA stuff so I'm going to assume there's a causality there. I wonder what other audiences and demographics are waiting for the comic genre to find them?

Digital sales remain vexing to me; with everybody on their phones and computers and consoles, how have publishers failed to capitalize more on this format? It really did plateau early, didn't it?

Still, an 11% gain is pretty damn impressive. So is the 5% increase the LCS' saw.

[Digifiend]

No wonder Marvel decided to get in the kids OGN game too.

[C_Miller]

I’m very concerned about the future of DC. I work at a store and the new distributor is having some pretty big growing pains. Pretty much the whole box we received yesterday was damaged, their reorder system is bad and their support system is not robust. It feels like they’re in over their heads and they don’t have the infrastructure to properly handle distribution.