Not a person in the business I want anything to do with, granted. But if I see an opening to help anybody I will do no less.
Seeing room for an article to pitch about, in the last few days I communicated with several distributors of magazines and newspapers, all based in the USA. I found each on the first page of search results. Each one has national capacity with some stretching well beyond. Each regularly handles volumes dramatically larger than the paltry monthly comic book sales averages. And, each would actually really like to swing comics as well. BUT NOBODY FROM ANY PUBLISHER IN THE INDUSTRY HAS REACHED OUT- NOT EVER.
Not 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 but 5 all told me the same tale, and by the fifth I was almost enraged by the idiocy. There are hundreds of distributors of periodicals headquartered across the USA and greater (in every way) North America. The original business model never went anywhere. Some would point out sales today aren’t a third of what they were 50 years ago before the direct market was running, so sales can’t justify the reach but distribution has evolved into more targeted desperations for dollars in the decades since. Only bad print media dies. Rather than simply crowdfund their precious incentive variant covers or convert their social marketing teams into mail-order subscription fulfillment departments, some comic book publishers have already closed up operations, everyone else canceling titles and laying off staff left and right, some while jacking prices for a final fix. All the comic blogs either pretending like their home is not in a raging fire or it’s nonstop emoting on their woes. Because nobody considered an alternative to gradual bankruptcy extending back years. Not one could manage a search engine or phone book to look for assistance. Comic book readers are notoriously infantile, but the packagers of their wares are no better. Alan Moore was attacked for pointing out how stunted the comics community is, but when they cry for everything to always stay the same, resisting change even under life or death circumstances…mainstream media doesn’t really see the collapse of the comic book distribution monopoly as newsworthy, because all journalists are like Have you seen a yellow pages before. Everyone working in comics must be an imbecile, like every other American creating their own problems from whole cloth, eager to find someone other than themselves to blame and desperate for someone other than themselves to save the day.
For added perspective which is absolutely never a bad thing, there’s currently somewhere between 3668 and 4689 comic book stores in the USA, fully half of which are not predicted to still be around 3 months from now, between the stores owing money to Diamond and the stores Diamond owes money to. However, Barnes & Noble announced 60 new book stores for this year. A big chain would not be doing so if print were dead. At least one mid-range publisher has announced they’ll no longer be doing monthly comics anymore, just accumulate the material and jump to collecting the story arcs in trade paperback form to sell at places other than comic shops. For consolidated printing costs I see others doing that too, because tariffs on foreign printing will not make things any easier for anyone.
I privately forwarded tips on the distro info to groups I thought were most jeopardized by these circumstances. If anyone else would like to have their fantasies perpetuated, do it yourself.
It feels like every industry today is operating by the premise of manufacturing demand for preordained supply, and if that is not reversed, why should the public support not actually getting what they want or need? I picked up excel and access at a community college over 20 years ago and book-keeping really isn’t hard, it’s easier than living beyond your means or mistaking comfort for survival. I never sank a business though, so what would I know. There’s decision-makers people are looking to now for answers who have sunken plenty.
Microcosm and macrocosm. There is no good or evil, only self-inclination. To do an act of perceived good entails denying your own ego or that of another, like sacrificing your time to give directions to a stranger, or realizing a comic book cover price could be a meal for someone that needs food more than entertainment. And any perceived act of evil is never anything more than someone acting on self-interest. There’s no evil people in comics or any other field. But there’s no good people either. Just absolute ignoramuses who evidently refuse to comprehend self-sacrifice even as their livelihoods peter out.
I’m not insulting you, you take care of that if nothing else.