>Bleeding Cool just ran DC's statement to comic book retailers, confirming that they will be seeking alternative distribution (and presumably printing as well) during the current coronavirus pandemic shutdown that has seen Diamond Comic Distributors close, their printers Transcontinental close and thousands of comic book stores and bookstores close. As well as getting certain comics to certain comic books stores that are: a) in the USA, b) in states that haven't entirely shut down and c) operating mail-order services, DC has confirmed to Bleeding Cool that they will also continue digital distribution, with a handful of titles being digitally distributed this Wednesday on the DC app, ComiXology, Amazon Kindle and the like.
>Which titles will be chosen are still unclear, but the original plan for this Wednesday would have included the following. I understand the selection hasn't been entirely settled upon yet.
Oh and DC is also trying aussage retailer fears by saying their trying find a new printer and "multiple distributors"(HAHAHA) to replace Diamond.
>To Direct Market Retailers:
>First, the entire team here at DC hopes that you, your family and your employees are staying safe and healthy during this very tough and precarious time. We know that you have been waiting for DC to comment on the state-of-affairs and to address any measures we will take to help our community lighten the burden of the disruption to our business, and we've been working hard on a long-term, solution-focused plan. Here is how we will help:
>Periodicals and books with in-store dates between March 18, 2020 and June 24, 2020 will be fully returnable. We'll even provide credit for your separate return shipping of these items only.
>Additionally, because we anticipate that continued disruption to business operations will create regional volatility, DC is exploring a multi-distributor model to provide us with the flexibility needed during this crisis to get new content to our readers on an ongoing basis. In the short-term, we continue to engage in active conversations with Diamond to help us solve the distribution issues that have arisen and hope to get new product to stores that want or need it as soon as possible. We will provide additional information about how we'll make that happen in the coming days.
>Thanks for your patience with us. DC will continue to monitor the situation, continue to speak with you directly, and continue to support you through the days ahead. You are the lifeblood of this industry.
>All best,
>The DC Team
Juan Butler
bump
Jason Russell
they won't release any good comics during the time but I like that they are doing this because it unleashes chaos and jealousy among remaining comic shops
Juan Adams
Don’t care It’s all just the same anti white male sjw garbage
Kayden Lee
sounds like they will pause any books with major significance but keep publishing the solo titles. Seems like a good comprimise
Levi Clark
You sure care enough to post the same thing in multiple threads
>"multiple distributors"(HAHAHA) Why are you laughing? If this proves that distributing comics outside of Diamond can work on a national scale, then it could prove to be a severe blow to Diamond's monopoly on the operation and potentially bring comics to a wider audience if they're allowed to distribute in non-LCS outlets.
Robert Watson
The only thing I care about is The Green Lantern
Ryder Lewis
Did they issue a pencil down order and are just pushing out finished products or are they confident enough to keep producing new issues and only selling the same amount of books to like 10% of the market everyone else will be fighting over too?
I'm an oldfag, so I remember the good old days of spinner racks and comics in convenience stores and other spots as a child. Millennials and Zoomers grew up in a vacuum where comics were only ever available at their ELL SEE ESS, and while comic shops can be nice - it's a fucking stupid business model.
Embracing digital for single issues wouldn't be terrible. Then retailers could focus on carrying the easier to shelve / stock trade format. Only lunatics are willing to shell out $4-5 for 20-22 pages of comics, and this is coming from someone who passionately enjoys comics as a medium.
rentistoodamnhighguy.jpg
Blake Morris
I question their ability to find even one alternate distributor(especially during this chaos), let alone multiple.
Robert Johnson
this desu
Zachary Howard
if this is the only way to release comics for them right now then it'll be much more than 10%
don't see why they'd just stop producing comics
Tyler Williams
They'd stop making new books because they can't even get a return on the production at that point. The number of digital readers won't support their current output, it's just not going to happen. If DC is going all digital, they are effectively saying half of our books are about to end or go on hiatus.
Cooper Murphy
>multiple distributors Guys, was allowing a decades long monopoly bad?
Aiden Rogers
>The number of digital readers won't support their current output The real question is will single issue buyers that only buy physical switch to read digital during the pandemic or will they just not purchase anything?
Parker Reed
Could spinner racks really make a come back in places like Walgreens and grocery stores? That'd be wild. It's what got me to notice comics at a young age.
Easton Roberts
Not if digital is the same price at print.
Hudson Gray
>or go on hiatus. I mean that IS the other option, so it can't be any worse.
Nathan Price
they have no major titles right now besides batman books
Jayden Jenkins
Yeah, but I doubt most of the books will survive the hiatus because coming out of it DC is going to need money and that book that was doing middling to shit numbers is not going to get more issues.
Justin Stewart
>hey are effectively saying half of our books are about to end Well, they were planning to do the 5G reboot/relaunch in the fall, so maybe they're hoping things are over by then and right now they're on cruise control.
Christian Mitchell
This would have been a good opportunity to market their app and get more people to go digital for single issues.
William Howard
Yeah. But there's a problem Kids are too busy looking at their phones And kids and adults are 100% turned off by the shit that the big 2 is putting out nowadays. Not even the degenerate comic geeks are into this bullshit anymore.
Henry Ross
No
Elijah Howard
>major titles right now besides batman books No... King pretty much torpedoed that shit. And no, muh punchline and harley showing up to get beat up/fight for her puddin excited no one.
Joshua Peterson
Don't kid yourself, comics shops are 8/10 times fucking miserable with totally shit owners that have no business working among the public and gatekeeping faggots hanging out in there all day long.
Asher King
They're releasing print & digital.
Samuel Butler
That is an issue. No comic writer is producing a damn thing anyone wants to read. They are only writing for other comic writers and twitter followers to praise them. And not making anything for a fan of any kind.
Jack Powell
Really, there's not a single comic being published right now that you like?
James Brooks
How? Their Printer shutdown. Diamond, who's basically their only distrubutor shutdown. Who's going to replace them? Digital is the only thing that will still works.
You know, if DC were to produce a colored version of a manga and put it out 1 chapter at a time, that could be fun. I'm not suggesting something like Dragon Ball (that would take years even if it was weekly), but something with under 10 volumes like a Yu-gi-oh spinoff could work.
Great for dc comic!!! diamond is a monopoly, it s not fair stop new comics coming out when there s the digital option available. at least for now.
Jose Perry
Crunchyroll is WB genius.
Christian Anderson
Crunchyroll buyed Viz in Europe, no Warner. Warner hasn't consolidated anything btw
Brody Hall
they wouldn't release any good comics either way
Luke Ward
true, Superman smashes the Klan is over now
Jaxon Edwards
>Embracing digital for single issues wouldn't be terrible. They need to work on the pricing still. $4 or $5 for a digital issue is beyond retarded and will still be a huge hindrance. $1 or $2 is better as it's just far more affordable.
A subscription model is preferable too and you can even somewhat mangafy it. By that I mean you can essentialy make each "family" of titles into a "digital magazine" sort of deal. Group all Batfamily titles together for instance, offer a subscription to them, things like that. Ideally the first (or first three) and most recent issues should be free while you can pay a subscription fee for the archive/back issues (like what Mangaplus and other online manga magazines do). If LCSes throw a fit, well, so what? If you're that worried you can put the most recent issue at a reasonable price point ($1 or $2) and then after, say, 2-4 weeks make that issue free on the site/app so you incentivize people paying while still making it easier for people to read and thus.
I also feel like a model like this would allow for a lot more diversity in the types of books that can come out. Batman might dominate but other characters or genres (romance, western, whatever) in this kind of format might have a chance too because you're basically using the issues as advertisement for the TPBs. Making it more affordable and easier to get will help digital sales and views as well; making it only/most easily available on Comixology with no good online reader for the same price as physical floppies likely plays a large part in why digital sales lag behind floppy sales.
It'll be a great shift but this whole thing has really exposed more than ever the giant faults in the current model of distribution. It's not even suggesting anymore: things have to change if the comic publishers want to survive as anything other than reprint and IP farms.
Jayden Jenkins
It wouldn't matter, physical print media is dying. Even in Japan this is true: Weekly Shonen Jump 25-35 years ago was circulating 6 million copies. Today it's still the biggest magazine but its circulation is down to 1.74 million copies. Physical releases will largely be fine in collections (i.e. tankobons and TPBs) but on the whole print is dying copared to digital.
Spinner racks in stores would be a band-aid on a bullet wound scenario. The entire reason the direct market model exists was as a response to declining newsstand sales (so newsstands, drug stores, etc.). Newsstand sales continued to decline and because of the returnability deal the publishers were out money whereas the direct market was basically "give us a discount and we won't return anything" which was a better deal. This has been ongoing for almost 50 years at this point since the early 70s.
Getting comics back into convenience stores and Walmarts won't help. I prefer physical to digital but the physical floppy is basically a dying model and has been for a long, long time. It's just been exacerbated in the last decade thanks to the rise of easy digital media turning what had been a gradual decline into a terminal fall.
Jack Lee
It's not going to happen. Viz is owned by the same company that owns Shogakukan and Shueisha. It's been a thing in the States for 35 years and as far as comics/graphic novels go it holds the largest market share in the country. The European branch is 13 years old and likely has much stiffer competition but you (and Crunchyroll) are retarded if you think Hitotsubashi is giving up control of large money maker like the American Viz.
Gabriel Butler
Agreed.
I believe the reason digital pricing is currently dumb as fuck is to placate the LCS market. They did not want readers to entirely bypass the print market, so they engaged in price fixing.
No digital comic should cost over $1, and that's being generous. There is no print. Your average comic shop probably gets a 40% discount off cover price when ordering books, the publisher probably pays half of that to print them. Remove print from the cycle and overall prices drop drastically.
The subscription model is also a good suggestion.
Just make comics widespread and affordable again. Young and new readers aren't going to pay more for 20-22 pages of comics than they would for a smartphone game which will provide them hours of play for their investment.
Angel Flores
I hope jim lee or at least one of his children gets coronavirus and dies.
Carson Brooks
The price is to pay artists. The point of the high price is that neither digital nor physical sells well enough to be cheap.
Christopher Davis
You first, Ladderbro.
Ian Ward
Fuck yourself faggot I've spent more on DC a month than you ever will. "Ladderbro" I wish you faggots would kill yourselves.
Chase Carter
>Spinner racks in stores would be a band-aid on a bullet wound scenario. The entire reason the direct market model exists was as a response to declining newsstand sales And yet you think there's a way to return to that model after a decade of every magazine dying. Why?
Anthony Rogers
Not that user, but the mainstream comic market is small and insular. One writer at Marvel or DC can pen multiple titles, and the gatekeeping that goes on ensures their friends get other writing positions in the company; or worse - comic writers are getting replaced by high profile Hollywood fanboy writers preventing new talent from coming to the table.
Basically the market as is is too small due to a number of factors (print dying, high prices, aging readership, corporate ownership of IP's and lack of actual fresh ideas, social media ninnies complaining for days and never purchasing any product just poisoning the well, etc.), so an overhaul of how things are done could be beneficial to comics as a medium and not just as an IP farm for Hollywood (outside of Marvel and DC, how many indie comics are just desperate TV/movie pitches) and aging Wizards and incels (not the pejorative form, just the pre-cool "nerd" culture).
Comics should be like film, literature, and music - mediums you're not expected to grow out of, but one that offers other things for you to read as you age.
And there's nothing wrong with revisiting Superman or X-Men when a creative team you enjoy hops on for a brief moment, but when that's not happening hopefully you'll have other fun and cool comics to read.
Hudson Jones
>They need to work on the pricing still. $4 or $5 for a digital issue is beyond retarded and will still be a huge hindrance. $1 or $2 is better as it's just far more affordable. t. Someone who's never looked into the cost of comics let alone printing and shipping.
Christopher Sanders
>spends money on comics >comics he dislikes >somehow it's the others that are faggots
They'll never sell to you faggots and never should. Most readers want meat and potatoes status quo comics. They don't want social justice warrior faggotry or the type of faggotry you people who don't like cape comics are shilling. All of you faggots just need to fuck off and leave capeshit alone. Write your own shit. Or are you incapable of creating anything of worth?
Brayden Myers
>comics he dislikes You faggot ass children always add something to latch on to. Are you fucking twelve? Did you graduate high school? Stock being an insufferable disingenuous fucking faggot and converse.
All you fucking shut stains everywhere do is whine that cape comics aren't like your faggot ass fan fics.
Christopher Smith
*stop being
Jace Cruz
take your meds grandpa
Connor Phillips
Anons you forget that there's a pandemic going around right now that's causing Lockdowns/Marshall Law. Diamond didn't just wake up one day and said "Y'know a Monopoly is fun but ehh I'll stop now" No matter what we think of Diamond and it's viability this isn't exactly something a competitor can swoop in and fix
Jack Ward
Who touched you user?
Jace Allen
Read the post your replaying to user thinks Physical is dead in the longterm regardless
Gavin Nelson
Seethe harder you moron
Joseph Parker
Your wasting your breath here user. This is populated by degenerates of tumblr. There's a reason they called this Yas Forumsumblr.
Michael Powell
>g-grandpa I'm 28 kid, blow your faggot ass brains out and stream it.
Jim Lee's faggot ass being a fucking work throughout all this touched me deeply. I hope his family faces nothing but sickness and sorrow.
Cameron Sullivan
Your on Yas Forums....is this a rhetorical question.
Carter Brown
Dilate and be more of a fucking faggot, tranny. You'll never be a real woman no matter how hard you try.
And he's retarded because despite shrinking it still makes up 2/3s of the industry outside of scholastic kids books.
Cameron Sanders
You know this place is called Yas Forumsmblr for reason. Why are you surprised of this?
Oliver Rivera
>L-le old man You faggot ass zoomers are the worst. Who celebrates being a newfag?
Ian Nelson
user, comic book artists are freelancers. They do not get paid all that much unless they're working on a top selling title, and IIRC DC / Marvel only offer health / benefits packages to creators under exclusive contract.
The info here is a little outdated, but a good point of reference:
So if you're working for Marvel or DC at the low end $160, and are able to produce one finished page a day (the Dave Sim metric), that's about $20 an hour if you put in an eight hour work day.
You're paying for medical, dental, and vision out of your own pocket. No 401k or retirement package. The company isn't footing the bill for your golden years, so that's a net win for them.
You really have to love comics to work in the medium, and there's a reason we're not seeing comic book millionaires post speculator boom / Image era anymore.
There are plenty of talented artists who have left the industry because it's a bit shit - Mike Zeck, Steve Skroce, Geoff Darrow, Guy Davis, Eric Canete, Adam Pollina, and others. They can make more money and get better benefits working as storyboard artists, concept artists, etc.
Michael White
Not that user. But try a better insult. Your on Yas Forums for fuck sake. Your already a loser.
Isaiah Howard
>Who celebrates being a newfag? Someone who knows there's more to life than capes, for instance.
Daniel Bell
Newfags like you are disgusting
Carter Young
>Your My what? Finish the sentence, user.
Jaxson Ortiz
I'm not surprised you faggot fuck why are your surprised to see someone calling them faggots? I'm in every fucking sales/LCS thread
This has NOTHING to do with what I said. They release 50 books a month. That's 3000k on art per book monthly. Are you fucking retarded!? Dead fucking serious question? Are you mentally fucking retarded!?
Jeremiah Young
Your on Yas Forums stop being high of yourself dipshit.
