Diamond’s bankruptcy filings continue to reveal the inner workings of the one time giant of the industry. What I’ve been thinking of as “the big one” just dropped, which includes all the money owed to creditors, including scores of comics companies, and another listing recent financial transactions. There is a ton of private information in all of this so while it is is public, we won’t be linking to it directly. However, a few things that seem notable.
- Diamond’s gross revenue in 2023 was $344.9 million; in 2024 it was $326.4 million. Teh first two weeks of 2025 showed a weekly average revenue that was 50% of the 2024 average weekly revenue. It does give a picture of how declining revenue led to the September decision to look for a buyer. At the beginning of August several “insiders” were laid off from their positions, forthur suggesting the trajectory of the decline.
- Among the “PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS, OR TRADE SECRETS” listed without assign value we find the following:
- Steve Geppi had $184,994.22 in credit card charges in the first nine months of 2024. As the owner of “the banker of comics” a certain lifestyle is expected so maybe not too surprising.
Diamond will attend Toy Fair at the start of March – according to filings, booth space was already paid for. And a few representatives will be here at ComicsPRO in Glendale, CA, which kicks off today.
There is a ton of other information in the latest filings, most of it sad to read, so I’m not going to dwell on it for now except to say a lot of publisher/entities you never think of were more profitable than you’d think; and a lot of companies that crow about success have a smaller metric for it than you might think.
Diamond Comics declared bankruptcy on January 14th, and seems headed for an auction of its assets, with a deadline of March 19, 2025 (one month from today) for bids. A hearing to go over the sale will be held March 24.
When you run a company like a piggy bank that’s what happens
I’d say a low weekly average in early January, when compared to an annual average, maybe isn’t that telling, because stores will probably mostly stock up during November and December. In January, you might take a gamble on a new series you might have high hopes for, but it would mostly be business as usuall, or even a good time to keep expenses low. Yes, stores have to order in advance for new comics, but as the stores know when the comics they’ve ordered should arrive, I assume they take the date of publication into account when ordering. Or when sales are slow in November, they are likely to keep their Initial Order for January sober. Comparing the first few weeks of January ’24 and January ’25 would be more telling. Maybe Diamonds revenue always dropped in January?
The 5.5% loss in yearly revenue I’d consider more telling. This might not seem like very much (and it is comparable to industry standards, but certainly not lower!) but 5.5% does add up to a loss of 18.5 million USD in revenue. Taking into account rising expenses, reductions of margins due to lower volumes, but continued labor intense activities, this creates a Catch 22 situation in which profitability goes out the window very, very fast.
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