The big news last week was that Diamond Comic Distributers declared bankruptcy. Sure enough and right on schedule, a plethora of questions from my regular customers came pouring in. Are we in trouble? Will I survive? Are comics now, truly and forevermore, dead?
So when Franka sent me this comic I had to chuckle when I read it because I do think comic fandom, or people interested in comics, are unique in that a solid majority (more than 49.9%?) are also interested in everything around it. Whether it is a discussion on who makes the comic, how they made it, and even how they are shipped and in what boxes, these are topics you read around the internet and hear around the store. After scratching my head and really thinking about it for a moment, does any other industry have this? When you go out to buy records or cd’s (assuming you still do that), do you also inquire how their distribution channel is doing?
Is everyone truly so interested in our business to business relationships that a disruption could actually threaten to end our store or an entire industry? What if we changed how an invoice looks or is processed?
Look, is this a serious thing? Of course it is. And I feel bad for a lot people involved because there will be some hard consequences. But will comics survive? Yes. The industry is healthy enough, and there is still a lot of money involved, that it will be figured out. I remember when DC went exclusively over to Lunar Distribution and Marvel over to Penguin Random House, the exact same thing happened and people out to preach that the world was about to end.
But as it turns out, we are still okay.