I wouldn't know which way to go with this argument. It depends on how you look at things: will the new management at TW look at DC Comics as a whole, and say, well, things are at least OK, not great, or will they go comic by comic and say, kill this? I personally hope that the TW execs are like the execs at Enron--where apparently no one looked at anything. There are a number of scenarios that could come to pass if one of the big 2 goes under: DC goes out of business, some other company licenses their mainstays, Batman and Superman. Or: DC dies, the various characters are licensed to several different companies, which would certainly alter DC continuity. The same thing would apply to Marvel; but I suspect in that case DC would simply negotiate for the whole Marvel line (I don't know if Marvel would have the money to negotiate for the whole DC line if DC went out of business). Or, someone like Jim Shooter, who once attempted to buy Marvel, would step in. There are any number of interesting scenarios, none of which I hope comes to pass.

Good to see this thread back.

Thinking

So I've been reading this thread, and TCJ articles about the distribution problems, and Dark Horse's big book. I think what's missing (for me, anyway) is a sense of scale and an explanation for the industry's tendency towards a distribution system.

[Sidebar: I don't think Diamond wants a monopoly. The guy on top of the monopoly would be the first one to go in any major industry upheaval; the man who would be casualty. Steve Geppi probably didn't get to be this successful by not understanding such things. Diamond as a company has to work within its circumstances and conditions. As the monopolist, there is a certain vulnerability in its own inertia as top dog. When a change comes -- a matter of "when", not "if", for good or bad -- the company may become a temporary despot to be overthrown, irrelevant in the face of a new age, crushed from above, torn apart from below, or at least reduced in stature. That last might be best for all because, hey, who among us would object to Diamond being, say, two or three times bigger than its peak if there were some decent competition?]

In a nutshell, why do we need distributors? What do they do that couldn't be accomplished by publishers, printers, retailers?

My thinking on this comes from all the reaction to Marvel's purchase of Heroes World, the 3rd largest distributor in 1994. Basically, why didn't it work? "Because this is Marvel and they're stupid and they don't know what they're doing." But then what if anything was inherently flawed about the basic idea?

Say, if intelligent, decent people were handling the show at the time. No gunboat diplomacy, Marvel Mart or such nonsense. Perhaps in an alternate universe where they offered Walter Wang a nice big check for his company.

First of all, it could do some trimming on go-betweens from the publisher and distributor, and the distributor's cut of the discount takes less accounting for. The publisher has a greater stake in its own products. Could a fairly level field have been established if Marvel had said "Dark Horse, DC, Diamond, Capital, Image, et al, come, let us reason together."?

My rough guess involves supplying other distributors with Marvel comics at equivalent discounts and working out an amicable solution on Marvel Distribution's handling of other accounts. They would even have more access to individual retailers (cushioned by infrastructure no doubt, but still...). Catalogues could be, hell I don't know, outsourced or sent by each company to the printers. A commitment, in other words, to the direct market which would still allow the guys at the top to plan their theme parks and Planet Murderworlds and even Marvel Mart as a non-direct market program, selling Spider-Man stuff to Wal-Mart or whoever.

And if it seems feasible for Marvel (in my mind -- and theirs -- anyway), other publishers might have (had) a similar chance. Would it be too difficult to directly distribute? Even for smaller companies, who have less volume to ship?

I reach the crux of my questioning. What this a feasible idea then and/or would it be feasible now?

In writing the above, I notice a few deficiencies in my perspective. The first, that I am working from hindsight through patchworks of perhaps-biased information. I have also spent my entire adult life in a world of fax machines, Fed Ex and e-mail. For this, I can only apologize and plead ignorance.

The other deficiency is one of specifics. There are stories of work crews in warehouses and boxes 'pon boxes, quiet expositions of how such-and-such was closer to the printer than so-and-so and could get shipments earlier. But what's missing is a more thorough understanding of the structure of distribution. [I'm pretty ignorant of fax machines, Fed Ex and e-mail too.] What does a distributor do? How much does a distributor take to do what it does? How is it different now from the day when moving a hundred thousand copies was considered poor sales?

Just thought I'd ask.

Because no retailer wants to have to deal with a couple of dozen (or, if he's really a complete retailer and carries at least one title from every publisher listed in Previews a couple of hundred) publishers every month. Easier to deal with one source that gathers all those publishers' works together and markets them to the retailer.

Mr. O'Neill's right on target about why distributors (or rather, wholesalers, which is really what we're talking about here) are important and necessary to the comic book indusry.

Setting aside the distractions of deal-making and exculisves and whatnot, Diamond's primary service to much of the comics industry is as a wholesaler, operating as wholesalers do: purchasing items from a variety of suppliers and re-selling them to individual retailers. The service provided to retailers is 'one-stop shopping' so that the retailers don't have to maintain accounts and small orders with multiple suppliers. The service provided to manufacturers (publishers) is that they don't have to maintain systems to receive, process, fulfill, invoice, and collect a multitude of small orders from individual retailers.

One might envision a future of the comics industry somewhat similar to what exists in the traditional book industry whereby manufacturers (publishers) maintain sufficient fulfillment/credt/collections/etc. systems so that they can sell both directly to individual retailers and to various wholesalers, thus affording multiple sales venues by which retailers can acquire and manufacturers can sell their wares. But realistically, that's a way in the future yet.

Regardless, the wholesaler segment of the industry is not going to disappear, nor, I would argue, should it.

Good Lord! This thread's been going on for over three YEARS! Wait- Historical comic book thread. That should be "Good Lord *Choke*!"

Anyways, I'm a newbie to this board, but I have been around for a while, so allow me to add my two cents, relative to the "historical" part of the thread:

.....

I never met Carol Kalish, but was well aware of her importance, and aware of the "this would have never happened if Carol were still alive" school of thought. I mentioned it to someone (formerly a very heavy hitter, and still in the industry, let's just call him "John"- an often generic name) in conversation several years ago. He told me that he felt that if she had lived, it would have meant nothing to Marvel. She was already being pushed out, her Marvel influence was already drastically weakened at the time of her passing. He said Lou Bank definitely wasn't the pusher- he was the next-in-line for the job, and (IIRC) Carol's protege, so his days were numbered as soon as he took over her position.

Jim's mention of Joey Calamari's apparently being involved in a start-up with Ms.Kalish certainly adds credence to John's statement, and John's statement adds credence to the possibility that the start-up was a reality.

.....

On Walter Wang and the Comics Unlimited "shot across the bows" Just a vignette:

It must have been 1994 when I attended an Andromeda retailer meeting, and got into a conversation with ...um... a Marvel Guy, again, pretty heavy, someone who just recently left the company. Let's call him "MaRg".

I brought up the subject of Comics Unlimited, and Marg immediately launched into a mini-tirade about "teaching these bastards (distributors) a lesson", "they think they're big shots" and so on. The odd thing was that he claimed cutting off Wang was his idea. He did this before I could really say anything.

When he wound down a bit, I managed to interject "didn't anyone run it through legal" and he was off again, with "yeah, and they felt that while we weren't really solid, Marvel would win any suit that Wang brought, because they couldn't afford the kind of lawyers we could and we would wear them down over time, and the point being made to the others was much more important than the legal fees..." It was all about the exercise of power. Marg went on about distributors insulting Marvel, and Marvel having to take action to show them who was boss. He said they were looking to make an example of someone unimportant and CU was in negotiations to sell out to Diamond anyways.

Quite extraordinary, but I think he was feeling a bit rambunctious- most of the retailers were either fawning over Nicieza & Lobdell, or castigating him for the pathetic animated FF cartoon they were featuring, or laughing at their "big" promo item, a dispenser for those cards they used to do to keep track of crossover series. He must have felt I was a sympathetic ear or something...

Anyways, I finally brought up my question: I was curious about Marvel Legal's approach to the concept of consideration that Marvel caused CU financial harm due to something that they published in their newsletter. (Marvel had made no bones that it was a direct cause and response.) Wasn't it conceivable that they had left themselves open to a violation of civil rights prosecution? I was coming at this as a Canadian, based on my limited knowledge of the US Bill of Rights, and I was curious about how it had been taken into consideration.

MaRg blanched. His face literally turned white, and he took a step back. He just... stopped for a second, obviously stunned by the idea. I gather legal hadn't considered this aspect.

He was off again in a second or two, but deftly switched to justifying a coming price increase for mainstream Marvels on the basis that "people could scream all they want, but it's important to establish that Spiderman's more important than Spawn, and that the only reason Marvel was raising prices was to remind the industry that they were the leaders, not Image, and that there was no way that Marvel was going to tolerate their flagship character taking a back seat to Image's flagship character in any way, including price, and blablablabla...."

Like I said, just a little vignette....
-and obviously the quotes aren't verbatim, but they were noted down at the time because they were so extraordinary

-Lev

Re: Previews, Diamond and Stores: One book, one look. All stores now carry the same boring merchandise. When stores had to shop different sources, that made them unique. Consumers shifted from store to store on weekend haunts for what's new. The need doesn't exist anymore since the one book one look mentality took over. Previews/Diamond=one distributor. The industry has changed.

Not only, as Pat points out, do retailers not want to deal with several dozen suppliers each, but publishers and manufacturers really don't want to deal with several thousand customers each.

That's why.

Or imagine if they'd been slightly smart and had acquired Heroes World through a shell company without revealing their involvement and then spent a couple of years building a national distribution system before going exclusive.

Yes, that would be part of it. Okay, leaving aside the objections of those above who have the temerity to be intelligent and informed about what they're saying :p why wouldn't it have worked for Marvel in this alternate universe where they were intelligent and progressive? If you can get your Marvels, your DCs, Image etc. all from one source [Marvel's pet distributor] wouldn't that be seen by most retailers as an improvement? Or a store owner can continue to go through Diamond, Capital, etc.

It feels like I'm violating some basic tenet of capitalism by saying this could be possible, anybody know which one? Would it be too difficult to maintain a level playing field among distributors and companies?