Diamond Will Cease Comic Book Distribution to Stores

Diamond will cease comic book distribution to stores

In an enormous blow to the direct market, Diamond Comic Distributors will cease accepting new comic books from printers, as confirmed by ComicBook. Diamond is the largest distributor of comics in North America, with exclusive distribution arrangements with most major publishers including Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Dark Horse, IDW, Image and more.

This news is obviously born out of the current COVID-19 outbreak and its crippling effect on most industries. Comic book retailers are particularly vulnerable, as most operate on slim margins and face competition from online retailers like Amazon or digital comics purveyors such as Comixology. With the shutdown of Diamond, brick and mortar comics retailers will effectively be unable to function.

The outlet notes that Diamond will continue to ship out comics and other product already in its warehouse for now, but it will not be long before the flow of new issues ceases entirely.

The move comes less than two weeks after Diamond cancelled its annual retailer summit, which was to have taken place April 14-16 in Orlando, Florida. Shortly after that the promotional event Free Comic Book May was also postponed until an unspecified date later this year.

Prior to the current pandemic, 2020 was expected to be a huge year for comic book movies in the cinemas including the already-released Birds of Prey and Bloodshot as well as the forthcoming The New Mutants, Black Widow, Wonder Woman 1984, The Eternals, Morbius, Venom 2 and The King’s Man.