An Industry Without Diamond

How would the industry change?

Later this week is the third anniversary of the Great Diamond Shutdown - a time when the entirety of single issue product stopped dead for a month and a half.

Over the next week or so, we’re going to be going over that time in history in as much detail as I can. Some of this I had documented over at The Beat at Heidi MacDonald’s request, and I’ll be linking to those features as it is pertinent. But before we get to all of that, I’m going to answer some reader questions as a bit of a prelude.

Brian Garside of Manage Comics had a couple queries over on Facebook, but we’re tackling one in particular today:

“What will comics look like when Diamond eventually goes away?”

First: I know there’s a few folks in and around the industry who are amused by my constant predictions of doom for the direct market, and Diamond as a company. This is going to be more of that, so either strap in, or parachute out now.

You still with me? Let’s dig in.

Off the top, we need to talk about how the industry views Diamond. In many ways, when we’re talking about the health of Diamond, we’re talking about the health of direct market comic stores. For decades, Diamond was the only game in town in terms of single issue comic distribution. By all intents and purposes, it was the direct market.

Then, over time, things began to change. The market as a whole started blooming out beyond what Diamond controlled, with digital offerings and graphic novels becoming a huge point of expanse. Diamond never modernized, which brought the company to the point where they were (and currently are) the worst monetary option to get your hands on graphic novels, when you factor in the cost of shipping.¹

While I’m not going to run through the litany of shortfalls the company had in terms of keeping up with the modern needs of the industry, it should be noted that a company that literally held all the cards would have been in the perfect position to innovate. And they did, somewhat, but that focus was always on the single issue format. This has proven to be shortsighted.

All of this to say, Diamond has been making themselves irrelevant in dribs and drabs over time. When the pandemic hit, that just exacerbated a company that was already falling behind - which brings us to the question:

What will comics look like when Diamond eventually goes away?

It will look exactly like it does today - only the means of delivery for some product will have changed slightly. Penguin will probably scoop up a lot of the larger companies, and finally land Image. Lunar will probably be the landing pad for some of the smaller companies, as they have been already. They’ll also continue to provide more cost effective delivery methods for single issues.

The smallest of companies will have some trouble getting their books into stores, but this isn’t any different than the system we have right now. Diamond itself is a rough place for a small publisher to function, what with all their stocking fees and terrible margins, and their pick-and-choose method of allowing publishers to participate in their final order cut off program. Many of these publishers are better served through digital release or utilizing tools like Kickstarter or distributors like SCB and White Squirrel and small press reps like Tony Shenton.

Diamond long ago brought themselves to the point where their continued existence is meaningless to the shape of the comic book industry. Nostalgia, preferences, and loyalties aside, it is true. The industry will endure.

That’s going to do it for today. Get ready for a week of revisiting the era that pushed DC and Marvel to jump ship, and land Diamond in the hard space they find themselves in today.

Talk with you soon.

-B.

1. They also quite laughably took a run at selling digital comics through retailers, which required a reader to go to a comic shop, purchase a code, and redeem it, very much defeating the whole “convenience” thing at the core of digital offerings.