Posted in: Comics | Tagged: diamond, rob liefeld

How Much Does Diamond Owe? Comic Book Folk React To Bankruptcy News

How Much Does Diamond Owe? Comic Book Folk React To Diamond Comic Distributors Bankruptcy... but this is most likely to be Part One

Steve Geppi founded Diamond Comic Distributors in February 1982 with one warehouse, seventeen customers and many competing distributors. Across forty years, it beat all the competition and became the dominant monopoly in the comic book direct market – though not according to the courts. But after it closed down temporarily during the pandemic, publishers were free from their contracts to seek alternative deals, and now Image and DC are with Lunar, Marvel, IDW and Dark Horse are with Penguin Random House, and Boom Studios is joining them. Earlier today, Bleeding Cool broke the news that Diamond Comic Distributors had declared bankruptcy, as well as details on Diamond UK and Alliance Games Distribution being sold to Canadian company Universal Distribution. And all hell broke loose. Privately, comic book publishers – and Lunar and Penguin Random House, who subdistributed to Diamond – are trying to work out exactly how much Diamond owes them. From conversations I have had, we will be talking high eight figures at this point. That includes the mountains of stock for publishers that Diamond keeps on hand – and now all part of the bankruptcy proceedings going forward.

Alan Gill of comic store chain Ultimate Comics tells us, "There is no one currently who can replace the services and intangibles that Diamond Comic distributors provides. The monthly previews catalog brings all of the toy, statue and novelty products that are manufactured each month as well as a multitude of comic book publishers into one catalog , who else is going to step up to do that? A world without Diamond Comic Distributors is definitely going to hurt not only small to medium size comic book retailers by limiting the access they currently have to Funko, Monogram and other novelty best sellers but the smaller comic publishers will have no one to realistically distribute their books."

Brian Hibbs of San Francisco store Comix Experience reminded us "There are a LOT of people who were actively rooting for Diamond comics to fail. Well, your wishes appear to be coming true, as Diamond files for Chapter 11, and this is going to be TRULY dire news for the Direct Market, at least in the short and medium term. Say "Goodbye" to most smaller publishers, and "so long" for the right opportunities for a majority of smaller and unproven creators. Never EVER forget that the blame for this falls directly upon DC Comics, and we should never forget this, or ever withhold that blame. My best wishes for Steve Geppi , as well as all of the staff at Diamond — and my most fervant prayers for creators and my fellow retailers that we're all going to be able to navigate this disruption to the market. PEOPLE: Penguin Random House DOES NOT WANT any accounts smaller than they already have, and Lunar (besides being the primary retail competition for all of us) is really REALLY bad at their jobs and, in my personal estimation, could not possibly HANDLE adding more vendors. 2025 is going to be a nightmare."

And in a move that confused some (Gail, Jim), the comic book store Titan Comics – but not the British comics book publisher Titan Comics, who once upon a time used to *be* Diamond UK, posted "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. We here at Titan Comics are committed to filling our customers orders and requests. We don't know how our Diamond orders will be affected by this filing however we want to assure each and every one of our customers that we will do everything we can to acquire the comics you're looking for. Please bear with us as we navigate these exciting and turbulent events. Remember that a Chapter 11 filing indicates an intent for the business to continue after a reorganization. We will all see where this leads us. Have a great day and thanks for being customers! We really do appreciate each and every one of you."

And ComiChron have reminded us of the history of the distributor. "Diamond had THE main role in creating Free Comic Book Day in 2002, based on a suggestion by retailer @flycojoe
in my own Comics and Games Retailer magazine. It continues to be the organizing force for the day; it says it's exploring contingencies for the event in the future.  Diamond had supplied a lot of information about comics sales and its monopoly status made it possible for @Comichron to closely report how many comics Diamond sent to market. No one else reports; Diamond stopped monthly reports in April 2022, ending a long era of transparency.  But even in this latter period, Diamond was sorting and shipping more DIFFERENT comics than ever before, due to the vast number of variants — if only as a wholesaler for companies like Marvel and Image. Diamond still ran weekly reorder reports, which @Comichron still shares."

Here are a few other public reactions from across the comic book industry.

Si Spurrier: Well golly.

Jimmy Palmiotti: Holy sh-t!

David Macho: OOOF…

Justin Jordan: I do want to note that Chapter 11 bankruptcy is the kind that allows the business to keep operating.
Diamond may well go under, but this is a step to try and stop that, not throwing in the towel.

Veronica Cristina: Crazy to see a Diamond fall. They had the monopoly for só long

Rob Liefeld: This is a challenge the industry doesn't need right now but the industry will overcome.#

Christian Hoffer: Larger comics publishers have mostly moved away from Diamond, but this is a major blow to this industry:

Eric July: Diamond filed for bankruptcy. The "pandemic" will be blamed and people will write it off to general mismanagement. But the truth is there's a tough conversation about traditional distribution models that most don't want to have. I stated this a million times.

Adam Barnhardt: Should Diamond not make it through, that all but kills small press in the direct market. Self-publish or perish.#

Deniz Camp: Marvel already left Diamond for Penguin/Random House. Diamond is a reseller or Marvel through Penguin. So shops will have to order directly from Penguin (which I think most already did)

Ben Templesmith: Don't forget, it was an idiot judge who once ruled these guys *were not* a monopoly… turned out they were. & like most things when you lack competition, you get crap. You get terrible. You get weak. The thing that caused this was the mere act of others competing. The end of an era. Who knows where we all go from here.

Sailor Poland: "To everyone trying to guilt trip me for celebrating Diamond going bankrupt – Diamond screwed over a LOT of small pressers, not paying them on time and making them go under because they weren't big enough to bother with. They tried strongarming The Bigs like Marvel into changing their output. They ripped off my comic shop with every order. Diamond deserved to fail. You had your chance to build up an alternate. You didn't, you sided with the devil. F-ck Diamond, and f-ck you for trying to make me cry for them."

Plenty more to come…

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