When I first heard that Diamond Comic Distributors, the sole distributor for comic books in North America, closed its doors, I assumed they didn’t have a choice. I was wrong. Even though the state of Maryland ordered all nonessential businesses to close because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Diamond didn’t have to close.
Because of Maryland’s loosey-goosey rules about what constitutes an essential business and what does not, book distribution centers are considered essential. How do I know this? Penguin Random House has a book distribution center in Winchester, Maryland, and it has never closed its doors. They continued to operate as normal.
If Penguin Random House can stay open during the COVID-19 apocalypse, then so can Diamond Comic Distributors.
Diamond Comic Distributors is closed because its founder, owner, and CEO, Steve Geppi, chose to shut down the company. Why would he do that?
Not only is Diamond Comic Distributors not accepting comics from publishers, but they’re also not paying for comics they’ve already shipped to stores. This is negatively affecting comic publishers. Some are reportedly informing comic book creators to stop working on books. It has its own Twitter hashtag, #PencilsDown.
I have no idea why Steve Geppi did what he did. For everyone’s sake, I hope he knows what he’s doing.
From where I’m sitting, it looks like he brought about the death of the comic book industry. Maybe I’m wrong. I’m wrong a lot sometimes. I hope this is one of those times.