Marvel and Penguin Random House have entered into a multi-year deal to with Penguin Random House to distribute comic books and graphic novels to comic book shops.
I bet Steve Geppi of Diamond Comic Distributors wishes he had not decided to abuse his monopoly of distributing comics last year and not distribute comics. Not only did he not distribute comics, he decided not to pay publishers the money he owed them. Instead, he created a payment plan and forced publishers to accept it. As the industry’s only distributor, what were publishers going to do, go to the competitor? Steve Geppi had no competitors.
DC Comics responded by assisting in creating two new distributors and then going exclusive with them.
I’m not suprised Marvel chose to go this route. I’m suprised they didn’t set up a new distributor like DC Comics did.
For Geppi’s sake, I hope he saved some of the money he made from the “Back the Comeback” grift. It looks like Diamond Comic Distributors’ days are numbered.