At the Diamond Retailer appreciation breakfast this morning, after being forced to surrender phones and become sequestered behind a blast shield door, attendees were treated to some new footage from IRON MAN 3 which included the scene of Tony Stark getting his suit on to the strains of the Run DMC classic “Christmas in Hollis” that was previously shown at SDCC. This was followed by a sizzle reel of shots that included glimpses of Tony, Rhodey, Pepper Potts and Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin and an ominous voiceover.
The big publisher news was Dynamite Entertainment is joining the Diamond FOC program in November, followed by BOOM! in December and Valiant at an unspecified future date. The FOC—final order cut-off—program allows retailers to adjust orders right up until the printing deadline, and allows a more refined ordering pattern for issue #2s and more.
We’re reminded of a Diamond Retailing Conference a few years ago where BOOM! publisher Ross Richie was lobbying to be included as a premium publisher and handed out “Prove Bill Wrong” t-shirts as a tweak to Diamond VP Bill Schanes —one of which we still wear to the gym. As one wag put it this morning, while Bill’s veracity hasn’t been proven one way or another, BOOM! is getting into the FOC program.
Schanes, who made the announcement, also teased more publishers joining the program soon, although it wasn’t clear if he was referring to BOOM! and Valiant. It’s hard to think of more periodical publishers who have the publishing volume to be suitable for the FOC program.
In other news, Diamond’s revenues for the year are looking good, as shown in the accompanying slide.
