Diamond's not a creator's best friend

In case you haven’t heard already the comic mountain’s gotten a little steeper in the last week to ten days. Diamond Comics Distributor Inc., the distributor for pretty much all of North America’s comic books and other associated merchandise is raising its minimums. Instead of the current standard whereby every item would be expected to earn the distributor $1500 before it would be offered through the direct market, Diamond has raised the standard to $2500. This equates to a significant two-thirds increase. People smarter than myself have crunched the numbers and pointed to the fact this now means for an item to justify its listing in Diamond's Previews catalogue, from which retailers order the vast majority of their stock, that item would now have to make $6250 retail. In other words OUCH!

Realistically I haven’t made a published comic yet, but while this is still down the list of issues to worry about in terms of progression, it is by far the biggest. I can honestly say it worries me no end. I’m still going to make comics and this will unquestionably make me raise my game because the stakes have gone up. It also mean though, there is no room for error and you may need lady luck on your side a bit more too. When even popular, award-winning creators and products step away from the industry due to this turn of events, it says loud and clear that there is absolutely no learning period for new creators. Got a quirky little gem hoping to find a niche? Good luck with that. With a lot more on the line every time a project is conceived I think a major concern for the industry has to be that the type of title on offer doesn’t narrow to spandex and superhero derivatives. There’s far too many of them about as it is and the loss of range in the indie and alternative comics sections would be a real disaster for creativity. Or, if you like, the potential for creativity with people thinking in a narrower mindset.

Tom Spurgeon’s article at the Comics Reporter here explains why this situation is bad far better than I can. I guess all eyes will be on the DM for the foreseeable future, to understand what exactly the changes mean and how it will affect the industry.