Retailing & Marketing

At the April retailer summit in Chicago, Diamond broached the possibility of making Tuesday new comics day instead of Wednesday, in accordance with retailers' wishes to get comics a day early to avoid a Wednesday morning stocking rush and so on. (The biggest Diamond accounts already get Tuesday delivery.) While most industry types at the show felt that Diamond wouldn't be asking this question unless they planned to go ahead with it, it is still very much in the thinking stages.

Diamond has been running a retailer survey on their website for a few months polling shops on what day and delivery method they think would be best, and whether a $5 weekly fee to cover the costs of policing the system and prevent early sales would be reasonable. We're told that over 1,000 retailers responded, but Diamond hasn't decided how to move forward yet.

CBR's Alex Dueben talks to Humanoids E-i-C Bob Silva about the French publisher's return to the US market after deals with DC and Devil's Due, but Silva says the retail market has not been kind to their offerings:

During his six years as Marketing Manager at Marvel Comics, Jim McCann definitely established himself as a strong candidate for Nicest Guy In Comics, and certainly helped out The Beat on many occasions. This Thursday will be his last day on staff at Marvel, however, as he leaves to pursue his writing career with both regular Marvel writing gigs and a stiking creator-owned project, THE RETURN OF THE DAPPER MEN, coming this fall from Archaia. As McCann mentions in the interview, he long had a background in writing, but his outgoing nature usually ended up spinning him towards marketing jobs, but now he's sticking with the path to what he wants to do. McCann has definitely been in the middle of some of Marvel's wildest rides over the last six years, and when he suggested an "exit interview," we thought it would be a good way to look back on them. Plus he suggested a music number to end it all, so we had to go along. You won't find too much muckraking here -—McCann could easily segue into inspirational speaking -— and things might get a little sappy at the end, but not every one can be a tearjerker!

With convention season revving up, retailer meeting season is also gathering steam. First up: the annual ComicsPRO meeting, this year in Memphis, TN, on...

Via today's Diamond Daily, a slight change to the year-old order minimum benchmarks; now, even if a product offered in Previews does not meet...

People have been wondering when DC would make some kind of move aimed at Marvel's assault on their Lantern Ring promotion...and now they have....

As promised, photos of DC Blackest Night tie-in comics covers returned to Marvel, via Tom Brevoort's Twitter.You kids play nice, now!

The ComicPRO retailer organization has announced the formation of their Industry Appreciation Awards to honor individuals who have improved the direct market. PR below,...