DC Comics Distribution Deal With DCBS and Midtown Comics Allegedly “Temporary” Per Discussions Revealed By Diamond Comics Distributor!
During the pandemic DC Comics contracted with two new distributors, UCS run by Midtown Comics and Lunar run by Discount Comic Book Service, in addition to continuing to deal with Diamond.
The other big change was that all of DC Comics would have a Tuesday release date, to align with bookstore and Blu-Ray, etc. typical release date, while Diamond books remain with a release date of Wednesdays; although stores can sell DC Comics products one day early if they get their Diamond product early.
Well, Newsarama sat down with Diamond head to discuss his company’s relationship with DC and how the recent events folded out. Below are the highlights.
- “DC, in their last contract renewal a year-and-a-half ago, asked to add a clause where they could get out of the exclusive part with 60 days notice with no reason needed. We agreed. Then the pandemic came on, and they exercised that option. They’re non-exclusive, and that allowed them to sell to those others. That was that.”
“For 25 years, Diamond had a contract to exclusively distribute DC’s comic books to the direct sale comic book market. It wasn’t about geography or brick-and-mortar, but about terms of sale. If you are a customer buying non-returnable comic books, you’re buying from Diamond.”
“They’ve talked to these other two distributors, an even they have said it’s temporary. No one’s defined ‘temporary’ though, so DC may continue, or may change again. Based on what DC has told me, it was temporary – to solve the problem of books not being shipped.”
“DC is definitely still a Diamond Premier Publisher. Our Previews catalogue will be going through a lot of changes, but they’ll still be there. They’re no longer exclusive, so we may eventually differentiate ‘Premier’ publishers who are exclusive and ‘Premier’ publishers who are not. Keep in mind though, with Previews DC and Marvel years ago broke out of the main catalogue with their own separate catalogues.“
We’ll see how temporary it becomes.
