Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: diamond, fairsquare

FairSquare Graphics Calls Diamond "Thieves & Bandits", Brings Receipts

FairSquare Graphics' Fabrice Sapolsky calls Diamond Comic Distributors "Thieves and Bandits" and brings receipts

Published Thu, 26 Jun 2025 08:57:03 -0500

Fabrice Sapolsky, co-creator of Spider-Man Noir, and co-founder New York-based graphic novel publisher FairSquare Graphics has been reading Bleeding Cool's reports on the activities of Diamond Comic Distributors and their new owners, Ad Populum, during the period of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Posting on social media, he is not mincing words. He writes;

: FairSquare Graphics logo

"Everytime I read a new report on the Diamond situation, I feel a burst of anger and stress at the same time. Yesterday, Bleeding Cool published a post stating that Fantagraphics was considering "that Diamond Comic Distributors is holding their comic books hostage and is demanding payment". Isn't that what a bunch of small presses, including myself, have been saying for weeks? It sure is.

"Ths morning, I received another one of those statements Diamond sends or used to send every week. This is page four. The recap page. You don't really need to see the rest. I highlighted the interesting sections. You can see that the week between 6/16 and 6/22, we sold 30 copies of our books. It's not a lot, but it doesn't really matter because you have to consider that money from these sales will not be given back to us anyway (which is fraud, we still have a contract) as it has been the case for the past 7 weeks. So, we're not promoting books on those channels as we used to.

: FairSquare paperwork from Diamond Comics

"Now, what's even crazier, is that Diamond keeps accepting returns for our books (which obviously is also a problem) while not paying us and, as Fantagraphics said, "holding our inventory hostage." On June 18, I formally asked Diamond to STOP selling our books. The warehouse did not get the memo (apparently). Another issue (=fraud). As you see on the statement, our books are on "consigment" basis, which means they are at the Diamond facility but remain our full and sole property. Our future is in jeopardy because some people we don't know are still figuring things out about who owns what at Diamond. This is insane and another case for fraud.

"As we're about to leave to attend ALA, the American Library Association Book festival, a place where most librarians and retailers come to discover what publishers have been up to, I have every intention to talk about what we're experiencing to anyone who'll visit our table (booth #2450 in Artist Alley). People need to know. As I wrote in a previous post, it's a case of attack on Freedom of publishing we're facing. It's obvious ground for multiple lawsuits. And we'll get there.

"But above everything, I'm writing and showing this because our peers and readers need to know the truth. They need transparency. And if you like what FairSquare Graphics and many other publishers tied in this web of deceit are publishing, please buy directly from us. Please support our crowdfunding campaigns. Please help us outlive this cruel joke while we're looking for a new distribution partner for the bookstores and library channels. Every sign of support counts. Thank you.

And he also adds,

"At this point, I'm going to call Diamond, thieves and bandits. We have NOT authorized this. And if this happens, I am disgusted. How can we trust another big company with our most valued property, our books. The fact that none of the vendors had any official note but have to rely on journalists proves the level of contempt Diamond's operators have for their clients (us)."

FairSquare Graphics is a small, family, immigrant and minority owned company created in June 2019 by Fabrice Sapolsky (co-creator of Spider-Man Noir), Kristal Adams Sapolsky (Netflix, Hulu) and Ethan Sapolsky to develop, publish and distribute original comic books and graphic novels. With a mission statement to promote and give more exposure to immigrants, minorities and under-represented creators of the world. You can use these Diamond tabs to keep up with the latest on Bleeding Cool and find out how we got here. Here's a timeline if you want to catch up…