Now eventually you are going to have a Comic Book thread on this Comic Book forum, right?

Diamond Comic Distributors is officially declaring bankruptcy.
This...has been coming for a while honestly. Things have only been going downhill since they closed their Plattsburgh distribution center back in October. There's been nothing but delays and horror stories of damaged comics arriving in stores ever since. It's been 3 months of watching this company flounder.

Now, this doesn't necessarily mean they're going out of business. Sometimes declaring Chapter 11 Bankruptcy is a strategic business move. But...most of the big comic companies have already jumped this sinking ship. I...doubt they'll be able to repair the damaged trust they used to have with the comic companies after the last 3 months of fumbling the ball as hard as they have. They were having a hard time competing with the other comic distributors that were popping up, anyway. This could be the end of Diamond.

Diamond seems like it was unable to adjust to losing it's distritbution center. At the end of the day, they're a logistics company. Their ONE job is to get comics into comic shops. And they have been unable to do that job for months now. I can understand it taking a few weeks to adjust to losing part of your business. But, it's shouldn't take more than 3 months with no improvements in sight.

Poor Diamond. They will be....maybe not "missed", exactly. Unless you were a hardcore comic fan, you might not even know who they are, as long as they did their job right. Still, it was convenient being able to get a list of all the comics coming out all in one place. Guess I'll have to change websites now.



But....that's enough of that depressing news. While I'm here, I might as well talk about some comics I'm enjoying. Diamond may be in trouble, but comic shops still have comics you could check out! There are still good comics out there.

Power Fantasy-If you enjoyed the Krakoa era of X-Men, I would say you owe it to yourself to check this out. It's written by Kieron Gillian, one of the architects of the post-Hickman Krakoa X-Men books, so you know it's good! It's about people with powers being treated like world superpowers who have to be handled politically and with care, least they all accidentally destroy the world. It's a superhero book about trying to stop fights before they start in the first place. It's good stuff! Highly recommended!

Kidpool/Spider-Boy-This is a one shot that I really enjoyed. This was just a unexpected bit of pure fun and whimsy. You might not know who either of these characters are. But, the writer isn't even sure who one of these characters are for sure, so you'll be in good company. If you're looking for something a little lighter, pick this one up.

The New Ultimate Comics Universe-This has actually been really solid these last few months. Ultimate Invasion started things out a little rough. But, all the ongoings have been surprisingly solid. I almost don't want the Maker to return sometime next year. Ultimate Spider-Man is probably the crowd favorite, for bringing the marriage back. But, all the Ultimate books have been worth a read so far.

Absolute Wonder Woman-This is my pick for the best of the DC's Absolute comics. It's just has the most interesting and easy to understand high concept. Dark Fantasy Wonder Woman. I'll admit though, the other Absolute comics are good too. Even Absolute Superman, which is probably the weakest of the bunch so far, is starting to pick up steam after a few issues. My one big complaint about this line is...this REALLY doesn't feel like a universe created by Darkseid at all. This universe is, at worst, slightly darker than the main universe. This feels closer to the Snyderverse than something Darkseid the God of Dictators would create. And I'm not sure if "Evil Legion of Super-Heroes" was a really compelling cliffhanger villain for most people, even comic fans. But, still, this is pretty good. Marvel's current Ultimate line is better. But, DC's giving them some decent competition.

The Ghost Machine...universe(s?)-You know what these books remind me of? Crossgen. That's either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who you ask. They all have great art and unique premisese. I just have no idea if this is selling or not. It's also a little hard to tell if these are all in the same universe at different points in time, or different universes or what. But, it does feel like we're going to see them cross over with each other, eventually. And connections are starting to form between some of the books. I think I like Rook Exodus the best so far. A group of forest rangers with animal-controlling helmets have to try to save a dying partially-terraformed world. It's such an oddly toyetic and fun premise, but it takes itself so seriously. It's like a edgy reboot of a 80s toyline that never was. But, Hyde Street is fun too, if you want something a bit more "Twilight Zone" or "Goosebumps" esque. All the books are surprisingly solid. Personally, I'd probably put this new universe on par with Marvel's New Ultimate Universe.

AVA Aliens Versus Avengers-This has no right being this good. Seriously. This is REALLY shockingly good. It only comes out once every few months, but it's gorgeous and the writing is great. It's REALLY diving into the Aliens lore, which some people may or may not like. But, it feels MUCH more substantial than the average crossover book.

Disney's Hercules-I actually really enjoyed this miniseries. And the previous Hades miniseries, too. If you have fond memories of the movie or the old cartoon, maybe give some of these a shot. Some of them are pretty solid. Definitely recommended for mythology nerds.

Sacrificers-A really dark story about Gods feeding on their people for power and how that entire system collapses. It can be a little depressing, but it's well done.

String-A detective story about a woman with psychic powers who can see "string" connecting people who love each other and those who murder each other. And now this psychic detective has a murder-string connecting her to someone else, meaning either she's going to murder someone in the future or someone will murder her. I've been enjoying it so far. The concept is JUST unique enough to catch my attention.

Moon Knight Fist of Khonshu-I think I'm really starting to enjoy Moon Knight? I don't know, there's just something about Jed MacKay's run on this character that's oddly compelling.

Sonic the Hedghog Knuckles 30th Anniversary Special-Did you like Trip from Sonic Superstars? Well, she features heavily in this issue. And she's adorable! I may ship Knuckles and Trip now. You can't stop me!

Rogue Sun-Still the best of the Massive-verse books. A legacy hero trying to deal with his father's old foes.

The Flash-Si Spurrier's run is actually really solid. Especially if you like something a little weirder or darker for the first half.

Venom-Venom War was such a weird combination of cosmic time-travel shenanigans and pro wrestling. And now there's a mystery of who the All-New Venom is! Is it Rick Jones or two other old guys who both feel too old and too connected to Spider-Man to actually be Venom?! Only time will tell!

Farscape 25th Anniversary Special-It was just fun to return to this universe in this one-shot anthology comic. If you're a fan, check it out. There's even another book "Jim Henson Presents" that's doing more new Farscape stories along with other Jim Henson works like the Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

Outsiders-This was a VERY meta and multiversally focused DC comic that I feel kind of flew under the radar. If you were a big fan of Planetary back in the day, you may want to check this one out. I enjoyed my time with it, even though I understand why most people didn't really gel with it.

Flavor Girls Return to the Mothership-We don't get a lot of magical girl comics in the west. So, I feel compelled to talk about this fruit-themed magical girl group. It has a sort of Steven Universe sort of feel, with them building up the mystery of what the alien invaders are trying to do. It's not the greatest, but it is solid.

Namor-Jason Aaron is doing some solid worldbuilding for Namor's undersea world. There's a lot of factions and backstories and I'm here for it.

Metamorpho the Element Man-Do you want something that's SO unabashedly "comic book" that it's almost ridiculous? Well, Al Ewing is really channeling the 60s in this comic! It's so retro that it's just fun to read his over-the-top dialogue. It's just so groovy!

I Heart Skull Crusher-A fangirl of a violent sports star tries to join her muderball team in a post-apocalypse world. I just dig this comic's art style! It's a fun comic that's more lighthearted and manga-inspired than I may make it sound.

ZakuConvoy said:

Sonic the Hedghog Knuckles 30th Anniversary Special-Did you like Trip from Sonic Superstars? Well, she features heavily in this issue. And she's adorable! I may ship Knuckles and Trip now. You can't stop me!

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Oh, I definitely need to get caught up on this, then...

And now we have some hard numbers for about how much Diamond owes to it's various creditors. It's somewhere around 31 million dollars, and that's just for the top 30 companies.

I'm honestly not sure if that's a lot of money for someone like Diamond or not. It sounds like a lot of money, but it's probably chump change even in the publishing business.

And here's some reactions to this news from various comic creators:

They make some interesting point.s Like some of the new distributers not wanting to deal with "small companies" like some indie publishers. But, then again...it kind of sounds like Diamond was doing the same thing, at times. So, I dunno.

You know what? I've been talking about a lot of bad news recently. But, here's some GOOD news!

Marvel and DC are finally doing another crossover after 20 years!

We're getting two one-shots. DC/Marvel. And Marvel/DC. Personally, I'm expecting them to be 100-page anthology-style things, with a bunch of stories about 10 pages long. Like their Halloween or Christmas one-shots. But, we really don't have any details at the moment.

But, this is something that people can actually get excited about. It's been years since these two companies have crossed over. This is probably the shot in the arm the comics industry needs right now.


So who do YOU want to see cross over with each other?

Superman v The Sentry?

Batman v Moon Knight?

Squirrel Girl v Harley Quinn?

Jeff the Land Shark v Krypto the Super Dog?

The Flash Family v The Spider-Verse?

The Green Lantern Corps v The Guardians of the Galaxy?

Gwenpool v Ambush Bug?

Booster Gold v The TVA?

The Batman Who Laughs v The Maker?

Miss Martian v Kamala Khan Ms Marvel?

Donna Troy v Psylocke?

The Legion of Super-Heroes v Ultron?

The X-Men v Amazo?

The Fantastic Four v The Doom Patrol?


Seriously, there are SO many ways you could cross these two over!

Batman Beyond vs. either Iron Man, Spider-Girl, or Spider-Man 2099.

I work in a library and back in December I applied for my library to participate in Free Comic Book Day. I haven't yet heard anything back and I am wondering how the bankruptcy is affecting Free Comic Book Day.

LiamA said:

I haven't yet heard anything back and I am wondering how the bankruptcy is affecting Free Comic Book Day.

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...Yeah, it's a little complicated.

FCBD is still happening, but some of the comic publishers are pulling comics from the event. Probably due to costs and not being sure if Diamond will actually make it to FCBD in May this year. Some are using Lunar to get them into shops, rather than Diamond, but others are just outright cancelling some FCBD titles.


Not to mention that due to the bankruptcy, Diamond is starting to call in debts owed by comic shops. So, some comic book stores may not even want to work with Diamond in the future.

And Diamond is actually in the process of selling off the rights to the "Free Comic Book Day" branding.

It's all up in the air at the moment. FCBD should still be happening. I imagine a lot of these comics are already complete in some form, so the comic publishers probably want to release them. But, I don't know what form it will take, or how many comic shops will actually be able to participate in it this year.

It's kind of a mess. We might know a little more after this auction that Diamond is holding in March to get some cash. You can see more news here:

My recommendation is that you might want to talk to someone at Lunar Distribution? They might end up handling a lot of the FCBD books this year. Or not. Like I said, it's all up in the air. Can't hurt to contact them, though.

I finally heard back about my library's status for Free Comic Book Day and we got accepted unfortunately we have to pay to do it now.

Well, I'm glad you heard back from them, at least. It's too bad they aren't doing something special for the libraries anymore. But, I'm not too surprised given the bankruptcy.

ZakuConvoy said:

Well, I'm glad you heard back from them, at least. It's too bad they aren't doing something special for the libraries anymore. But, I'm not too surprised given the bankruptcy.

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I was supposed to have heard back from them on February 7th and I shouldn't have emailed them twice.

Yeah, things are probably a mess over there right now. It's hard to say who's running what, or how many things are getting overlooked.

Did you ever try sending Lunar an e-mail? Like I said, a few of the FCBD books seem to be going exclusive with Lunar. You'll probably still have to have your librrary pay for the books, but it can't hurt to comparison shop a little. I really wouldn't have any idea what the situation would be like over there. Might be better. Might be worse. I really have no idea, but it can't hurt to just shoot them a e-mail or something.

I got the invoice from Diamond for the Free Comic Book Day comics. It's a fifteen dollar shipping fee for the comics and a fifty dollars for the promotional kit if I want to get one.

Yeah, people get the wrong idea about Free Comic Book Day, and think it's free all around.

Ohhhh, no, certainly not. To the end consumer, sure, but for everyone else on up the chain?

ZakuConvoy said:

Yeah, things are probably a mess over there right now. It's hard to say who's running what, or how many things are getting overlooked.

Did you ever try sending Lunar an e-mail? Like I said, a few of the FCBD books seem to be going exclusive with Lunar. You'll probably still have to have your librrary pay for the books, but it can't hurt to comparison shop a little. I really wouldn't have any idea what the situation would be like over there. Might be better. Might be worse. I really have no idea, but it can't hurt to just shoot them a e-mail or something.

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I haven't emailed Lunar. Paying for this stuff is a bit bothersome for me because it would have to come out of our budget and I have no idea what our budget is.

Diamond Distributors have been sold to Alliance Entertainment.

I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I don't know anything about Alliance Entertainment. And I'm not even sure if they got everything, or just the comic book distribution side of things. But, time will tell how this plays out.

ZakuConvoy said:

Diamond Distributors have been sold to Alliance Entertainment.

Alliance Entertainment Buys Diamond Comic Distributors

Alliance Entertainment buys Diamond Comic Distributors after Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Auction

bleedingcool.com

I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I don't know anything about Alliance Entertainment. And I'm not even sure if they got everything, or just the comic book distribution side of things. But, time will tell how this plays out.

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It was not. BTW.

Because Alliance found out they were specifically trying to defraud buyers by lying about their value.

-ZacWilliam, so now Diamond is being sued on top of everything else.

Yeah, I've been keeping tabs on the news, but I haven't been updating the thread with every change, because I've kind of been waiting to see how things shake out. It's been a bit of a roller coaster ride.

Let's try to summarize things quick. Alliance did win the bid to buy Diamond, but Diamond didn't really want to be sold to them, for various reasons. Alliance seemingly wanted to either jack up the price of the comics they distributed or focus entirely on graphic novels, instead of on floppies, indicating a bit of a culture problem between the companies.
Diamond preferred different companies end up buying them, probably partially because they fit with their current business model more, but Alliance won the bid. So, legally, Diamond apparently had no other choice then to let themselves be sold to them.
Then we found out that Alliance suddenly cancelled it's bid to buy Diamond, under unexplained circumstances. And Diamond instead partnered with other companies for "business as usual".
But, then we found out what those "unexplained circumstances" were. Turns out Diamond hid the fact that Wizards of the Coast did not renew their contract with them. Which would mean Diamond was FAR less desirable for Alliance to buy than they expected. They were not as valuable as they presented themselves as being. And now Alliance is suing Diamond for fraud.
Oh, and apparently, Diamond "forgot" to submit their bankruptcy paperwork correctly...for the last 3 months. Which means they're now going into Chapter 7 liquidation, with all their assets being sold to pay off creditors. This may or may not be a big deal, if they can get the proper paperwork submitted quickly enough.
And, I'll remind you, none of this solves the company's problem of actually distributing comics with only one warehouse. The thing that kicked all this off was because Diamond was unable to get comics to shops in a timely manner. And with most companies moving to other distributors, like Lunar or Penguin, I honestly don't know how much business Diamond actually has, even if they manage to survive ALL of this. It's a mess.

Mind you not everything that Diamond ever did was bad. They did tend to help out smaller publishers and comic shops.


But, that's enough about that, for now. Let's change the subject to something a little less dire.

Free Comic Book Day is this upcoming Saturday, May 3!
Some highlights include:

Energon Universe 2025-I mean, this is a no brainer for anyone on this board. Who knows what will happen, but we'll probably get some sort of reveal and tease in here. Kirkman loves his surprises.

Transformers The Worst Bot Ever-This is going to be a preview of a longer Graphic Novel. So, it's probably going to end abruptly. I'm not sure if this is going to be a satisfying read on it's own. But, it's worth noting.

Power Rangers/VR Troopers-I've been finding the new Power Rangers Prime universe to be interesting. It's a new slightly more complex universe with some interesting things going on. And we get more focus on the VR Troopers. Who would have thought those guys would return in 2025?

Godzilla New Heroes-You get a sneak peek of the new Godzilla universe that IDW is building. Godzilla is causing mutations in humans, and space pirates are piloting MechaGodzilla. It should be a interesting new universe.

Gargoyles Demona-We're getting a origin story for Demona! All the Gargoyles comics are written by Greg Weisman, so they definitely feel like the original show.

DC All In/Absolute Universe-This is going to focus a little on Superman to tie in to the big movie coming soon. But, I wouldn't be surprised if we get a little more story progress about either Booster Gold or Darkseid doing stuff as a follow up to the DC All-In Special.

Spider-Man/Ultimate Universe-There's been some interesting stuff happening with Venom recently, some of which might anger some people. Let's just say...Venom won the jackpot. Also, Eddie Brock is Carnage now. And the new Ultimate Universe is gearing up for it's first crossover with the main 616 universe. So, that should be interesting. And we're getting closer and closer to the Maker emerging from his time-bubble. Things are going to come to a head with the new Ultimate Universe pretty soon, and I'm interested to see where it's all going.

Fantastic Four/X-Men-Ryan North's Fantastic Four run has just been good comics. We're currently in the middle of One World Under Doom, which...you can probably guess what it's a allegory for, given the real world's political climate. The X-Men half of the book MIGHT just end up doing something with the "Heir of Apocalypse" storyline they've been teasing for a while now. Revelation aka Doug Ramsey aka Cypher might just make his first move here. I have a feeling this is going to kick off another big event for the X-Men comics. That's just speculation, though.

2000 AD-These are always full of fun one-shot stories. It's always worth checking out.

I Hate Fairyland-This is NOT for kids. It gets gory. But, it's also a fun parody of Wizard of Oz and other classic fairy tales. Just more deranged.

Thundercats v Powerpuff Girls-They're crossing over! I have no idea why, but this is happening. It's just so bizarre that I want to check it out.

Gundam Wing-I don't know how available this is actually going to be. But, apparently, at least a few shops will be getting a Gundam Wing comic. It's not listed on most of the websites, but it's happening. I'm intrigued about why this is coming out now.

Megaman and Street Fighter vs Rival Schools-I THINK these two books are still coming out? They're just coming from Lunar instead of Diamond. Anyway, Udon's books are always worth checking out. Plus, the Megman FCBD issue is written by fellow Allspaker LBD "Nytetrayn"! A full Megman Timelines one-shot is upcoming. Followed by ones for X, Zero, and possibly more!


So, maybe try to have some fun this weekend and pick up some comics! Some of these shops have pretty good sales on or around Free Comic Book Day, so maybe buy a little something while you're at it. There's a lot of good comics coming out that are worth picking up.

If you want some recommendations: Absolute Wonder Woman, Ultimate Spider-Man, The Power Fantasy, Usagi Yojimbo, Si Spurrier's Flash, AVA Avengers vs Aliens, Challengers of the Unknown (seriously, it's actually more important to the Absolute storyline then you might think), Moon Knight, Metamorpho the Element Man, Spider-Boy, We're Taking Everyone Down With Us, New Gods, Mothra Queen of Monsters, Hyde Street, I Heart Skull Crusher, Rogue Sun, and Jim Henson Presents.