It’s almost like having an industry bottlenecked with a monopoly was a bad thing.

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/toda...ket-was-saved/
Not sure how much the service costs or how many stores are already using comichub (or even what publishers are onboard), but it's something at least.

For individual comic book chains needing to meet payroll and other expenses, part of the Congressional bill were practically zero-rate interest loans to all small businesses under 500 employees. If you can prove the expenses were to meet payroll and other costs during the Coronavirus crisis, the loans actually turn into grants that don't need to be paid back. You can apply as early as this Friday. Details are coming out today and tomorrow.

https://fortune.com/2020/03/31/sba-s...-stimulus-faq/

As a long-time collector (1968-ish) I'm really dreading the possible loss of physical comics. I've tried digital a few times and just cannot get into it. I won't read regular books on a screen either. Gotta have that feel, that tactile sensation. And the smell! I will not sniff my iPad, no matter what the picture looks like!

My LCS did a drive-up thing a few weeks ago, and then switched to mailing - or holding until whatever future date. Since I only get a few titles now, I held off to let my order grow. But with distribution now halted, I called and requested my books be mailed. That was yesterday around 2:30PM. At 11:00AM today, they were in my mailbox, packed with care! Sadly, this may be my final order if the industry is unable to adapt enough to survive.

No doubt I'll probably check out digital again (crap, I'll have to figure out how!) since I still have an interest in the stories and art. I still ain't sniffin' my iPad though.

Even if you think you have no interest in digital, it might be wise to start reading the digital thread and at least getting the freebies. You’d have a library of several thousand books for free if you followed this from the beginning.

Less than 48 hours later, this idea has died. Don't know the exact details though.

It sounded nice in the press release, but apparently was just smoke and mirrors. Lots of profit for comicshub, expensive and risky for the shops, no agreements with most publishers, and no rights to release anything digitally. At least, that’s what I gather from cursory reading over the last couple days.

Marvel and DC will survive this Crisis on Infinite Businesses. It's the smaller publishers that are going to get massacred.

Marvel and DC should be fine with their deep corporate pockets (though that only goes so far) and Image isn't a traditional for-profit publisher, so they should be able to weather this storm.

The smallest publishers, who only put out one or two titles a month, should be okay, too. Places like Fantagraphics should also be safe; seems like they've made it for decades by hanging on by a thread.

The ones I that I could foresee taking the hardest hits are the mid-level publishers like Dark Horse, IDW, Boom!, Dynamite, and all of these new upstarts like Aftershock, Vault, and Scout. They're big enough to be able to pile up a decent amount of debt, but I don't know if they could survive a much revenue sustained loss.

That's assuming there's even a comics industry to come back to. We'll probably be seeing a lot of DM shops that don't reopen after we're given the all-clear. And with so many people out of work, buying an armful of $3.99 comic books every week probably won't be a priority for a while.

Yeah, the main fear I think comic fans have is if the parent companies of DC/Marvel one day stop bothering with all the pains of maintaining a huge comic book producing entity, decide they have enough IPs to work with to make money on the movie side and turn it over to some corporate hot shot who doesn't care about comics at all. Which is kind of what DC just did, we're still awaiting the results.

The loss of comic stores is going to impact the smaller publishers immensely, and my gut feeling is that when you just lost a lot of money you're going to focus on comics from the big 3 that you know people want and not so much indie stuff. But we'll see, hopefully they're small enough to be helped by the loans that turn into grants from the stimulus (both comic stores and publishers).

In the case of some mid-level publishers going belly up, what happens to their back catalog? For example, such as digital versions and future graphic novel/compilations/ominibus type releases.

Yeah, I've been saying that for years. The comics industry has always been at the mercy of the distributors (well now it's just "distributor" singular), if you look at the history of distribution in the newsstand days, it's always been very shady.

IDW is in a world of hurt because its two Netflix properties just got canceled, which they expected to keep the company afloat and turn the company profitable. IDW lost something like 25 million last year.

Wait, what was cancelled? Not Locke and Key?

No Locke and Key is still on. October Faction and V-Wars were not renewed for new seasons

IDW has lost millions of dollars in their TV ventures and it's what is keeping the company in the red for the past 5 years. That and the fact that they costs in licensing from pretty much everybody has made them soft on their cash flow. They invest too much money on their Hasbro, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney and Marvel licenses.

Does anyone know how this will affect Amazon deliveries of already pressed books like the upcoming Wolverine Vol 1 Omnibus? I know Instocktrades and Cheapgraphicnovels.com aren't getting new shipments but Amazon is a different beast. Does Diamond ship to them or do they get their stock directly from Marvel?

I’d think anything already made would be fine, but might not get to you as early as it would have otherwise. Prime shipping is a thing of the past for now.

Apparently several shops have already closed up for good. Seems a bit early to throw in the towel, it’s been what, three weeks tops since any state closed non-essential businesses?

A lot of the stores are always on the edge of extinction. Not all landlords are so nice to say forget about this month's rent. So 3 weeks of no income and with the possibility of this lasting a lot longer than they originally implied probably pushed a bunch of people already thinking about closing to make the decision now. I don't know how these stores turn any profit. The margins are low and everything is a guessing game. You either don't order enough of something and people get pissed that you don't have it, or you order too much and get stuck with stock you can't get rid of.

I would like to know this as well. I did manage to snag the huge X-men children of the atom boxset weeks later on Amazon which sold out immediately on IST and never got restocked. So maybe Amazon doesn't use Diamond. However, that set is unavailable from Amazon now too.

I've heard new stuff like omnibuses should be available at Barnes & Noble, they don't use Diamond at all.

Many stores were just surviving before the pandemic. With the mandated closures, many simply decided to throw in the towel before they had to pay one more month of rent, utilities and any other recurring bills.

Well, that plus they had no idea how long this is going to last. I'm sure it's not an easy decision to shut what is probably your dream down like that.

Did Diamond at least stop collecting money in the interim, or do all these stores pay up front when Previews solicits and they're just out of luck?

Most stores pay on delivery. Older stores and those newer with good credit pay on net 30, net 60 or net 90. Diamond isn't collecting as of now on these net accounts. The ones that pay on delivery are kinda screwed cause most of their investment is on their weekly inventory. Now the bigger problem is that the surviving stores have gone to sell on eBay, Amazon and their own sites, basically flooding the market on all types of books. When Midtown is clearing out recent inventory for $.99 cents you know that things are desperate.