DC Comics has announced it will begin new physical comic book to open stores beginning April 28th.
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
This is all well and good for comic book shops and comic book fans, but there might be some issues (pun not intended) for states and locations where comic book shops are not deemed essential businesses, and will be forced to remain closed. On the plus side, this does give DC a chance to also sell these books digitally via services like ComiXology.
In its press release, DC Comics did not state how they were distributing these comics to shops. It is also interesting that the new comics are arriving on April 28th, a Tuesday, and not on April 29th, which has been the traditional new comic book day. This new release schedule seems to align closely with traditional book publishing, which may also indicate how comics are going to be distributed and to whom.
Diamond Comic Distributors did make an announcement today that it is tentatively planning on resuming distribution activities beginning mid-to-late-May, with some caveats.
“With health and safety of employees, retailers and customers a top priority, we need to be very deliberate about how we restart and scale operations,” warned Diamond’s parent company. “We must find that delicate balance between managing health and safety concerns, meeting the pent-up demand for product and working with retailers whose situations differ, and whose need for product may have changed.
Interestingly, Diamond did respond to the news that DC is doing an end-around on the distributor that sells directly to the comic book market.
“We value our partnership with DC and will continue to support them as a distributor. Our focus is squarely on getting our industries’ entertainment products in the hands of fans as quickly and as safely as possible. As we shared this morning with our vendors and retailers, we are currently building our restart plans and targeting mid- to late-May to being shipping new weekly product. If we see signs that it is safe to resume shipping earlier, we certainly will. However, with the limited number of retailers open and most customers on stay-at-home orders, our focus is on supporting our industry and the health and safety of our stakeholders.”
Those who have subscriptions to DC Comics titles via ComiXology, did receive a notice via the digital comic service that comics would be charged on the 29th. Instead of a mistake, this looks like it might have been an early tipping of the hand, as discussed during this week’s Dueling Review podcast live stream. That being said, the emails Major Spoilers and others received from ComiXology did list Batman #92 and #93 arriving next week, so we’ll see if the following list will be updated.
Currently, here are the books DC Comics have listed as arriving on April 28th, 2020.
Tuesday, April 28:
– “Batman” #89 (3rd Printing)
– “Daphne Byrne” #4
– “The Dreaming” #20
– “Nightwing” #70 (2nd Printing)
– “Batman Giant” #4
Tuesday, May 5:
– “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:
– “Harley Quinn” #72
– “Justice League” #44
– “Justice League Odyssey” #20
– “Lois Lane” #10
– “Metal Men” #6
According to Bleeding Cool, Lunar Distributors and UCS Comic Distributors will cover the release distribution. Whether this is temporary or permanent is yet to be announced. Who are these distributors? Well, it looks like they are new, and have only started up in the last couple of weeks.
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