People have been suggesting that Diamond craps on potential publishers that could give them problems…like another company distributing them or something that challenges their big publishers too much.

That’s because you have Diamond in your tiny little pockets, Chris Z. Shame on you for making others do without.

I wonder if this is a problem with distribution. Hunter Cashdollar

Chris Z.–I’m glad to hear the books showed up on time someplace.

I know that at most stores, DONE TO DEATH #2 ran a week late, and at those served out of Plattsburgh (which includes the stores in my and D2D co-creator Fiona Staples’ towns) received the books two weeks late (which, combined with the sequence of events I’m going to relate below, torpedoed a planned signing event that had been promoted for some time).

In addition to the #2 problem, when attempting to reorder DONE TO DEATH #1, one local store was told that the book was out of stock (something that I know at least two other stores also heard from Diamond.) When I passed this along to the guys at Markosia, they were shocked, as they hadn’t received any reorders from Diamond.

When my local retailer asked Diamond why Markosia hadn’t received any reorder numbers, he was told that Markosia had set a minimum reorder number of five copies on their books. Markosia hadn’t done that, and in fact has reorder documents for other books for less than five copies, and in any event, my retailer’s order was for fourteen copies. To the best of my knowledge, he never received a response when he mentioned that, though three copies of #1 showed up shortly thereafter with the remaining eleven coming in the week after that–and all managed to arrive without Diamond placing any reorders for the book with Markosia.

Incidentally, I don’t personally attribute any of this to malice on Diamond’s part–crap happens, and I certainly have heard enough horror stories from other small pressers to know that this is far from uncommon.

But the damage it does to a company like Markosia and a book like DONE TO DEATH, which, unlike many small press projects, has been delivered on schedule and, like every small press project, needs every single sale it can get is, I think, undeniable. Promises are broken through no fault of the creator or company, and reputations suffer because of it. DONE TO DEATH has received minimal press coverage but has managed to retain and, in later issues, grow its sales (which are among the best for creator-original comics Markosia publishes), presumably on the quality of the book and whatever word of mouth it’s generating. To have it not appear on the shelves when it was supposed to makes us look like another example of the negative stereotype of independent comics creators who can’t deliver the goods.

I tell myself that’s the price of doing business–an unfortunate side effect of dealing with an effective monopoly, the owners of which don’t perceive a strong independent comic presence in the marketplace as an important part of the industry. C’est la vie.

For the record, if anyone wants to buy DONE TO DEATH or any other comic published by Markosia that hasn’t sold out, they can be ordered directly from the company online at: http://www.markosia.org.uk/comic/m-shop.htm

The Diamond order codes for the series are:
#1: May06 3281
#2: Jun06 3248
#3: Jul06 3305
#4: Aug06 3443
#5: Sep06 3452
None of them is sold out, as of yet.

Retailers wishing to purchase comics directly from the company are encouraged to contact Harry Markos: harry@markosia-enterprises.com

Encouraged by me, anyway. I’ve no idea how Harry would feel about it, but I can’t see him turning away a sale.

Andrew

Firstly, I want to thank anyone who cared enough to cover or comment on this story. That said, as Markosia’s D.O.P, I must make it clear that Markosia does not, as a company, feel that Diamond has at any time practiced any unethical business in any way. We feel that our brand manager, Dylan Lange does a top notch job and we are very happy with him and with Mr. Jim Kuhoric, who is Dylan’s boss. We do not consider the books that are shipped late to be anything other than unfortunate occurrences during the Diamond shipping process. As a small company, we do ship some books late and Diamond does everything they can to help us during those times so it makes little sense for Diamond to intentionally hurt us when we ship on time with others.

That said, it is also unfortunate that the books that we do ship on time end up delivered late to stores as it is certainly a detriment to the reputations of both the hard working creator and upstart young company.

We can only hope that the problems that have occurred somewhere in the distribution process can be fixed. The creators that are actually getting their books in on time deserve better. We at Markosia hope that this will happen.

Thank you again to all who are interested in this but please do not feel as if Diamond is out to get us just because we didn’t sign an exclusive. We are certain that they are not punishing us in any way. We appreciate your ongoing patience in waiting for our books and as of tomorrow, some of that patience will be paying off. A number of books are shipping to stores tomorrow. Look for OF BITTER SOULS V.2 #2 (JUN063256), DONE TO DEATH #3 (JUL063304), PROJECT EON #3 (JUL063294), SCATTERBRAIN #4 (APR063252…this one was our fault), SMOKE & MIRROR V.2 #1 (all four covers…JUN063249, JUN063250, JUN063251, JUN063252), STARSHIP TROOPERS: DEAD MAN’S HAND #2 (all covers…JUN063257, JUN063258) and STARSHIP TROOPERS: DEAD MAN’S HAND(JUL063292).

We realize that retailers will feel as if we at Markosia are dumping a ton of books on them all at once, but it certainly was not our intention and it is just how things ended up because of the aforementioned issues with distribution trouble. We apologize to them for the inconvenience. We would also like to let them know that they can contact me at chuck@markosia-enterprises.com to order direct at a discount. Readers can order direct from our online store at http://www.markosia.com.

Thanks again for the support. We hope you enjoy our titles.

Best Regards,

Chuck Satterlee

Duh, you think so, #6, Hunter Cashdollar?

Danny Mills, RoEllen Highway, RoEllen, TN, USA