Posted in: Comics | Tagged: 2025, comic store

Comic Store In Your Future 2025 Starting Like A Dumpster Fire

Comic Store In Your Future has 2025 starting like a dumpster fire, after Diamond Comic Distributors went bankruptcy

Published Sat, 08 Feb 2025 07:32:05 -0600

Article Summary

Diamond Comics files for Chapter 11, shaking the comic distribution landscape.
Late shipments and uncertain arrivals plague comic store operations.
Comic supplies like backing boards face severe shortages, worsening sales.
Pokemon demand skyrockets, surpassing Magic as vendors run dry.

2025 had only just started when Diamond Comic Distributors announced it had filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy for protection. I was surprised it took that long; I thought that after Penguin became the primary vendor for Marvel Comics, Diamond would announce that they were finished. Penguin became the direct market distributor for Marvel in 2021, with Diamond still able to order Marvel for stores through Penguin. Of course, Diamond not selling them directly would mean less profit made for all. Image Comics then left Diamond for Lunar in 2023, doing the same thing that Marvel had; Diamond could still get Image Comics titles, just not directly, unlike DC, who left Diamond for Lunar exclusively back in 2020. I thought the game was over for Diamond.

Comic Store In Your Future 2025 Starting Like A Dumpster Fire — The battle for comics. I have the high ground—photo by Tom Sorenson.

It is a remarkable turn of events; Diamond was the only American comic distributor for 25 years and now is hoping to bounce back through bankruptcy protection. By no means do I want Diamond to cease being a business. As a comic store owner, I want as many comic vendors as possible. If Penguin does not have a copy of a Marvel title, then I want to be able to see if I can order it through Diamond. If Diamond is no longer around, I am unable to do that.

Diamond has caused a lot of stress over the last few months. Weekly comic shipments are often coming in late for comic stores. To make things worse, Diamond Comics shipments seemingly show up randomly late each week. I am now getting asked if Marvel even showed up this week, even though I ordered from Penguin and Diamond. So much more time is spent answering questions such as when Diamond will show. Doing inventory check-ins and customers' pull boxes multiple times a week is a time killer when it should be able to be done one time before New Comic Wednesday. Some of my customers have lost faith in the store due to not knowing when Diamond will get it together and get back to normal. Back to on-time shipments, back to when customers could come in on a Wednesday and get all the new comics available for that week, now seems another lifetime.

Another big surprise: we could not get any backing boards in for comics, and it took over a month. I even tried to order some from Diamond, though I held off with all of the issues Diamond was having. When I looked, Diamond did not have any backboards available either. The backboard ordering is now worse than it was during Covid. We give away free bags and boards for each new comic purchase and have not been able to for quite a while now. No backboards also created another issue: We could no longer bag and board unsold comics off the wall and put them in the back-issue bin. I have stacks of comics waiting to go into the back-issue bin.

Pokemon has become in high demand in stores, more in demand than Magic the Gathering cards. Of course, my vendors are sold out of Pokemon, so I have people coming in wanting Pokemon products. Pokemon is the product that cycled from almost dead in demand to red hot over the years here at Rodman Comics. One of my vendors told me that the most recent Pokemon set was the most allocated Pokemon set ever. Make something hard to get, and then, of course, people want it even more. Telling people multiple times daily that we do not have what they want is never fun.

Stress? Oh yes, 2025 was the year of late comic shipments, not being able to get in comic supplies, and not being able to sell customers what they wanted. We have to keep hoping and see what happens next. It has been a great year for stressing comic store owners so far.