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What Is The Future For Diamond Previews Catalogue After Bankruptcy?

What Is The Future For Diamond Previews Catalogue After Bankruptcy? We hear from the person responsible for putting it all together.

Published Tue, 21 Jan 2025 11:57:07 -0600

by Rich Johnston

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For eighteen years, Allyn Gibson has written the Diamond Previews catalogue. The massive tome that lists, advertises and, well, previews, everything coming from Diamond Comic Distributors. It has grown in size over the decades, even as Marvel, DC, Image, IDW and Dark Horse left it. Somehow it got even bigger. It has been criticised over the years, but looking back it provides a wealth of historical and cultural context for the comic book industry over its thirty-plus years of publication. Copies even become collectable when someone decided that this counst as a the first appearance of a character. It was noted in the bankruptcy filing that Transcontinental Inc were owed $243,541.48. Transcontinental is the printer that prints Previews and all of Diamond's catalogues and order forms. So the future of the Previews catalogue has to be in doubt wth that kind of debt. Indeed, the next volume will be a week late.

Lenore & Silverhawks On Front Of Next Week's Diamond Previews — Diamond Previews

Nevertheless, Allyn Gibson confirms on his blog that "I have a job, and I remain hard at work. I began my work on the March 2025 catalog on Wednesday." That might of course not mean it will be published and/or printed, he also worked on the May 2020 Previews catalogue that was never printed because of the very lockdown that enabled DC Comics, then all the big buys, to pull their exclusive distribution deals, and which led to this current chain of events.

Solomon Kane & Through Red Windows on Next Diamond Previews Cover — Diamond Previews

Allyn also says "Diamond has been a part of my life since 1991. (A vintage 1991 shipping box is in my closet.) I saw my work on PREVIEWS as a great responsibility–it is the tool of the comics industry–and I always tried to do right by the publishers, the readers, the industry as a whole." And he repeats what he said when lockdown hit and everything changed. "All I can do is to do the best job I can do today, and I will deal with tomorrow when it comes. If we go down, at least I will know I did everything I could." But that also includes updating his LinkedIn profile.

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