DC Cuts Ties with Diamond

[Gaastra]

Here is another one: when was the last time you saw a TV commercial for a comic book that was on a major network that wasn't also promoting a video game, toy, movie, or a TV show? The last time I can think of is the 90s when Malibu Comics made 3 TV commercials for their Ultraverse line and two of the commercials also helped to promote local comic book stores to certain degree.

The mid 2000s. When the big manga and anime boom hit they had ads for manga on tv. Note in japan they still have manga ads on tv!

Here is one with many manga heroes playing baseball! Also this is one of many ads for their 300 page "floppy"! Remember when marvel did that with floppies of transformers and gijoe?

[Holt]

It's not uncommon for anime adaptations to be commissioned in the first place specifically as promotion for the manga or light novel they're based on, especially the ones with relatively short runs and that end without any major resolution. They're made on the assumption that if you were hooked, you'll buy the source material to see where the story goes from there.

[Ascended]

Anyway i will stop as im dominating the thread and thats not fair. Im essentially just horrified to see independence of each part of chain getting mangled but im clearly a lone voice and im no prophet so i must be mad

You're not alone. I think a lot of us have some doubts and concerns. While this might end up being a whole lot of nothing, especially once things trickle down to our level (how many readers even know who distributes books to retailers?), it could also be a pretty substantial change to the industry and we're already facing upheaval on so many fronts, as a society. I think you're perhaps more concerned about the hobby shops than a lot of us, but that's not a bad thing. I doubt any of us want to see our stores close down anyway, but I'd guess we want to see comics grow and thrive more (which opens up more opportunity for more people too, btw) than we want to see our shops continue to struggle to pay the rent in a broken market. Maybe we all think our shops will be among the ones that flourish in the new normal, who knows?

[skyvolt2000]

A dc exclusive chain is def not viable (imo) but i cant see why a dcbs chain isnt that also stocks everyone else if everyone else just says fine do what you like.

Im not saying this is something they will do, merely that whole new avenues open up for potential exploitation.

But... if youre the competition you have to be thinking about blocking these avenues off and thats going to lead to fighting.

Anyway i will stop as im dominating the thread and thats not fair. Im essentially just horrified to see independence of each part of chain getting mangled but im clearly a lone voice and im no prophet so i must be mad

But most places are not doing that.

CVS is with Walgreens. Notice you always see borh of them near each other.

Others are not and LOL are having money issues.

Once upon a time I could go to Sears to get tvs, games, game systems and other stuff. I can't do that anymore. Because all that stuff is gone-especially online.

I got a Sears card that can't be used because if you go online and look for say Tablets-they have none and you can only shop outside merchants. Even K-mart (owned by Sears) does not have them or WON'T ship to you.

They just gave up to Target & Wal-mart.


A DCBS chain? Okay where would you put it?

A stand alone store? Only if you put it in something like this-

https://www.shophillsidevillage.com/

Which is just an open shopping center that MAKES you walk around.

A Mall? I have a mall near me that is BEGGING for stores (and will have a hotel/business offices SOMEDAY).

You have to put it in a place where you are going to get PEOPLE.

Then you have to pretty much STOCK every book (at least of Dc, Marvel, Valiant, Image, Boom & IDW). You can't be picky because you don't like certain characters like we have seen comic book stores do.

Especially license stuff like My Little Pony and Riverdale.

[cranger]

Anyway i will stop as im dominating the thread and thats not fair. Im essentially just horrified to see independence of each part of chain getting mangled but im clearly a lone voice and im no prophet so i must be mad

We are all in the same boat, I think most of us are just throwing out differing opinions because there are so many unknowns and it is best to take them all into account before worrying too much.

[Astroman]

I don't understand the competition complaint. Didn't every wholesale distributor of comics (Diamond, Bud Plant, Last Gast, Capital City, Common Ground, Pacific Comics, Solar Spice and Liquors - yes that was a thing - , and even Heroes World, etc. back in the day, etc.) start off as either publishers or retailers? Isn't that kinda how distribution grows in this industry... a company saying, "hey, we might be able to reach a lot more than just our current customer base? Let's grow and become something different?"

And still, none of this addresses why acknowledging and rectifying a Single Point of Failure is a bad thing.

[Gotham citizen]

[…]
And still, none of this addresses why acknowledging and rectifying a Single Point of Failure is a bad thing.

Fifth Theorem about the Humanity of Gotham Citizen: «No one problem is serious, if no one wants face it.»
First corollary to the Fifth Theorem: «If someone try to solve a problem that all other people want ignore, he will be hated by everyone.»
Seventh Theorem about the Humanity of Gotham Citizen: «It is easiest refuse every change, than correct our own mistakes or learn from the other ones.»

I know: you wanted a more rational answer, but I don't think we can explain rationally this blindness.

[Flash Gordon]

Man a lot of these guys sure do love to write elaborate revenge fan fiction lmao

Yeah, why do guys like this always sound the same?

I can't even get past 2 sentences in a diatribe like that. Comics desperately have to expand past the market and 'fandom'- and into a wider audience.

[iron chimp]

We are all in the same boat, I think most of us are just throwing out differing opinions because there are so many unknowns and it is best to take them all into account before worrying too much.

Good! I didnt want to sound belligerent.

[Astroman]

Fifth Theorem about the Humanity of Gotham Citizen: «No one problem is serious, if no one wants face it.»
First corollary to the Fifth Theorem: «If someone try to solve a problem that all other people want ignore, he will be hated by everyone.»
Seventh Theorem about the Humanity of Gotham Citizen: «It is easiest refuse every change, than correct our own mistakes or learn from the other ones.»

I know: you wanted a more rational answer, but I don't think we can explain rationally this blindness.

Sadly, that might be the best explanation one can give. Lol!

[iron chimp]

I don't understand the competition complaint. Didn't every wholesale distributor of comics (Diamond, Bud Plant, Last Gast, Capital City, Common Ground, Pacific Comics, Solar Spice and Liquors - yes that was a thing - , and even Heroes World, etc. back in the day, etc.) start off as either publishers or retailers? Isn't that kinda how distribution grows in this industry... a company saying, "hey, we might be able to reach a lot more than just our current customer base? Let's grow and become something different?"

And still, none of this addresses why acknowledging and rectifying a Single Point of Failure is a bad thing.

That is how comics started. But marvel and DC broke that system within a few years once they gatecrashed the party.

When no one has significant market share you can run things loose. Plenty of niche music shops that function as distros but once you add huge corporations to the mix they will always fight each other and try to reshape the system to their advantage over everyone else.

Comics is unique - you have spiderman and dave sim on the shelves together. You have a guy shifting a couple of 1000 in his own publisher / studio and a 100 billion dollar company next to each other on the racks. Thats an amazing achievement - that you can still have tiny publishers, one man bands, and mega corps all somehow existing together

In music thats the equivalent of me recording and publishing a track in my bedroom and getting shelf space next to a Beatles remastered album. That will not happen in music. It does in comics.

Single point of failure is a disadvantage - a big one. But marvel and dc have to be kept with same independent distro because if they arent they will fight each other for control at corporate level and f up everything for everyone else.

[botolo]

After a few days of thinking, here is my opinion:

- on whether this is a move by DC to kill Diamond and damage Marvel. This might be true or false and we are missing one important piece of evidence here: do we know whether the contract between DC and the two new distributors include an exclusivity provision (meaning that the two distributors can distribute DC only)? If so, then yes maybe DC's bigger plan is to kill Diamond and damage Marvel. If not, then Marvel will not be affected even if Diamond collapses, because they will be able to quickly switch to those new distributors.

- on whether this is fair to Diamond. DC is a business and thinks like a business. While I appreciate all the stories related to how Diamond helped DC in the past, I still think that businesses are free to take any decision that benefits their shareholders.

- on whether this is fair to the comic shops. The main issue here is how quickly DC shifted distributors. They could have done a much better job, informing Diamond of the non-renewal of the contract, asking them to continue distribution on a non-exclusive basis for a few months, and giving time to everyone to adjust to the new situation. I am originally from Italy and back in my country we have multiple comic books' distributors, each one of the exclusive with some publishers, and comic shops do not have any issue ordering from all of them.

[HsssH]

Another article about this: https://www.comicsbeat.com/inside-the-dc-diamond-split/

It is worth reading and I think key thing is this:

Geppi’s mention of three years of negotiations does confirm that DC’s desire to use other distributors goes back way before COVID-19, and was something that DiDio and Nelson were considering.

Timing is still questionable, but at the same time I have a theory on why now. Lets take couple of assumptions that are more or less supported by recent leaks and articles:

1) Higher ups are not thrilled about how little (by comparison obviously) money monthly comics bring in.
2) People running DC wanted to switch from Diamond for a while now.

Now, how DC people would sell it to higher ups? Single point of failure is bad, but creating new distribution channel, at least at first, will result in lower sales/profits and will require some investment to kick start the whole thing. Now, if higher ups aren't fond of the sales under Diamond then I can't see why they would be thrilled for this either. If they don't care about monthly comics you aren't going to sway them with arguments about how bad Diamond is and that it is stifling growth of the industry. They probably don't think that this industry can grow at all so any further investment into it probably sounds crazy to them.

So now we get a crisis. Diamond stops distributing comics and says that they'll pay only 25% of what they owe to publishers for few months. Suddenly DC people got couple of clear-cut arguments for why things have to change. Higher ups might not care that Diamond is bad for industry, but they do care that for some time they'll receive only 25% of the already small profits. Could DC have waited till the crisis ended? Possibly, but by that time higher ups might have changed their opinion again since things, likely, would have gone back to normal anyway.

[iron chimp]

After a few days of thinking, here is my opinion:

- on whether this is a move by DC to kill Diamond and damage Marvel. This might be true or false and we are missing one important piece of evidence here: do we know whether the contract between DC and the two new distributors include an exclusivity provision (meaning that the two distributors can distribute DC only)? If so, then yes maybe DC's bigger plan is to kill Diamond and damage Marvel. If not, then Marvel will not be affected even if Diamond collapses, because they will be able to quickly switch to those new distributors.

- on whether this is fair to Diamond. DC is a business and thinks like a business. While I appreciate all the stories related to how Diamond helped DC in the past, I still think that businesses are free to take any decision that benefits their shareholders.

- on whether this is fair to the comic shops. The main issue here is how quickly DC shifted distributors. They could have done a much better job, informing Diamond of the non-renewal of the contract, asking them to continue distribution on a non-exclusive basis for a few months, and giving time to everyone to adjust to the new situation. I am originally from Italy and back in my country we have multiple comic books' distributors, each one of the exclusive with some publishers, and comic shops do not have any issue ordering from all of them.

Yes thats a key point. If its non exclusive, everyone just jump ship and now you have two distros and the competition between them will encourage efficieny and new ideas.

The shops are still screwed because now 50c (or whatever the figure is) of every book sold goes to another retailer but thats the far lesser of two evils than if its exclusive and publishers and distros are fighting each other.

If its non exclusive i still think it will just end up a monopoly eventually though as dcbs and midtown will have to fight each other for market share - because thats just the law of the jungle.

[superduperman]

Another article about this: https://www.comicsbeat.com/inside-the-dc-diamond-split/

It is worth reading and I think key thing is this:



Timing is still questionable, but at the same time I have a theory on why now. Lets take couple of assumptions that are more or less supported by recent leaks and articles:

1) Higher ups are not thrilled about how little (by comparison obviously) money monthly comics bring in.
2) People running DC wanted to switch from Diamond for a while now.

Now, how DC people would sell it to higher ups? Single point of failure is bad, but creating new distribution channel, at least at first, will result in lower sales/profits and will require some investment to kick start the whole thing. Now, if higher ups aren't fond of the sales under Diamond then I can't see why they would be thrilled for this either. If they don't care about monthly comics you aren't going to sway them with arguments about how bad Diamond is and that it is stifling growth of the industry. They probably don't think that this industry can grow at all so any further investment into it probably sounds crazy to them.

So now we get a crisis. Diamond stops distributing comics and says that they'll pay only 25% of what they owe to publishers for few months. Suddenly DC people got couple of clear-cut arguments for why things have to change. Higher ups might not care that Diamond is bad for industry, but they do care that for some time they'll receive only 25% of the already small profits. Could DC have waited till the crisis ended? Possibly, but by that time higher ups might have changed their opinion again since things, likely, would have gone back to normal anyway.

So I just read the article and there's a lot to unpack here. First of all, it sounds like official WB policy with anything is not to put all your eggs in one basket. So it sounds like the real problem was that Diamond was the only option regardless of how they handle things. This is line with my theory that this wasn't entirely DC's decision. Second of all, it really does sound like Diamond uses an outdated system. Windows 95 in 2018? Seriously? Third of all, if that BC article is any indicator, no, Pam Littleford does not, in fact, care about retailers in that she wants to end the monthly book model. Everything I've read suggests that either WB/AT&T is being a lot more hands on here than in the past.