>a literal, legally recognized monopoly
>couldn't survive two weeks without immeditely folding under pressure, unable to pay off debtors, singlehandedly collapses an industry that was an american institution for a hundred years. There's no argument to be had about indies surviving, simple fact is that there's no industry to be independent of anymore. Its fucking GONE.
This seems like a bad omen of things to come, far outreaching our little niche hobby.
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The floppies aspect of the industry was always going to fade away eventually. This is it just going out in a blaze of glory all at once. Digital releases will continue to evolve. Trades will still be a thing. And content creators will still makes asses out of themselves on social media.
Gotta say, I kinda love it. Yes, it sucks that LCS' are fuuuuucked, and the major publishers are going to struggle to find new distribution methods, and comic book production is on indefinite hold until everyone can figure something out... But like, they did this to themselves. This is one of the many reasons why monopolies are so fundamentally awful. And it's fucking hilarious. Get fucked, you immoral trash company.
The smart shops will the ones that sell older comics and collectible toys and other niche items.
They were already doing that anyway, since actual comic books haven't been profitable for, oof, arguably decades now.
Ding dong the witch is dead.
>glory
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
That just means that digital will replace floppies
That would require the companies to grow some balls and stop cucking to the retailers, and start releasing what should be coming out right now digitally.
>couldn't survive two weeks without immeditely folding under pressure
If I recall correctly, about a decade ago Diamond brought in outside consultants to streamline business. Many jobs were cut due to automation, minimums were increased, and Diamond instituted a barcode requirement, all in an attempt to cut off the bottom of the publishing pack, and it was successful at that. But it didn't reduce their operating costs, and they still haven't made back their investment, or so I've been told.
They did everything according to bean counters, but without giving consideration to real world context. They don't have cash on hand, and the developments over the past week seems to corroborate it.
It’s amazing how we’ve acted like monopolies are unstoppable juggernauts but it really doesn’t take much to put them on live support, especially the massive ones like Disney who can’t pay the electric bill without taking out a loan
>LCS' are fuuuuucked
Are they though?
I mean, I can't speak for every store, obviously, but every store around me, in Portland, transitioned to gaming and generalized nerd memorabilia at least a full decade ago. I don't know a store whose primary revenue source is books has existed past 2007
So they're really only half fucked.
>cucking to
The fuck does that even mean? Capitulating. Capitulating is a good word for what you are presumably trying to convey. Fucking hell, user.
One of Diamonds Subsidies also is a primary distributor for board games which I know keeps the money flowing
Monopolies *become* monopolies in a booming economy. Monopolies are terrible fucking ideas because one of the main characteristics of a monopoly is an inability to adapt to changing markets and a leaner economy.
Even though this is an inevitable outcome, I still feel sad.
Sure, the weak are purged and everything evolves, I get it. Doesn't mean I feel thrilled to see something I've grown up with finally take a bullet to the temple.
Maybe they should've saved at least three months of operating costs, huh?
And deny the Canadian Pension Fund their dividends?
Best case for all this is that Diamond and the floppy market mostly dies, big 2 swaps to individual issues being digital and only printing trades and setting up a new chain for all of that. and with it being digital they increase the release schedule for books to two issues a month as the standard
DC should be expanding their anthology line and sell it to more stores and not just wal-mart and target. Use magazine distribution.
They already have 9 titles in the line, with a pretty good spread of features across the line. They could increase the amount of new material per issue. And work on getting more stores to carry them. Maybe they can use the Giant Line to start releasing some of the material they had in the pipline though I think they should just start releasing the issues digitally now. In the short term DC's printer is also shutdown.
Don't know what Marvel can do. Crawl back t Archie and make another attempt at those digests?
To be honest, they should use this as an opportunity and just start over fresh with decent writers and scrap whatever they had in the pipeline. Get rid of Bendis and his plans and just do meat and potatoes anthologies with the main DC characters.
To be fair it's been limping along for 30 fucking years.
Bad things are coming but a monopoly of a dying market finally going down is hardly the women you think it is.
DC's giant line is available to LCSs now. It sells like shit at my store. No one wants to pay $5 for 18 new pages and three stories they already have, and the few people who are interested get them at Wal-Mart because they come out a month earlier there.
I have series I've actually been enjoying at DC and want proper resolutions, not them just being canceled.
I'll agree with kicking Bendis of the superbooks and fixing what he's done to Jon, but that's another matter.
Yeah because the diehard comic book store guys who've read all the reprints and aren't interested in original material that's meant to stand on it's own aren't the primary audience. It's preteens who see the characters in movies or tv, see giants in the store and ask their parents to get them the comic book.
One of the LCS near me basically turned into a Magic the Gathering hot spot along with other knick knacks.
They'll probably transition into gaming since theres a nearby GameStop and I doubt those bastards will last.
I hope stores that are still open and hosting games institute thermometer checks at the door, mask/bandana requirements, and daily wipe-downs. Bad PR is the last thing these stores need.
As life's required literacy floor drops, so to does the average level of linguistic ability. When being well-read and highly literate was an essential skill, more people had wide vocabularies and knew how to use them.
This was inevitable anyway regardless if the virus happened or not, this only speed things up
Disney isn't a monopoly, it is just a very successful entertainment company.
Going out in a blaze of glory would have been if Deathmate fully killed it instead of only almost killing it. That was the closest the industry came to dieing before this, and death by a catastrophic crossover event would have been far more interesting than being a footnote as one of the many industries collapsing because of covid.
>Crawl back t Archie
Why would Archie still be around after all this? Sure, they do their distribution differently from everyone else, but they've been strapped for cash for years. How are they supposed to survive something that hits the industry like this?
How though? We know that Didio ruined the DC writers pool to kowtow to King and Bendis, The talent's not there anymore.
DiDio is gone, so either Lee needs to clean house, or he needs to be replaced by someone who will need to do what needs to be done to fix their office.
Ok retard
Good riddance.
My LCS is all comics.... and books. Behind the counter are some statues but it’s vast majority paper product
Is this a new comic book dark age?
You could probably keep floppies around if we start printing them on cheaper paper again to bring the price down. Collector's might have a fit about quality but if it is an affordable hobby to follow books while they are coming out again it might a nice little niche again.
2 or more Distribute hubs
-Amazon
-Mile High
-Ollie's Bargain Outlet, yes Ollie's. I mean where will most current trades eventually end up at?
LCS kind of deserve this. So many of them hold on to back issues by marking them up a dollar or two from the cover price and they end up just sitting around. Like they hope they skyrocket in price some day but they end up just making it a pain to read an old series that didn't get a TBP by squeezing everything they can out of it.
The only really successful store in my area would liquidate books after a few years and that dude ended up selling the store for a ton and then the next dude ran it into the ground buy doing the same shit every store does.
Ollie's only covers the east side of the ohio river.
He's not wrong. Disney does not have a monopoly on the entertainment industry. There are plenty of other studios. WB alone has all the IPs it needs to be equal to Disney but they're mismanaged
Ok, let's just have them start with movie theaters. Fuck small businesses. Bootlicker retard.
>They'll take other hobby shops down with them.
Nice.
You're an idiot and you're not worth my time
>company can finally cash the goverment support.
>few employees can get cuts in salaries
>managers can finally sell it off
i say fuck Diamond comic distributors, inc.
Ollie is in Georgia and Florida...
>a literal, legally recognized monopoly
The only reason such a weak company was a monopoly in comic distribution is that there's just no money in comics.
Diamond has been around for ages, and they fold within 2 weeks of comic book shops being closed, tells you just how razor-thin the margins are for distributors and retailers.
still want floppies though :/
They were NEVER a "monopoly". The comic book industry is too small to support more than one distributor. It's as simple as that.
Floppies that can sustain themselves should keep being made. The industry just shouldn't allow itself to be held hostage to this one format, to one group of retailers, or to one channel.
Pretty sure those are east of the Ohio river.
All roads to this problem lead back to Marvel.
Fucking this. I look forward to seeing all the new ideas people are going to have without the monkey on their back that Diamond was.
switch to manga format, weekly releases in a digest then sell trades/volumes, $4 for a 20 page book vs Shonen Jump which costs $5, it works for manga it can work for comics.
In fact I bet not only will it work great for comics it will help new characters and books get off the ground as they'll be included in the digest It's great exposure for new properties which the industry needs anyway, it can also allow for one shots or comics designed with an end.
I think we're past physical, especially since Japan seems to have it mostly work because both tradition and a near national commuter system.
Western Comics should probably focus more on a digital scheme that actually works.
fine, Shonen Jump in America is $2 a month digital only and you can read whatever the goddam hell you want with a huge ass back catalog.
Add DC comics to HBO Max and Marvel to Disney+ and offer them as separate services as well, if they do it like the "interactive" comics that were on the Vita (they added sfx sometimes) or keep it like Amazon with panel pop out then even better.
The do special print runs for big titles like Limited Run Games.
Gross, I'm not fucking buying a shitty black and white digest
Also you fucking fags are assuming the big two wont bail them out like the government bails out banks you're retarded. Disney and WB got enough pull.
>I bet
you don't have the money
why would it be black and white?