On the day that Diamond announced a plan to return to distributing product Mid-May, DC Comics made their own announcement: that, as previously announced, they are pursuing alternative distribution methods and will start shipping product for onsale April 27th.
Orders through April 15th are cancelled but starting on 4/21 retailers can confirm their orders for product shipping on 4/28 – which will now be available on Tuesday, 4/27.
But the biggest bombshell of this: DC will be using two new distributors, Lunar Distribution and UCS Comic Distributors to distribute weekly periodical comics. Retailers can sign up with either on a regional basis.
Lunar is handling accounts in the Western section of North America, and UCS the eastern portion. Nothing is known of these two new entities, however we have reached out to them.
This is a seismic move for the comics industry, with the first new direct market distributors for comics periodicals in 20 years. I’d long heard rumors that DC Comics has not renewed their exclusive deal with Diamond, and this would indicate that those rumors are true.
DC has just released more information on where and how comics will be released – without information on the new distributors.
DC ANNOUNCES ITS RETURN TO COMIC BOOK STORES ON TUESDAY, APRIL 28
New DC Comic Books to be Available at Open and Operating Comic Book Retailers
DC comic books are returning to comic shops beginning Tuesday, April 28. After a four-week break, fans can celebrate that new superhero stories will be arriving at operating retail stores.
After surveying more than 2,000 stores across the U.S. and Canada, it became clear that many comic book store owners are finding new and creative ways to get books to the fans who want them. To find stores that may have the new titles, visit the comic shop locator webpage:
www.dccomics.com/comicshoptracker
Check the page often, as it will be updated with new retailers.
The new slate of titles includes (also available for digital purchase at participating digital retailers):
Tuesday, April 28:
- New Comic Books:
- Batman #89 (3rd Printing)
- Featuring the first appearance of Punchline!
- Daphne Byrne #4
- Daphne gains a new ally as she continues to wrestle with the malevolent forces within her!
- The Dreaming #20
- The unbelievable finale to Si Spurrier and Bilquis Evely’s epic tale from the Sandman Universe!
- Nightwing #70 (2nd Printing)
- The Clown Prince of Crime comes to Ric Grayson and Bludhaven in this prelude to The Joker War!
- Batman GIANT #4
- Classic stories from the world of The Dark Knight, plus an all-new chapter of the original story “Concrete Jungle,” by Mark Russell (Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles) and Ryan Benjamin!
Tuesday, May 5:
- New Comic Books:
- Batman and the Outsiders #12
- DC Super Stars #17 (Facsimile Edition)
- The Flash #753
- The Green Lantern Season Two #3
- Hawkman #23
- House of Whispers #20
- Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity #4
Tuesday, May 12:
- New Comic Books:
- Harley Quinn #72
- Justice League #44
- Justice League Odyssey #20
- Lois Lane #10
- Metal Men #6
For more information on the World’s Greatest Super Heroes, please visit the website at www.dccomics.com, or follow on social media at @DCComics and @thedcnation.
The UCS website is owned by Midtown Comics: https://twitter.com/comichron/status/1251200018318589952
And Lunar has an Indiana phone number, which is where DCBS is.
I called UCS and went to Hal at Midtown’s voicemail. also confirmed Lunar is DCBS. Like the good old days of Pacific Comics…
Yep, reads as a temporary mail-order move to businesses that have the systems to handle periodicals, at least in the smaller numbers required now.
So if they are selling physical comics – does that mean digital will be available? That could get a little trick for UK retailers because this really means digital only in advance of them reopening (which is likely to be weeks after this)
DC doing everything they can to drag the entire industry into bankruptcy.
What percentage of comic shops are still under legally mandated closure, or even open shops with severely repressed foot traffic? I know a lot of shops are doing mail order (many at extreme discounts just to get money flowing) but there’s no way the margins on that are anywhere close to what is needed to keep the doors open in the long term. Shipping product to stores that can’t sell it seems like a GREAT way to make things worse.
“starting on 4/21 retailers can confirm their orders for product shipping on 4/28 – which will now be available on Tuesday, 4/27.” C’mon folks, get a proofreader of invest in a calendar. The 27th of April is a Monday.
@Charles Knight: “The new slate of titles includes (also available for digital purchase at participating digital retailers)”
Retailers under lockdown who can’t sell the DC books. Well, then they can’t order them. Don’t blame DC for the plague. Diamond can’t or won’t. DC will ship to whomever chooses to buy and receive them.
DC are not in a state where they can legally open their offices. This is deeply wrong what they are doing. As a retailer what do I do if my discount from Midtown is not the same as my discount from Diamond? Carrying comics at all is a very difficult thing to do at the best of times, but if my discount is 20% less than it is now? It won’t even be worth me selling them to my high discount customers. How will these new distributors know what my discount should be? This whole situation is fucked.
This is all a scam. As a comic book retailer of over 22 years I checked into this. One to two weeks approval time for applications. That puts it past their order cut off dates to get any comics before Diamond reopens. The ONLY places that will have them are Midtown and Discount and only for internet sales. This is outrageous. It is an attempt by the two largest internet retailers of comics to drive local comic book stores out of business by way of a vertical monopoly . If we are at war with the Corona virus then they are war profiteers Shame on DC , Midtown , and Discount !
I’m a comic shop employee and longtime DC fan with the majority of my 12k+ comic collection and current pull list being DC. I’ve been buying and enjoying most of the Black Label including variant covers. This move by DC disappoints me and makes me question their leadership worse than their tv/movie performance. I will continue to collect older DC comics but am cancelling all of my DC subscriptions going forward. I can’t support them in this and will gladly recommend and support independent publishers. They surveyed 2k shops about the current situation and then decided to go with Midtown and DCBS as distributors. How many of those 2k shops will buy from online competitors that sell at 40-50% off retail? They didn’t survey that nor are they available to respond to those shops now. Maybe because their offices are on stay at home orders?
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