Alterna Comics is really trying to address the distribution and price model of comics. The latest has the company sending comics to bookstore chains.
The publisher announced at the beginning of the year it would return to newsprint and bring the cost of comics down considerably. Then it announced an initiative to get its comics into grocery stores. The latest business move by the publisher now has comics going to bookstore retailers.
Alterna Comics has expanded distribution to include nearly half of all Barnes & Noble stores, all Books-A-Million stores, and they have secured a deal for their all ages (Adam Wreck, Amazing Age, Lilith Dark) titles to be distributed into the top 200 Toys”R”Us stores over the holiday season.
Publisher and founder of Alterna Comics, Peter Simeti said, “I’m thrilled for the creators at Alterna, obviously. They’ll be able to get their comics in more stores, in front of more people. That’s a great thing for comics in general. Comic shops are obviously still the best place to find comic books, but expanded distribution in today’s market is an absolute necessity. Comics should be everywhere and as a publisher, my entire job revolves around getting our comics in as many places as possible. I’m happy to report that we’ve been receiving dozens of messages from readers that are finding our titles on newsstands and then going to comic shops to add them to pull lists or pick up other titles that might have been sold out. This is exactly what we wanted to happen.”
It sounds like Alterna is doing some very positive things on the business side to get comics to more people, but with the recent bankruptcy filings by Toys R Us, I hope the publisher hasn’t extended itself by giving credit to a store that owes billions of dollars to others. The company going under without paying its creditors could sink a publisher like Alterna.
