Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: diamond, previewsworld
Previewsworld and diamondcomics.com are down… for good? We just don’t know. But it’s already been one of those days…
Article Summary
PreviewsWorld and DiamondComics.com are both down, causing major disruption on New Comics Day.
Retailers can’t access the Diamond Retailer site to place orders, getting a 503 error message.
Diamond’s new owners, Ad Populum/Sparkle Pop, face backlash for poor communication and payment delays.
The loss of PreviewsWorld erases decades of comic book release records and essential direct market data.
UPDATE: NOPE! After being down for several hours, within ten minutes of Bleeding Cool posting this article, Previewsworld and DiamondComics roared back to life. Looks like someone, somewhere pressed a button… the original article continues. Today is New Comics Day, Wednesday for normal folk, and a day that would see the Previewsworld website humming, as people work out what comic books are available today. Even titles that Diamond Comics USA aren’t distributing are on the site, as Diamond UK still distributes them (well, apart from Mad Cave and TwoMorrow). And this morning began like any other… until Previewsworld.com went down. As did DiamondComics.com. And the restricted Diamond Retailers website, where retailers make their orders. Giving a “503 Service Unavailable, No server is available to handle this request” message.
This comes as new owners of Diamond Comic Distributors, Ad Populum/Sparkle Pop have come under extreme criticism from retailers and publishers alike for a lack of both communication and payment. Legal cases have revealed some serious allegations about the actions of the new management when it comes to publishers and retailers, as well as layoffs and redundancies across the board. Even as many publishers pulled out, with Dynamite Entertainment seemingly keeping the flag flying, and even announcing new titles to be listed in the next Diamond Previews catalogue, even though we have no idea if there even will be one, Diamond were still distributing comics, even if some were late, cancelled or just missing.
There was a fear, however, that this was happening on auto-pilot, the previous systems that had been set up, keeping everything going, even if there was less and less to feed the machine. And that something, somewhere was going to snap and no one would know how to fix it.
The disappearance of the Previewsworld website is not just an inconvenience for Wednesday Warriors. It is also the most complete record of comic books distributed in the direct market going back decades. What came out, when it came out, the covers, the creators, all the solicitation details, all preserved, and freely accessible in a simply presented website. And, for now, it seems, gone.
As to how retailers are meant to order comic books on the retailer site of the website, well that’s pretty unclear now as well. Maybe someone somewhere will press a button and put it all back. Maybe not.
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