I read on these forums that people do nit like going through Diamond. What does that mean? What is a Diamond?
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Diamond is the main direct sales distributer of comic books and related collectables.
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So like what Guitar Center is for Fender and Gibson.
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Diamond is the middle man between DC Comics and your favorite collectables or comic store.
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This is a basic explanation of what Diamond is but is will do. You know how authors of novels have the option to get their book published and distributor by a company like Penguin and HarperCollins or they can self publish it. Comics have they same thing. DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, Boom, etc. are the publishers in this case. Diamond is the distributor. The only problem is Diamond is the only distributor of comic books. In the 80s they brought out small comic book distributors creating a monopoly. However, in 1997 Diamond was investigated by the U.S. Justice Department, but nothing was found to justify them as a monopoly. If small, indie creators want to sell their books through comic book stores they have to go through Diamond, which is hard because it is difficult for a small creator to be even showcased in their previews magazine. Stores purchase they inventory from Diamond every month. If you go into your lcs and request a book to be shipped to the store you may have to wait a while as Diamond can take however long they want to ship the book since they are the only ones selling. Luckily wee live in a time where you can just order offline. There are a lot of other things but that the main point of why people hate Diamond
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Diamond Comics Distributors is the full technical name of the company. They pretty much have a monopoly on distribution through the direct comic book retailer market.
On a good day, Diamond does their job and everyone gets what they ordered, retailers and customers alike. On a bad day, it all gets cocked up and royally. You’d think one company serving the entire direct market could get it right all the time, but…nope.
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Another thing is, unsold issues of comics can be shipped back to Diamond’s warehouses (usually if a store doesn’t keep back issues). And when people say ‘going through Diamond,’ they’re probably referring to Diamond’s solicits catalog.
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Thank you everyone, this helped alot!
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