More small publishers are announcing changes and speaking out about the difficulties they are facing due to Diamond Comics owing them money. Canada’s Black Panel Press – has launched a crowdfunder to help them get through this rough patch. Coffin Comics is going DtC and wholesale. Antarctic is putting a hold on all their titles that are not company owned.
Before giving more details on all this, David Harper’s SKTCHD has a comprehensive report, based on many many conversations with retailers and publishers, on the state of things. You’ll need to be a subscriber to read it – folks, it’s a measly $5 a month – and I won’t try to summarize it here aside from the belief (which I share) that this won’t kill the direct market. But by Harper’s count there are 91 publishers who are solely carried by Diamond.
The other side is that if Diamond doesn’t survive, many of its exclusive publishers might not be picked up by PRH or Lunar, if only because there are a lot of them. Based on my count, Diamond currently carries 91 publishers that neither PRH nor Lunar handle as well. Of those 91, 40 sell new single-issue comics. The other distributors will likely pick up some of them, but all 91? There’s no chance, both because of the material and sales potential. Case in point: Antarctic Press, who is one of those single-issue publishers exclusive to Diamond, revealed that its efforts to connect with PRH and Lunar have generated zero traction. I’m sure they’re not alone. And if a publisher is owed significant money and doesn’t have distribution, that’s going to be a problem.
Yes it is. An even bigger problem is the ticking clock: Diamond has until April 1 to find a buyer or it could shut down entirely, as reported in The Baltimore Banner, based on court filings:
Diamond Comic Distributors’ bankruptcy filing last week could mean layoffs and the closure of its Hunt Valley headquarters if it doesn’t find a buyer by April 1.
If its sale efforts don’t succeed, Diamond would cease operations, close its main office and lay off as many as 168 employees, the company said this week in a federally mandated notification to the Maryland Department of Labor. […]
“Diamond Comic Distributors is actively attempting to secure a buyer for its business operations other than its Alliance division,” Diamond told Hunt Valley employees in the federally mandated notice, according to a Diamond spokesperson. “Although we are hopeful to locate a buyer, if our efforts are unsuccessful, Diamond will unfortunately have to cease operations. While we continue to pursue a buyer, the Diamond business will continue as usual.”
According to another filing, obtained by The Beat, Diamond has retained Raymond James as their investment banker “regarding a potential Transaction.” The letter of agreement is dated September 30, 2024, so the writing has been on the wall for a while – and validates our previous suspicions that Diamond was looking to get acquired.
Meanwhile, small publishers are beginning to take action.
Black Panel Press publishes indie-centric books of the kind you might find at SPX such as The Amazing Camel Toe, a French GN by Claire Dunlan. Publisher Andrew Benteau writes that Diamond owes them about $28,000 and while they hope to get a new distributor, they are looking to the community in the meantime:
After the best year in Black Panel Press’s history (over 5,000 books sold and receiving the prestigious JLG Gold Selection for Shadows on the Ice), our distributor Diamond Comics has filed for bankruptcy, owing us over $28,000 altogether. We need that money to pay our authors’ royalties and to print our upcoming releases, plus everything else that goes into running this business.
We have a plan to set things back on course, but we need help, so we’ve started a GoFundMe campaign to raise donations to get us through the next few months.
After that period, either the situation with Diamond will stabilize or we’ll have new distribution elsewhere.
This company has been a labor of love for seven years. We’ve published books by creators from all over the world, many of whom have told me how no other publishers were interested in their books. Comics are important; we need more of them, not less.
If you can share this, great. Even better if you can donate. Your help means a lot.
Coffin Comics, publishers of Brian Pulido’s Lady Death and related titles, has announced they are pulling all orders from Diamond and will be going direct to consumer and selling wholesale:
Following Diamond Comic Distributors’ recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, Coffin Comics is adapting to ensure fans and retailers can still enjoy our titles without interruption. Effective immediately, Coffin Comics will no longer fulfill purchase orders for Lady Gunfighter through Diamond. Instead, we are excited to launch a direct-to-consumer and wholesale solution to make Lady Gunfighter books previously purchased at local comic book shops accessible to our loyal supporters and retail partners.
Fans who previously placed an order for Lady Gunfighter with their local comic shop and wish to secure their books can now choose between two options. First, encourage your local comic book shop to set up a wholesale account with Coffin Comics. Comic shops can set up a wholesale account directly with Coffin Comics, allowing them to receive their orders in time for the anticipated in-store date of February 19. To qualify, wholesale orders must be placed by February 6, with shipping to begin on February 10.
The second option is to order Lady Gunfighter: Desolation #1 directly through Coffin Comics, and we will ship your order directly to your door.
As a courtesy, Coffin Comics is offering free shipping on wholesale orders to ease this transition. Coffin Comics is fiercely dedicated to our loyal fans and local comic book shops and wants to do everything we can to support them through this process. For more information or assistance in setting up a wholesale account, visit our information page.
Antarctic Press has been even more blunt about what this means for them. The company has been around forever in small press terms – since 1985 – and has published such well known titles as Warrior Nun Areala, and Ninja High School.
According to a long FB post by publisher/owner Joeming Dunn, they “saw the writing on the wall” from Diamond for a while, and tried unsuccessfully to get Lunar or PRH to carry their books. However, having been through the many vagaries of the DM, they are taking a pragmatic wait and see approach.
“To all our creators. I have been asked quite a bit about the bankruptcy of Diamond Comics Distribution. To be frank I saw the writing on the wall some time ago as they were a very consistent payer on time and when things became a bit “wonky” I started reading the tea leaves.
I personally, regarding Antarctic Press, are taking a “don’t panic”, pragmatic, “let us see what happens” approach to this situation. I am assuming many people with financial interests are all coming to bear and we will see if enough smart people can pull things together to make Diamond stronger and more stable than before.
Antarctic Press is in a situation like many independent publishers where Diamond was a substantial portion of our income. But over the last 40 years of our existence, we have also seen and have been involved in many things within the industry. We have never had the financial position and power to do or enact change, which we believe would have been beneficial to the industry which should have been done long ago but that is entirely different discussion.
In any case, Antarctic Press is fortunate in that I believe we can sustain the market change until “things get figured out at Diamond.”
Our plan is to do business as usual in the short term with Diamond. While the invoices due prior to bankruptcy will need to be reconciled at some point (my guess at pennies on the dollar) as they say, it is what they it is. We will most likely have to eat those costs as this probably will not be resolved for some time.
We have a stream of books coming through the pipeline which are arriving over the next weeks. We will ship Diamond their books in hopes they will honor their commitment to them. I am not holding my breath but the books are already printed and are being shipped to us from overseas so we will be holding the bag on those. If they do not pay for those books, it will answer quite a few questions from our perspective. And then we will have to decide how to go forward.
Now, unfortunately this will impact our creator owned projects, we may have prioritized things which can make us immediate funds that we can control their production and rights. In other words, for instance, we can do crowd funding campaigns that will help stabilize our income, which we are unable to do with most of our creator owned projects because we do not have those rights. Therefore, we have put a hiatus on some creator owned books because of that. In other words, we have to prepare for the contingency of Diamond not following through and because of that we cannot continue to hold the bag on the debts associated with that. We hope that this will change again…we again must wait and see.
We have attempted over the past year to get Penguin Random House or Lunar to carry our books but to no avail. The frustration in that process is that we have emailed them multiple times and have gotten maybe one response from them and when I follow up, I am ghosted. I wish I had an insider who I could talk to with those distributors, but I do not, so I am assuming they do not want to pick publishers like us at this time. That is their prerogative, so I am not upset about it, but we were not given a chance to give them our sales pitch.
While I personally appreciate all our creator owned projects, I understand that if you need to move on we of course will not inhibit that in anyway. I cannot predict the future. We have taken some steps to try to weather the current storm. If we are successful or not is yet to be seen but in our over the 40 years of our existence as a publisher, I can honestly say we have seen it all when it comes to this industry. Again, when we figure it out, we will try to keep everyone up to date. Thanks for being patient with us during this period of time.”
However, a more recent post by Ben Dunn, the founder and one of the chief creators at Antarctic, says they are taking steps to shutdown creator-owned and anthology titles, while AP owned books will continue:
I wish I had better news to report but apparently based on a recent news article: https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/…/diamond-comic…/ unless Diamond can find a buyer by APRIL 1 it will cease operations. Therefore AP has to make the hard choice to put a freeze on all anthologies and creator owned titles as of February 1. This will effect any comics not already solicited. Those that are solicited may come out depending on the Diamond situation as AP will continue to ship comics to them that already in the pipeline (i.e. already printed and/or shipping). It is a heavy heart to write this as AP has the best creators but the reality is that we cannot sustain our current business model due to unforeseen circumstances. Rest assure that any royalty payments owed will be paid in a timely fashion. The only exception to this freeze rule are any projects that are controlled by AP. This includes any projects that involve NINJA HIGH SCHOOL, TOMORROW GIRL, PENGUINA, TIGER-X, HEAVEN SENT, SILVER CROSS, MIGHT TINY etc. or owned by ANTARCTIC PRESS. If you want to present projects concerning these properties please contact me at ——. We have plans to assure the continued existence of AP with a major announcement after San Diego Comic Con. I know things are in major flux right now. If things change I will certainly let everyone know. If you have any questions feel free to DM me and I will try to answer them as best I can. Thanks to all our readers and fans as we go through this trying time. Your support means the world to us.
We’ve all heard about “major announcements after SDCC” before, so make of this what you will.
As for retailers, Nostalgia Ink, a 35 year old comics shop in Jackson, MI, pointed out some other aspects of Diamond’s shipping issues : that they carried so many titles that were returnable.
2) In the past Dynamite, DSTLRY and a few other publishers have had generous returnability programs with early issues of their series. If you see large piles of Red Sonja or Vampirella on our shelves, this is why. While Diamond is saying these programs are continuing with no interruption, that would end suddenly if Diamond closed and retailers would get left holding the bag. I have discontinued these ordering practices effective this month. Comics by Dynamite, DSTLRY, American Mythology, Massive and some other small publishers will likely be subscription or special order only until (if) Diamond comes out of this. I’ve already moved all possible orders away from them to other sources.
So we’ve heard from American Mythology, Massive, Coffin, Antarctic, and Black Panel Press. Boom and Mad Cave have made their announcements. Who are some of those other 91 publishers? The biggest are Dynamite, DSTLRY, Titan and Archie. Some others: Ablaze, Zenescope, Alien/Valiant, Living the Line, and many more. Diamond has yet to file a complete list of creditors, but that is going to be a hard read.
In closing, I want to stress one thing: I’ve been conducting my own interviews for a future overview of the Diamond situation, and there is not one person I’ve spoken to who doesn’t want Diamond to pull through this. It gives me absolutely no joy to report on all this. The people who work at Diamond care a lot about comics and the community, no matter what else you may think. But we’ve got a few rough months ahead of us, at the very least.
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