Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Dynamite, Image | Tagged: diamond, lunar

Dynamite's Nick Barrucci, On Image Comics Leaving Diamond Entirely

Dynamite Entertainment's Nick Barrucci on Image Comics' decision to leave Diamond Comic Distributors entirely last year.

The comic book industry has been in ructions since the announcement that Diamond Comic Distributors had entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Comic book publishers are closing down, firing people, seeking crowdfunding, moving distributors, panicking because they can't move distributors and setting up their own new distributors or sub-distributors. That included Image Comics' decision to pull its comics from Diamond entirely, including being sub-distributed by Lunar. Which came four years after Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson had criticised DC Comics for doing the exact same thing. 

Talking to comic book publisher Dynamite Entertainment CEO Nick Barrucci on the post-Megacon Industry Of Comics video podcast, retailer Dennis Barger asked, "Was it odd that Image Comics was the first publisher to tell Diamond to stick it?"

Nick Barrucci replied by asking the assembled retailers, publishers, and creators. "Who here has been divorced? How were the good years when you were married? They were good. One thing I can tell you is that Eric Stephenson pushed Diamond a lot to make changes from the day DC left, till the day Image left. I will say that Eric Stephenson went above and beyond to try and make it work. Image did not stick the knife in them because Image actually took it a little bit on the chin because they allowed retailers at Lunar to basically keep their Diamond discount and gave Diamond a bigger discount to keep retailers at their comfort level. Their loyalty to Diamond was "let's make sure we keep Diamond alive" because I think Eric and people at Image saw it the same way. We need them to stick around. So Image did not twist a knife; Image tried to do everything that they could, and I think the bankruptcy just became the straw that broke the camel's back."

Looking back on the changes that Diamond did and did not make, Nick Barrucci recalled, "I don't think Diamond realized how much the shipping issue affected all of us publishers defending them. And then at ComicsPro Diamond, saying, 'We're reducing our overhead so we can cut our shipping' after telling retailers for years that there was no profit in the shipping. I believe that may have been a huge factor in how it affected some publishers and how publishers felt about everything. Image tried to make it work with Diamond every step of the way, even cutting their profits to allow Diamond to handle Image from Lunar and to give retailers a choice."

"I thought Erik Larsen [Image Comics CFO] was the most blunt person, when it when it came to their leaving, he said, there are things that we're not going to talk about because this made business sense for Image. And I think that Eric Larsen kind of took it on the chin to say this is business sense for Image, but it was also business sense for retailers. Very few people wanted Image to leave Diamond, including Image, but you know it takes two to make a relationship work well."

"I think Penguin Random House does a really good job. I think Lunar does a really good job. I think they got Diamond to improve a few things. The one thing that Diamond was always terrible at was communication. During the transition of the warehouses by closing down Plattsburgh, I felt that Diamond wasn't communicating enough, and I don't think anybody thought they were communicating enough. My feedback to select people at Diamond was, 'You're not communicating, and I want to tell you the people that you are hurting the most are the retailers that support you 100%. It's the retailers that are carrying your Marvel, your Image, your Dark Horse, and your IDW that are hurt the most. The retailers that are only ordering Dynamite, Boom and Titan from you are being hurt the least because they have other sources of income from two other distributors that are delivering without a problem. So you are actually pushing away and financially hurting the retailers that said we will buy everything we can from Diamond."

Of course, all that conversation may be moot now…

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!