EVERYTHING BUT IMAGINARY #177: HOW DIAMOND MAKES THINGS ROUGH

[Blake Petit]

And so another small publisher bites the dust. Claypool Comics, an indy stalwart for years with books like Soulsearchers and Company, Deadbeats and Elvira, has announced that they are canceling their entire print line. After their remaining titles are released, they will pull their line back to one title: an online version of Deadbeats. Whenever a publisher goes away, to me, that's a time to look at what problems comics have as a whole -- and this time, the problem is particularly clear.

Earlier this year we lamented the loss of Speakeasy Comics, but that was a very different situation. Speakeasy, something of a young upstart, was not able to make enough of a profit to sustain a line that exploded with dozens of titles in no time flat. Claypool has been around for years and has a very small, stable line.

Claypool didn’t die because they aren’t making enough money. They died because they didn’t make enough money for Diamond Distribution, which has decided to stop carrying their comics. It’s always sad when a company dies, but for such a long-lived company to die for that reason may be the worst reason of all.

Augie DeBlieck, who does the weekly Pipeline Comics podcast, asked on his show if anyone considered that maybe the reason Claypool didn’t sell enough for Diamond’s requirements is because their books weren’t any good. With all due respect, I think that’s a terribly unfair assumption to make. Anyone who’s been into comics long enough to be reading this column can probably write a laundry list of titles that were fantastic, but didn’t sell enough to stay in print. Hell, just off the top of my head I submit The Thing, H-E-R-O and, of course, Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew. It’s not exclusive to comics, of course. How many TV viewers still mourn the loss of Firefly or even Freaks and Geeks? What justice is there when Titanic is the all-time box office champ and only three people saw Slither? The point is, sales are almost never indicative of quality.

The bigger problem, the way I see it, is the Diamond system itself. Diamond, of course, is a business like any other, and has every right not to carry a product if they don’t think they can make money with it. But when that happens, what alternative does a publisher have? Where else can they go?

Who said “nowhere?” You, in the back of the class, give yourself ten points. And kick the kid in front of you, tell him I said to wake up.

The real problem is that we’ve got a single company – and a distributor, at that – with virtually total control over an entire industry. That’s never a good thing. A comic shop owner of my acquaintance told me that a few years ago an anti-monopoly suit against Diamond was considered, but the courts shot it down because Diamond isn’t the only magazine distributor. Yeah. Because Golf Digest and Y: The Last Man are virtually the same thing. (Soap Opera Digest and Astonishing X-Men, maybe.)

Most readers know how we got to this point, but let’s recap: in the 90s, Marvel comics (in the midst of a company-buying spree that contributed to its eventual bankruptcy) purchased a distributor called Hero’s World. As Marvel now owned its own distributor, it wouldn’t have made much sense for them to use any other distributor, now, would it? So Marvel became Hero’s World exclusive. This made the other comic book companies – and I’m going to use a highly scientific term here, so be prepared – wet their pants. Having the main publisher in the industry locked into a single distributor, and having control over some of their distribution techniques… well, that was a scary thing.

So DC, in response, made an exclusive agreement to only distribute their comics to direct retailers with Diamond. Image, Dark Horse and a slew of smaller publishers quickly followed suit. And even though Marvel was then, as they are now, the biggest publisher, they weren’t big enough to compete with virtually every other publisher collectively. Hero’s World shut down, Marvel joined the other publishers in their distribution techniques and Diamond gained a monopoly that has become a terrible thing for the industry.

Claypool Comics isn’t dying entirely – Deadbeats, as I said, will continue in an online form. Elvira is a licensed title, and could theoretically find another home if they could find someone willing to publish it. Soulsearchers is a Peter David baby, so you never know, it may well wind up as an Icon book one of these days. But it’s a terribly sad thing that a state of affairs exists in comics that makes these few options the only ones.

What alternative could there possibly be? Well… that’s the harder question. It’s not like anyone else could really launch their own distribution company. All of the major publishers have exclusive agreements with Diamond, and without being able to carry Marvel and DC, any new distributor would have a hard time convincing a comic shop owner they’re worth doing business with. So what about alternative areas of distribution? Newsstands used to be the primary means of selling comic books. Now only Archie has a really strong newsstand presence – DC, Marvel and a few others (like Bongo) have a handful of titles that go to the newsstands, but they don’t exist in anything like the numbers they once enjoyed. If they could find a way to fight their way back on newsstands, that might put a chink in Diamond’s armor. I’d especially love it if somebody could find a way to put together a bestseller list that actually included newsstand sales, as well as sales from subscriptions and other methods. The woefully inadequate Diamond list only records books ordered by comic shops – not how many are actually sold at the stores and not how many are sold through alternate avenues. If a true bestseller list could be created somehow, the landscape of comics would change dramatically.

More viable, though, might be internet distribution. There are a lot of online comic shops these days – our own X-World being a prime example. But these online shops still do their ordering through Diamond. What about ordering straight from the publisher? Marvel and DC aren’t likely to go that route anytime soon, but a small publisher could start making inroads that way. And for those of you out there who own your own comic shops, you could help by ordering some comics from a publisher that went that route, then putting them out there to sell to your customers. Publishers could even work out a distribution deal of their own that way, selling just their own books and shipping via UPS. Bam. Another chink.

It’ll be slow, but more and more I’m convinced that finding a way to crack Diamond’s supremacy is essential to helping comics grow as an art form. I’m open to suggestions, guys. I’m sure just about everybody will be.

As for Claypool – I hardly knew ye, and I’m sorry for that. But I hope everyone who’s saying goodbye there will land on their feet. Comics can be a rough business, but when they work, there’s little in this world that can be more fun. I just think it’s high time we found a way to play in more than one ball park at a time.

Favorite of the Week: August 9, 2006

Two issues published, two “Favorite of the Week” awards. Do you think I’m a fan of The Escapists? Brian K. Vaughan’s metafictional account of a group of friends trying to breathe new life into a defunct superhero comic book is speaking to me in a way that few comics out there can. The characters feel real, the story rings true, and although we take a step towards an adventure story this issue, away from the simple drama we had in issue one, this is still one of the most engaging comics I’ve read all year. This is an incredible, unique comic book that everyone should be reading.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People's Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the weekly “Think About It” humor column at Think About It Central. His new comic, Evertime, is coming soon from Tightlip Entertainment. E-mail him at Blake@comixtreme.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms.

[Liam Creswick]

This kind of stuff really bugs me. I can't stand the concept of monopolies, as it screws up the entire capatalist system, and is just plain greedy. sleezy and unfair. But what is even more unfortunate is that little can be done. Comics is to shakey an industry to risk going agianst Diamond. And that monopoly suit thing you mentioned is a real bummer. You ask for suggestions, and the only thing I can come up with is a Molotov through the window, wich isnt a realist option. It really makes me feel helplesss, as I often try to spend my money supporting the little guy (Eg. I don't shop at WalMart or Old Navy), but there is no little guy to support. sigh.

It funny, considering the ending of The Escpists, that you picked that as you pick of the week, and you had this for a topic.

Originally Posted by Blake Petit

(Soap Opera Digest and Astonishing X-Men, maybe.)

BTW, I would take a bit of offense to that, if you haddent earlier called Captain Carrot fantastic. I once had a girl in an AFI T-shirt say my favorite band sucked. This is esentilly the same thing. I kid!

[Blake Petit]

Heh -- may I just say that my Soap Opera/X-Men comment is in no way meant to comment upon the quality of either publication. Astonishing is certainly the best X-Men book out there right now, in my opnion. But let's face it, the X-Men are a soap opera, dude.

[cv_otaku]

I agree Blake. When Rhys and I decided to start Ideal Comics, one of the first things we decided was that we wouldn't go with Diamond. I'll let you know how that works out.

As far as Internet stuff goes, it can be an insane tool for advertising and networking. You know, a small publisher out of Western Nebraska might not have a great chance to network with other creators and companies, but things like Myspace have been great at putting us in touch with other people who want to walk around the crap that is the current industry.

Online comics are also nothing to scoff at. We've built a (very) small, but loyal, fanbase through Forces of Good and Evil, our first "title." This venue also carries with it another network, involving link exchanges/guest art/drop downs/guest comics that just aren't available with traditional means.

There are ways to get around Diamond. We think it will take a while, but we hope that some day we can make a living off of IC. But right now, we're content to stick it to the establishment in true hippie fashion. And for the record, I hate hippies, so I stick it to the establishment in true "punk rock" fashion. Throwing the horns and all!

[Arsenal7]

Before an endless stream of monopoly bashing posts begins- there are some areas where monopolies actually benefit society, so-called natural monopolies. For instance, in the US, most regulated industries are the natural monopolies- things like gas lines, water and sewer, where you don't really want twenty sets of pipes running every which way under peoples home and neighborhoods. The industries are regulated, however, because even though it makes sense to have only one company perform the service, we still don't want said company completely fleecing consumers.

Now, as for the actual situation addressed; Diamond's monopoly isn't helping anyone. Typically, what makes distributors effective parts of an economy is downstream competition: if distributors are competing for customers with other distributors selling the same product, that gives them incentives to provide customer service, fight for lower prices from manufacturers, etc. Diamond has no such incentives. I'm actually surprised an antitrust action against Diamond couldn't have some success- I can't believe a court would find all print distributors to be the same product market. Just a couple of years ago, Staples and Office Max tried to merge, arguing that the market was not "office superstores," but any store selling office supplies (Walmart, etc). They got laughed at. Can't believe a court wouldn't do the same to Diamond.

[Terry Verticchio]

Didn't Dave Sim distribute Cerebus on his own?

I've forgotten most of the details on how he sold the book, mostly cuz his ten-year flame war against feminists kinda melted my brain.

[Blake Petit]

Originally Posted by Terry Verticchio

Didn't Dave Sim distribute Cerebus on his own?

I've forgotten most of the details on how he sold the book, mostly cuz his ten-year flame war against feminists kinda melted my brain.

I don't think so. Dave Sim published Cerebus on his own, but as far as actually getting them to the shop, I'm pretty sure he still relied on Diamond -- at least, after the other distributors died off.