This is possibly great news, if a bit of a head scratcher: According to Steve Niles at Wondercon, Epitaph Records will start comic book distribution at some point in the near future. Bleeding Cool reports Niles as explaining,
We’re going to form a partnership because I have been living in fear for… how many years? I don’t know if you know, but comic books only have one distributor—Diamond. And if they go under? These guys saw the potential and that’s really what it’s about. When I see the shrinking number of comic sales I just see potential. People just don’t know comics are out there—how to find them. I grew up with spinner racks. You literally couldn’t avoid comics… I am really excited about this, [b]ecause what this means is we are finely going to get the chance to at least see. We are going to get a chance to get comics in front of the age group that 52-DC was trying to get. They decided they would shoot for what, 18-20? And they hit 35 year old male.
No specifics were apparently revealed, nor was the “we” defined – Is this Epitaph distributing all publishers, or just Niles’ publishers (which means, at this point, IDW and Dark Horse, I think…)? But there’s definitely potential here for great things. I can’t wait to find out more.
March 19th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
I’d imagine any kind of deal – especially with front of the book IDW and Dark Horse – would be newsstand or possibly music shops though. After all, don’t most publishers these days have “exclusive” deals with Diamond?
March 19th, 2012 at 12:07 pm
another post with a title in the form of a question????
do you get paid by the qiuestion mark????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
i’ve donated to you paycheck stop posting for a week.
March 19th, 2012 at 12:25 pm
I’ve said it before, there should be a spinner rack in the gift shop of at least every children’s hospital in the country.
March 19th, 2012 at 12:25 pm
and highway reststops gift shops too.
March 20th, 2012 at 7:55 am
Diamond made exclusive deals for distribution with the major publishers solely to prevent competition. When Diamond got Marvel and DC to go exclusive with them, that killed off what competition remained. Unfortunately that battle was fought and won by Diamond years ago.