Posted in: Ablaze Publishing, AfterShock, Ahoy, Antarctic Press, AWA, Bad Idea, Black Mask Studios, Boom, Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, Dynamite, Fantagraphics, IDW, Image, Lev Gleason, Marvel Comics, Oni Press, Opus Comics, Quirk, Rebellion / 2000AD, Titan, Tokyopop, Top Cow, Valiant, Vault, Viz Media, Yen Press | Tagged: tarrif, tax

More Problems For The Comics Industry Over The 25% Taxes And Tariffs

Yesterday, Bleeding Cool looked at potential fears for the comic book industry regarding promised tariffs and taxes.

Yesterday, Bleeding Cool looked at potential fears for the comic book industry regarding promised tariffs and taxes being levelled against Canada, Mexico and China. And a few more people with knowledge of the situation have been having their say.

Anne Trubek is an author, founder, and director of Belt Magazine, the writer of The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting and A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses. Her work is generally concerned with the social history of widespread aspects of reading and writing, including the history of handwriting, the emergence of paperback novels, and the trend toward making popular writers' houses into museums. She has also been looking at paper stocks in light of the planned Canadian, Mexican, and Chinese tariffs by the upcoming US Presidential administration. Yesterday, Bleeding Cool looked at concerns across the comic book industry over what is or is not coming down the pipe.

But Anne Trubek has the facts and figures at her fingertips. "Top three suppliers of paper to the US: Canada, China, Mexico. This is a post about books. It is true that lots of US publishers currently use Chinese printers, and that might change, but this stat is for paper that domestic printers would use … mills have been closing for years, many have converted to cardboard, and printers have been consolidating. TONS of changes in paper & printing of books in past 5 years have already happened. The switch to cardboard is related to online shopping. Mills closing—private equity buying up & closing. Printer consolidation: logic of capitalism—big buying up smaller. Publishers have been dealing with paper stock shortages for years. During COVID, printer turnaround time was insanely slow. Printing costs are about 50% higher than they were 5 years ago. Consumers and booksellers have been complaining about rising book prices for a few years. But publishers aren't passing along all of their increased costs. Margins are thiiiiiiin"

While author and publisher Glenn Fleishman of How Comics Were Made wrote "Wearing my crowdfunding and printing consulting hat: If you were counting on printing a book or having other printed work done in China in 2025, note that while there is a 0% import tariff, it could easily be 25% to 100% in a few months with little warning. Obviously messes with budgets. I printed my last book and advised client mwichary to print Shift Happens in North America partly due to uncertainly in tariffs, US/China relations under Biden (including tariffs, many of which remained or increased), ocean shipping rates, and human rights in China. Everyone has different red lines (no joke meant here) about how they measure different moral, political, and financial factors. If tariffs rise tremendously on books, that will mean a huge shift in business to printers in the U.S. plus Canada and Europe (tariffs less likely on books for them). Which, in turn, means that if you're budgeting a project to print in China and you are concerned about book tariffs, you should start talking now to printers elsewhere, as they will almost certainly be fully booked ("joke" intended) if tariffs come to pass."

Which is just what tariffs are intended to achieve. Unless there aren't any American printers left to pick up the slack… comic book retailer of The Cargo Hold, Warren Hayes added "Using tariffs to strong arm importers to move manufacturing to the US is never going to happen. Even at 60/20 China/world or 25/10 NA/China it will still be cheaper to continue to manufacture outside of the US. The import industry is a multi-trillion dollar industry. It's not going anywhere. They have lobbyists too with importers with deep pockets. All the increased tariffs will do is increase imported goods prices, receive retaliatory export tariffs, rise in inflation and cause layouts which we are already seeing. The average comic retailer? How many more comics stores will close? Could Diamond survive?"

It seems there will be more and more to come on this one.

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