How will the CoronaVirus affect the comic industry?

Discussion in 'Comic Books and Graphic Novels' started by Omegashark18, Mar 12, 2020.

  1. Safeguard

    Safeguard Autobot

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    REMAIN INDOORS
     
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  2. Joey Slick

    Joey Slick Whirl is a Transformer.

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    I'm confident in saying that you're mistaken. A furlough has no specific legal definition in the U.S., but is generally meant to mean a partial or total reduction in hours. You can qualify for unemployment even if your hours are not totally reduced - e.g. cut from 40 to 20 hours per week.
     
  3. jasonw

    jasonw Well-Known Member

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    It shows you how fucked the comics industry is, that every other entertainment media, games, music, television, is ramping up output to take advantage of people staying at home, and the comics industry shuts down when it could be making more money than ever.

    It's completely insane.
     
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  4. Hobbes-timus Prime

    Hobbes-timus Prime Well-Known Member

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    What are you basing this on? No new narrative movies or TV are in production. Finished movies are being delayed by months if not a year or more. Streaming services are giving away extra long free trials or debuting movies that otherwise should have had a theatrical run. All of this is to create goodwill and that will possibly earn them some new customers, but it's also costing them a ton of money. No form of media is in a good position right now.
     
  5. Deathcatg

    Deathcatg Well-Known Member

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    My Local Comic Book Shop (Pop Comics) updated on their social media that they're not going to go with DC's new distrubters, and will wait it out instead (mainly citing the extra cost of doing so for just a few books, and being California, not worth the trouble sice they won't be open for a while anyway). Since I can be bad at relating information like that, I'm going to copy/paste their statement behind a spoiler-tag.
    New Comics Update!
    Ok, so some of y'all have heard that DC is (sort of) shipping new comics this coming week. What they didn't tell you (or us, actually) is that they are trying to send comic shops to the two largest online comics dealers in the country, our competitors, to acquire these comics.

    There are numerous reasons that we (and hundreds and hundreds of other retailers) are choosing not to do this, but I'll stick to the basics here. Primarily, we are a small business that serves our local community. The last thing we want to do is give our business information to either of the two largest predators in the ocean. Furthermore, given that we're talking about five or so new titles per week for the first three weeks (with many of those being smaller titles, reprints, and WalMart re-hashes), we'd actually be losing money trying to bring them in from these distrib-retailers, which is not something we want to do when things are already tight.

    We are choosing to wait for Diamond Comics to resume shipping. They have treated us well for almost 20 years, so we don't see any reason to step over them now, simply because they chose to do the right thing and ceased operations when 80% of comics retailers were not supposed to open anyway.

    That said, we will have access to all the books that are otherwise being released this coming week, and next week, and the week after that, but it probably won't be until about the third week of May. I don't expect we'll be allowed to open before then anyway. And we'll bring them in even if we're not still not open to the public yet at that point.

    As always, we appreciate you, our favorite customers. And we appreciate your patience, of course. And if you decide you can't wait another handful of weeks for the latest issue of Daphne Byrne, we get it. Do what you gotta do. We'll be here when you get back. Stay safe, people.

    Thanks much,
    Thomas & the entire Pop Comics team
    I respect their decision, and since I only have 2 DC titles in my pull list (The Green Lantern and Halrey Quinn & The Birds of Prey), doesn't effect me much.
    They did use a image that I've seen quite a bit over the last few days on Facebook when pro-Diamond supporters explain their opinions.
    FB_IMG_1587764601750.jpg
     
  6. AzT

    AzT Moderator News Staff TFW2005 Supporter

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  7. Gaastra

    Gaastra Well-Known Member

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  8. Haywired

    Haywired Hakunamatatacon

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    This industry is simply hilarious. XD

    Suicidal too.
     
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  9. TheLastBlade

    TheLastBlade Well-Known Member

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    It’s funny to see that of all the things fucked over by the pandemic, the comic industry is doing the worst. Hell, it probably wouldn’t be all that bad if it wasn’t floundering for years.
     
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  10. SouthtownKid

    SouthtownKid Headmaster

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    Meanwhile, comics here in Japan continue on like nothing is happening. Still all on the same schedule, still all available everywhere.

    But yeah, in the US, let's continue to cling to the distribution model that helped turn a mainstream form of entertainment into a fringe medium.
     
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  11. ubertenorman

    ubertenorman Well-Known Member

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    Yeah I don't know how it works other places but that's how it works in MN
     
  12. Gaastra

    Gaastra Well-Known Member

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  13. Gaastra

    Gaastra Well-Known Member

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  14. Rumblestorm

    Rumblestorm Well-Known Member

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    Why is this industry suffering more than others?
    Its a prime example of an industry that could be worked from home.
     
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  15. AzT

    AzT Moderator News Staff TFW2005 Supporter

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  16. Deathcatg

    Deathcatg Well-Known Member

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    There's varying opinions depending on who you ask and on what, but the main thing currently is probably the sole distributor of American comic books not accepting new comics.
    Here's a half-hour history lesson into how Diamond became the only game in town. ("Comic Tropes"'s YouTube channel)
     
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  17. Macross7

    Macross7 Well-Known Member

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    They can create as many comics as the want. Doesn't mean jack crap if the printers aren't running or the distributor isn't distributing. Also, major problem if the stores they are sold in aren't open.


    Movies are suffering due to theaters being closed. Bunch of pushing things back. We'll be almost into 2022 by the time everything that was supposed to come out in 2020 is finally released. We might even have some things in 2022.

    TV has been hit. We seem to have not hit it yet. Thanks to having to film shows so many months before they air, we are still getting new episodes since they were done before the shut down. However, many shows had to shut down. Some shows have had episode orders cut. Some will start back up once the all-clear is given. What this is going to mean is shorter seasons and then a major gap between new episodes. Once they run out of the episodes they completed and the ones they complete/film after the all clear. I heard one show got screwed. It is the final season and they were an episode before the finale when the halted. They are not going to restart production but just give some sort of wrap up in the 2nd to last episode. Meaning, that show will never get the true finale it was going to get.
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2020
  18. SouthtownKid

    SouthtownKid Headmaster

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    Which is exactly why the Direct Market was a bad idea to begin with. All of us here have fond memories of our local comic shops, because we somehow found our local shop. But all that comics being relegated to specialty shops has really accomplished is to marginalize the artform and ghettoize the industry.

    The ironic thing here is that comics are positioned to be completely immune to a situation like the one we're living through. They are produced by people who basically live their lives in isolation anyway, so that's not a problem. I've heard DC editorial is working from home (no idea about Marvel), so apparently that can be done as well. I imagine they need at least minimal production staff on site, but that can be done under current conditions as well.

    Printing and distribution? We have digital. Instead of holding back on digital so as not to offend comic shop owners, whose businesses are slowly dying out anyway, publishers should now be pushing digital harder than ever. It's a comic shop that never closes and that you don't need to leave your home to visit. The corona pandemic could be a comics BOOM if they weren't so timid about abandoning the already failed model they cling to.
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2020
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  19. Macross7

    Macross7 Well-Known Member

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    I do think comics should find a way to get sold in more normal places. Mainly grocery stores since everyone goes to them. When I was a kid, besides grocery stores, I bought comics at drug stores, gas stations, book stores. I had a drug store that stocked Marvel/DC that I could walk to so I could keep up on Transformers & GIJoe. Going to the comic store was a special even for me that might happen every 2-3 months at best. It was pretty out of the way to where we normally went and I had to rely on someone driving me there. Even now in 2020, the comic stores in my city are not in areas that normal families would likely go near on a weekly basis. They are not near grocery stores or even shopping centers. You more or less make a trip specifically to it. Meaning, kids today likely do not run across comics much so not likely to become consistent readers.

    However, the normal places would only carry Marvel, DC, some Disney & Archie Comics. Years ago when my local grocery store had a few spinner racks of comics, besides the companies mentioned above, they had some Star Wars Dark Horse comics. I think it was JUST because they were Star Wars comics. No other Dark Horse titles. This is where the Direct Market is good. I've seen the weekly comics list and there are well over a dozen publishers. All the various smaller companies would likely never get into normal stores. DC & Marvel would likely be all that would be carried by normal stores. MAYBE a few of the more well known licensed IP comics might get carried just because customers would recognize the brand. The others, not getting stocked. Comics stores will be the only places they will be sold at locally.
     
  20. toonbot

    toonbot Well-Known Member

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    Comics are read digitally. If their business is that fragile they can’t work from home and keep producing comics then they are horrible doing something wrong. In fact everyone is stuck at home consuming content business should be booming.
     
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