Hey, Folks!
This certainly is an interesting time to be alive and it is made more interesting when you are a comic book retailer. Before I take a deep breath and get into the latest comic industry drama, I’d like to once again thank everyone who is doing their best to observe our Covid-19 safety policy. It’s heartening to see so many comic fans sucking it up and dealing with a few moments of inconvenience in order to get their comics and a bit of chin wag with me. You guys are THE BEST.
I knew there would likely be some bumps along the road to getting the comic industry restarted after its two-month shutdown. I mean, you don’t just shut down an entire industry from printers to distributors to retail shops while publishers are unable to go into the office and then get expect everything to just go back to “normal” overnight. I preface my comments with this statement in order to let you know that I realize that we are all essentially in the same boat and choppy waters were to be expected. Unfortunately, we have hit a small snag.
Wednesday is traditionally the busiest day of the week for me which I’m sure comes as no surprise to any of you. Besides dealing with the new comic shipment and all of the smiling faces (currently obscured by masks…lol), it also the day that the following week’s invoice is released as well as a complete list of everything shipping out from Diamond. A major portion of my day is whipping my shipping list into shape and carefully constructing the subscription form which is why so many of you see me manning my desk on Wednesday morning/afternoon. I want to get into it as soon as possible so that I can familiarize myself with the upcoming week’s books…mostly so I can answer any questions during folk’s weekly visits.
I was diligently working away at the 5/27 shipping list yesterday when I came to a sudden and shocking realization. There were several titles that are shipping next week from DC that were not on my invoice. At first I wasn’t too concerned as Diamond’s track record with properly updating their website’s files has not been particularly good since this Covid-19 thing started, but after double AND triple checking I realized that there were indeed titles shipping that we didn’t have coming in. I frantically started clicking all over Diamond’s website and my e-mails to find some evidence of my orders, but couldn’t find anything. I can’t tell you how badly my heart started racing. It was literally one of my worst nightmares suddenly roaring to life right in front of me. How could this be happening!?!
Let’s turn on the Way Back machine and go back a month and take a look at the situation. Back in late April, while most of the country was still shut down, online comic retailers Midtown Comics and DCBS were making some noise about the frustration of not having new titles to offer to their patrons. It became known that there were a handful of DC Comics that managed to be printed before the printers/distribution system shut down and those retailers wanted to get their hands on the books as soon as possible. DC Comics, however, has a exclusive distribution deal with Diamond (more on that in a minute) and they also knew if they just made these titles available to Midtown and DCBS that the hue and cry from frustrated brick and mortar shop retailers would be terrible indeed. As a result, they worked out a deal with Midtown and DCBS. They would get access to this slate of DC Comics, but in return they had to agree to act as “distributors” of the titles to other retailers in order to level the playing field. DC Comics, perhaps rightly, reasoned that if everyone had an opportunity to get the books at the same time through Midtown and DCBS then that would make everyone happy. This, of course, ignores the fact that most retailers with store fronts were closed and couldn’t sell anything, much less a handful of lesser DC titles, but I digress and it’s really not the point of this diatribe. Let’s just say that in their minds DC Comics had found an equitable way to address the problem of Diamond Distributors lingering shutdown.
Actually, let me take a moment for two small digressions. The first is to answer the question of “How could DC Comics do that considering they have an exclusive deal with Diamond?” I, too, wondered this and after a bit of poking around I found the answer. During the last contract renegotiation with Diamond, DC Comics added a provision that stated they could end their exclusive deal with Diamond with 30 days notice at any time they wished. The second digression is “Why didn’t Monarch Comics take advantage of the new distribution deal and get instant access to these DC titles?” The simple answer is that not only were we not open at the point they would have started shipping, but after doing the math I quickly realized that we would actually be losing money by switching to these alternative distributors for such a paucity of titles. Plus, Diamond assured me that they would be able to supply us with the books as soon as they reopened. Fair enough. End of digression…
So, as the situation stood, suddenly there were two new quasi-distributors operating and offering mainly lower tiered DC titles a couple of weeks before Diamond. It was then that the serious missteps began to go down. DC Comics decided that for whatever reasons comic retailers were not smart enough to manage multiple distributors and they became worried that retailers who ordered the books from Midtown/DCBS would screw up and order the same titles from Diamond by mistake. As a result, DC and Diamond cancelled all of our previous orders for the titles and then told us that if we still wanted them from Diamond then we would have to go into the system and put our numbers back in to the FOC page. This personally irritated me because by all accounts very few retailers actually took up the Midtown/DCBS offer and I thought they should be responsible for their own orders and whether or not they were duplicated by accident. It was also ridiculous because all of the titles in question are going to be 100% returnable so even someone had duplicated an order through both vendors they wouldn’t be stuck with any unsold titles.
I hadn’t really been monitoring Diamond’s website for a couple of weeks at this point, but I read all about the new FOC policy from other retailers and went to work plugging my numbers for these titles back in. Of course, I was grumbling the whole time as I couldn’t understand why I was being penalized for someone else’s business decision, but it wasn’t some horrible job so I just did it. Steve and I decided early on that we were not going to start slashing our orders because all of these titles were going to be returnable and we decided to remain optimistic that the lion’s share of you would be returning as soon as the doors opened. So I just went into the system to re-enter the information. I have never had a problem with Diamond’s FOC system in the past and although we receive an order confirmation e-mail from Diamond for any FOC orders I didn’t bother to look at it because it normally just reflects whatever I ordered. That was a mistake I will not soon forget.
That more or less brings us up to yesterday morning when, with dawning horror, I realized that there were no records of me ordering ten different DC titles set to be released next week. At first I began doubting myself…did I miss ordering them? I clicked all over Diamond’s website for some proof of my FOC order, but couldn’t find anything but the glaring red text of “No Orders Found”. I went to my e-mail box and sorted through order confirmation e-mails until I found the one that should have had my orders noted on it. There was a confirmation for about half of the books and the other orders were not showing at all. This was naturally distressing, but I put aside my astonishment and growing frustration and instead just concentrated on salvaging the situation and “advance reordering” copies of everything that was apparently missed.
The good news is that all but, one title was available for reorder still. The bad news is because of the way Diamond’s reorder system is structured it is generally impossible to “direct ship” a reorder for product that hasn’t been released yet, so chances are we will not have the ten titles in question until the following Wednesday. I mean, I got the advance reorder in fairly early yesterday once I figured out what we were missing, so there is a small chance that Diamond will have enough notice to throw the books in a box with our regular shipment, but I’m not betting mom’s prescription drug money on it. Now even though the following titles won’t be here until the June 3rd shipment I am still including them on the weekly sub form for 5/27 just on the off chance that they might show up after all. If they do end up delayed then I will have everyone’s orders on file and I will pull them when they finally show up. I will mark the titles that are probably going to be shipping to us late with an * on the sub form.
The titles that will most likely be delayed a week are:
AQUAMAN #59
BASKETFUL OF HEADS #7
BATMAN BEYOND #43
BOOKS OF MAGIC #19
FLASH #754
HE MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE MULTIVERSE #6
LOW LOW WOODS #5
SUICIDE SQUAD #5
TEENT TITANS #41
TERRIFICS #27 (This is the only title that went to backorder. Hopefully copies will show up, but if they don’t then I apologize profusely. While it is NOT the final issue of the series it is the final print issue before going digital for the final two issues.)
So I want to make it clear at the offset that I’m not terribly interested in assigning blame here as it really doesn’t matter at this point. That being said, I KNOW that I put in those numbers. I have no idea how or why they were zeroed out. It’s also interesting to note that several other retailers that I have communicated with also reported that their orders for these exact same titles disappeared after completing their own FOC orders. I was beginning to feel a little gaslighted…lol.
ME: “I know I put in those numbers!”
DIAMOND: “No, you didn’t.”
ME: “Maybe I didn’t…”
I any case, this will be a relatively quick fix to a distressing problem and, save for the already doomed Terrifics title, I will eventually get these books into your hands. Thanks in advance for your patience while we deal with these little hiccups and I will endeavor to do my best to assure this doesn’t happen again.
Now I will move on to another small problem since the industry started up again and this time I will be assigning just a smidgen of blame. Now, I understand that everyone wants to know what the publishers, particularly DC and Marvel, are doing in order to get their titles back on schedule. You know What? I’d really like to know as well. The problem is that Diamond Distributors have either not bothered or found themselves incapable of updating the back end of their website. There are A LOT of titles that were previously solicited and ordered that have either been removed from the system or else have ridiculously wrong release dates. And, yes, I know that if I hunted around the internet long enough then I could find some sort of updated ship list, but the problem is that this is information that should be available directly from my distributor whose job, I must stress, is to deliver books I’ve ordered and give me the information I need to order them. Once again, I understand they we are all in the same boat in the mad scramble to get everything up and running, but there is no reason that some third-rate comic book news website should have some of this information posted while my distributor is woefully under informed. There is really nothing to do for it save suck it up and hope that someone, somewhere, further up the supply chain line will finally get their $#!% together. I’ve out together a list of DC titles that were in the Diamond system as being released next week, but are not shipping, and, in some cases, are going to be resolicted at a later date. I’ll try to hunt down the actually updated release dates and post them before the end of the week.
The titles include:
BATGIRL #47
BATMAN SUPERMAN #10
DETECTIVE COMICS #1023
DOLLAR COMICS WONDER WOMAN #14
DOLLAR COMICS WONDER WOMAN #206
GENERATION ONE
JOHN CONSTANTINE HELLBLAZER #7
LAST GOD #7
SHAZAM #13
SUPERGIRL #42
WONDER WOMAN 84 GIANT #1
There has also been a bunch of titles from smaller publishers that were previously solicited that have had their orders cancelled. I have compiled a partial list of titles for your perusal. It’s only a partial list because the only titles we are explicitly notified about are titles of which we have actual orders. Again, I’ll try to hunt up a more complete list in my spare time (HA!). If you have any questions about something you special ordered or just whether or not a favorite title is still shipping then do not hesitate to message me about it or mention it in when you are in the store (although I wouldn’t bother asking Steve…he has NO idea what’s coming or going…lol). Here’s the list of Monarch orders that have been cancelled:
ADLER #4
ALIEN ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY #1
ALIEN ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY #2
ALIEN VS PREDATOR THICKER THAN BLOOD TP
ALIENS VS PREDATOR THICKER THAN BLOOD #4
BANG #3
BLOODSHOT (2019) #8
CLOCK #3
COLONEL WEIRD COSMAGOG #1
CUTTING EDGE SIRENS SONG #1
DC SUPER HEROES CAN YOU HELP SAVE LIFT FLAP BOOK
DEAD EYES #5
DISASTER INC #2
DOOM PATROL WEIGHT OF THE WORLD TP
ELFQUEST STARGAZERS HUNT #4
FATHOM VOL 9 #1
FATHOM VOL 9 #2
FRANKENSTEIN UNDONE #3
FRANKENSTEIN UNDONE #4
FRANKENSTEIN UNDONE #5
GOON #12
GRENDEL DEVILS ODYSSEY #5
GRENDEL DEVILS ODYSSEY #6
HEAVY #1
HELLBOY & BPRD HER FATAL HOUR
HIDDEN SOCIETY #4
HUNDRED WOLVES #1
INFERIOR FIVE #6
KEVIN EASTMAN TOTALLY TWISTED TALES TP VOL 01
KICK-ASS #19
LAST KNIGHT OF ST HAGAN #2
LIFE IS STRANGE PARTNERS IN TIME #2
NEXUS NEWSPAPER STRIPS TP VOL 01 GOURMANDO
OMNI #7
OMNI #8
PEARL JAM ART OF DO THE EVOLUTION HC
PREDATOR HUNTERS III #4
PREDATOR TP ESSENTIAL COMICS VOL 02
QUANTUM & WOODY (2020) #4
RAI (2019) #6
RAT QUEENS #22
ROBOTECH REMIX #6
SKULLDIGGER & SKELETON BOY #5
SKULLDIGGER & SKELETON BOY #6
SOULFIRE EXILED #1
SPY ISLAND #1
SPY ISLAND #2
STARSHIP DOWN #2
STRANGER THINGS INTO THE FIRE #4
SYMPATHY FOR NO DEVILS #1
TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #2
TINSELTOWN LOSING THE LIGHT #1
TOMORROW #3
TOMORROW #4
X-O MANOWAR (2020) #2
X-O MANOWAR (2020) #3
X-O MANOWAR (2020) #3
X-RAY ROBOT #2
X-RAY ROBOT #3
Finally, let me mention that initial orders for the April Previews (originally for items shipping in June) are due by retailers today. I’ve gotten my first draft of the order form completed and I’m going to be working at plugging in special orders and the like this afternoon. From what I’ve read from other retailers, a lot of the material from DC Comics and Marvel Comics is already going to be resolicited in next month’s Previews (shipping in next week!) so I’m not sure how much of the orders I put in we are actually going to be held to, but I WILL be making sure that our orders register. If there’s something of interest in the April Previews that you know you want and are afraid we may not be carrying then please do not hesitate to contact me and I’ll make sure that we have you covered!
Okay…I’m done being a windy bastard this week…lol. I will be here in the store the rest of the week for normal business hours to answer any of your questions or concerns. I’d like to take a moment to remind everyone that we will be closed on Monday in observance of the Memorial Day holiday.
Have a great holiday weekend and I’ll talks at ya next week!
WAIT! Another quick, last minute note! There were a couple of titles (Aquaman #59 AND Flash #754 come to mind) in which there was only one cover or the other available for reorder. Apparently there was a printer problem in getting all of the copies to Diamond or some such nonsense, so we will only be capable of offering one cover choice on the sub form.
When are things going back to normal again?