Posted in: Batman, Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, DC Comics | Tagged: Batman #139, Mindbomb

Spoilers! Batman #139 Is Out And About In The Wild

Batman #139 may be published by DC Comics on Tuesday. Officially. But it is out and about in the wild as of last night...

Batman #139 may be published by DC Comics on Tuesday. But it is out and about in the wild as of last night. Whether just a cover posted to Reddit or the first and last pages on Twitter X. I am sometimes asked how this kind of thing is even possible. I've written about it before, so I'll write about it again.

When DC Comics relaunched with the New 52 in 2011, it was accompanied by new trading practices, negotiated by then-DC Comics VP Sales and former retailer Bob Wayne, with Diamond Comic Distributors. Back then, comic book stores in the US would get comics on Wednesday for sale on Wednesday. In the UK they would get them on Wednesday for sale on Thursday. But then things changed.

Diamond would now deliver comic books in the US and the UK on Tuesdays or before, for sale on Wednesdays. Stores caught breaking that street date would lose that early delivery privilege. Stores would pay into a fund of mystery shoppers to ensure those street dates were adhered to. When people first started checking, 2% stores broke street date. That number dropped to almost nothing.

In 2020, in the height of the lockdown, DC Comics dropped Diamond Comic Distributors in favour of Lunar and UCS, formed from their own biggest customers. In doing so, DC moved their on-sale date to Tuesdays to match bookstore distribution practices. And many retailers started getting those comic books the previous week. When Diamond returned, the mystery shoppers scheme was dropped. And then Penguin Random House started distributing Marvel, IDW, Dark Horse and now Image Comics earlier and earlier too. Bleeding Cool has received multiple reports of many comic book stores selling to favoured customers early, or even just putting them on open sale, as early as the Thursday before the Tuesday/Wednesday.

Back in the days of multiple distributors, this was more common, with one comic book store getting the jump on its rivals by using a faster, different distributor. It may have cost more to ship comics air freight, but you could sell them sooner, undercutting rivals by time, if not price. Millions and millions of dollars were spent by comic book stores trying to get that week's comics on the shelves a day before their rivals cleaned up.

And if comic book publishers and distributors don't keep an eye on things, or a compliance system that Diamond used to do, will the Wild West be upon us again?

Bleeding Cool is often sent photos of a Los Angeles store putting all their new comic up on the shelves from the Monday of the week. And Bleeding Cool often posts leaked images, especially from DC Comics titles, ahead of publication – though we do try to pick them well, to generate excitement and discussion ahead of publication, rather than spoiling them for the sake of it. But should we bother trying? After all, DC Comics itself makes all its comics available digitally through Amazon Australia from 10am ET / 7am PT on the Monday morning before going on sale in shops on Tuesday. All you need to do is let Amazon think you live in Australia…

BATMAN #139 CVR A JORGE JIMENEZ
(W) Chip Zdarsky (A/CA) Jorge Jimenez
NEW STORY ARC BEGINS! BATMAN VS. THE JOKER, MORE BRUTAL THAN EVER! Following the cataclysmic events of The Gotham War, Batman finds himself completely isolated from his family, struggling to keep the rage of Zur in check. But he can't stop, because he's out there, haunting the city, taunting the Dark Knight: The Joker. And the new Batman is ready to stop him once and for all. Mindbomb begins! Retail: $4.99 In-Store Date: 11/7/2023

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