To understand the ramifications involved, a history of how comic books are sent to the market is in order.<\/p>\n
For much of their history in the United States, comic books were considered as just another periodical, and the primary method by which they were sold to the end consumer was through the newsstand. \u00a0The newsstand owner negotiated quantities with the publisher and distributor months in advance.\u00a0 He displayed the books for a time, and split the revenue with the partners.\u00a0 Since the units were provided on consignment<\/a>, any unsold copies were then returned to the publisher (usually, to save on shipping, only the covers were returned with the proviso that the newsstand destroy the interiors).<\/p>\n Marvel Comics<\/a> began to explore the concept of a direct market for comics in the late 1970s under the direction of Jim Shooter<\/a>. \u00a0The primary innovation was that the comic books were sold to a store well below cover price and the store would subsequently sell the product at cover price netting, as revenue, the price differential.\u00a0 Since the store owned the product outright, any unsold units remained in its possession.\u00a0 The genesis of the direct market is marked in late 1980, with Dazzler #1<\/a> being the first regular, monthly comic being sold exclusively in the direct market<\/a>.<\/p>\n The store generated a greater profit per unit than at the newsstand, but it also ran the risk of buying a product no one wanted that languished on the shelf.\u00a0 Comics publishers also helped to mitigate the risk by publishing stories with large crossover events that linked poorer-selling titles to better-selling ones and by writing stories that spawned interest in back-issue purchases.\u00a0 The consumer enjoyed the advantage of being able to sample the book before purchase, but at the cost of paying the markup.<\/p>\n This approach put a premium on distribution.\u00a0 After some settling-in time, there emerged three companies that handled the majority of comic book distribution:\u00a0 Capital City, Diamond, and Heroes World.\u00a0 Riding high on the comics boom of the early 90s, Marvel Comics bought Heroes World Distribution in 1995<\/a> to exclusively distribute their product.\u00a0 Diamond responded with exclusive deals with Darkhorse, Image, and Archie Comics and Marvel\u2019s main rival DC Comics.\u00a0 Left out of the main action, Capital City soon after sold out to Diamond.\u00a0 An overextended Marvel then filed for bankruptcy protection in 1996, effectively ending Heroes World Distribution in 1997 and leaving Diamond as the only game in town.\u00a0 Comic Tropes\u2019s video How Distribution has Saved and is Now Killing Comics<\/a><\/em> gives a comprehensive summary of this history, including some details about the anti-trust litigation not discussed here.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to tell what impact this monopoly has had on comics over the years.\u00a0 Sales figures of US comics to the direct market show a growth from about $15 M to $27 M in the twenty years since (taken from Comichron\u2019s sales summaries<\/a>), which amounts to a about 15% growth, after inflation.\u00a0 Spending on general entertainment was closer to 30% over a similar timespan<\/a>, but comics has to contend with the emergence of a host of substitutes including manga, anime, and videogames.\u00a0 Comic book publishers resorted to an ever-increasing array of gimmicks to try to lure more customers in (rebooting of a series or a whole universe, tie-ins with movies, changing the lead character, etc.), but often stores were stuck with hundreds of back-issues with no way to unload them.\u00a0 Susana Polo\u2019s video, The BEST WAY To Buy Comics!<\/em>, presents some of the ways in which the direct market distorts comic book creativity.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Dazzler_1.jpg\")
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