Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: comicspro, lunar, streetdate
Lunar Distribution and Marvel Comics talk street dates at ComicsPRO yesterday… 23 stores lost distribution priveleges last year as a result
Article Summary
Lunar Distribution and Marvel spotlight comic book street date violations at ComicsPRO conference.
Twenty-three stores lost advance delivery privileges for proven street date breaches last year.
Online sellers and Whatnot users are linked to early releases, but brick-and-mortar stores are also cited.
Amazon’s digital comic releases often break street dates, giving global readers early access.
At the ComicsPRO comic industry retailer event being held in Glendale, California, yesterday, two prominent folks talked about the issue with comic books and street dates right now: Christine Merkler of Lunar Distribution and David Gabriel of Marvel Comics. You can follow along more announcements with this ComicsPRO handy tag right now.
Previously, when Diamond Comic Distributors held a direct market monopoly (yes, Steve Geppi, it did), street dates were less of an issue. The vast majority of comic book stores received deliveries on the day before the official day of sale or street date, so breaches were rare. Diamond then made stores pay to be part of a street date enforcement team, sending Mystery shoppers internationally to test whether they could buy comics the day before sale. This was mocked by many retailers for being transparent with shoppers, but it seems to have been rather effective. Some stores were caught, reprimanded, and punished, but breaking the street date was rare.
With the switch to Lunar and Penguin Random House as distributors, however, deliveries often arrive in stores the week before sale. And for some, the temptation over that time period is too great, and copies make it out of stores. And online sellers, especially those using the Whatnot sales streaming platform, have a reputation for selling copies early or opening up blind bags that they weren’t meant to. Regular Bleeding Cool readers will know that we often run stories based on examples of comic books, more from DC than Marvel, which have broken street date somewhere around the world.
Also Amazon’s digital comic book distribution service puts comic books on sale at 00.01 am of the day of sale. Ten hours before print comic shops even open. Also, this happens at 00.01 am, no matter what your territory. So the UK gets new comics digitally 18 hours before Californian comic shops open. And Australia gets new comics digitally the morning of the day before US comic stores open. That is official sanctioned street date breaking.
Christine Merkler, co-owner of Lunar Distribution, took to ComicsPRO to say “This is the last thing I’m gonna talk about and it’s the importance of maintaining street date. And a lot of people think that we don’t think it’s important. They don’t know what what our team deals with on a daily basis, getting all of those reports, but I can tell you that twenty-three shops lost advance delivery with proven street date violations, and we we take it very seriously, And to be fair the people who lose it tend to be a real thorn in the CSR team side, generally speaking, until we get to the point. We do have to accept that some people in every walk of life, it’s not just Whatnot users, and I do want to make that clear. I have as many violations from brick and mortars and online as I do Whatnot, but again, it’s important to maintain street date compliance as a critical responsibility. We take it very seriously, and we want you to know that we are taking it seriously, but we also need to make sure that we have the proof, so that we can back it up when we take it away.”
Of course, Christine Merkler can only deal with physical sales. David Gabriel, executive at Marvel Comics, also wanted to talk about the issue. “This is probably the wrong room, but if it reaches the Internet through all the press that’s here, that’s great.” Happy to help, David, though I don’t think anyone else reported it. “Just, the importance of street dates and keeping street dates. How many in here are breakers of street dates? Excellent, excellent, we are we are keeping an eye on it. We’re working with PRH. I know the retailers that get to us, they’re saying that all the publishers are dealing with this. It is an issue that we are watching, and we are keeping our eye on it, so I just want to let you know that before I get started.” Maybe keep an eye on Amazon as well?
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