Flash back a few years: Diamond shut down deliveries almost immediately at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving shops with no new books on shelves for weeks. This spurred publishers to find alternate distributors, like Lunar and Penguin Random House, which Marvel and DC either co-sponsored or helped stand up, and other publishers like Image and BOOM! have been jumping ship ever since.
Meanwhile, Diamond was left with a toy and game distribution business, a number of small press publishers, and as a secondary distributor for major comics publishers, but the damage was done. Diamond, bleeding customers, also started bleeding money—as the exclusive home of fewer and smaller comic publishers and niche collectibles, their business shrank and their revenue followed. So, according to the bankruptcy filings, Diamond got paid, but they had trouble passing it along to the publishers. And for smaller publishers like TwoMorrows or Antarctic Press, that’s really bad.
Court filings at the beginning of the month revealed that Diamond owed millions of dollars to a few big publishers—most of whom could afford the hit, like Bandai or Disney—and hundreds of thousands of dollars to a bunch of smaller publishers like Antarctic, who are in real trouble. They don’t have the kind of catalog or consistent revenue to allow them to eat a six-figure gap in payments.
It was bad when Diamond was alone in the marketplace. Diamond was notorious for late deliveries, missing product, and damaged goods. But it’s bad that Diamond is leaving it, too.
If you’re a comic shop looking for a copy of a new Flash series that is an unexpected, buzzy hit, when Diamond was the only game in town, you used to have to hope Diamond had it or wait for a second printing. Then, for a very little while, you could poke around and see if Lunar or PRH had a copy. Now, you’re back to hoping for second printings. This isn’t good for the business, it’s not good for the shops, and it’s not good for us as readers.
Diamond may have been a pain, but it’s also staffed by people who love comics and it’s heartbreaking to know that they’re in a precarious position. The industry is locked into pretty significant change now. Here’s hoping it comes out the other side stronger.