Rough Diamond: Kill the Direct Market

You ever read a comic book? If so it was more than likely moved, bought, and sold by Diamond Comics Distributors. Who are they? You might ask. Well they are one man, Steve Geppi. The man that controls all the comics.

It’s not Dan Didio, or Joe Quesada, but Geppi, Steve Geppi. He runs Diamond. They say who can sell what, since if you don’t sell enough to make it worth his while, he will cut you loose. But hey, don’t feel bad. You are dead weight, you might be able to sell your comic online, and be able to make a profit.

Now Diamond is a racket. How so? Well Diamond is in part one company under the control of Geppi. Who not only sells the world comic books, but also tells you how much they are worth. Yes. The Overstreet Price Guide that you local comic book store uses to grade comic books is not from some independent group of retailers, historians, and the like, but from the man who sells the stores the comics. That is a rigged system, that is a racket.

But hey don’t worry. It’s no worse that Wizard right. Right? Well for those that are unfortunate enough to not remember Wizard Magazine they were a comics magazine that helped inflate comic books, and led to a dark age we are still suffering. They gave artists that tired to write like Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, and Rob Liefeld a platform, and hyped them to such a extreme(a word that Liefeld you squee over) that they became responsible for the predicament we are in now.

For the past two decades Geppi, has had a monopoly on the direct market, that I feel has led to the stagnation, and incestuous nature of the world of comic books. The direct market should die a bloody painful death. Yes this would put kill many comic book stores, but once digital comics catch on, and eventually they will. Your local “Dragon’s Lair” or “Memory Lane Comics” will go the way of the Tower Records, or Suncoast. The proliferation of the Mp3 both legal, and illegal killed the physical stores, as a whole, and so will go your local comic book store.

The scary thing is no one is talking about this. They are so scared since comics are a fragile market to begin with, but could this be simply because no one has known anything else? Think about it. For the twenty years this guy has had a stranglehold on the industry. There has been no growth because he doesn’t want there to be any. The retailers, and the top four companies(Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image) probably couldn’t survive a crash if Geppi and his Diamond Comic Distributors should have it’s legs taken out from under it. I say good.

I want Marvel and DC to crumble into the ocean like those building Dicaprio and his wife build in “Inception”. I guess it’s a anarchist view, but hell it’s the same old shit, just a different Wednesday. You know? Character dies, boosts sales, but drives some people away, brings in a few onlookers who still think that comic will make them some money. Big Summer Event that promises that “things will never be the same, again!” Now every comic has to tie into what they are doing. A celebrity writer comes in and spins a few characters in a off direction then vanishes like a thief in the night, leaving other writers to try and salvage their year long mess of a story. The cycle needs to be broken. The Direct Market needs to die, so does Marvel and DC.

What will rise out of the ashes? I don’t know. I hope it will be an industry built upon the back of creators that know how to adapt, that have utilized DIY tactics to overcome the comic book citadel that is the Geppi drafted system. For all those that do web comics, that sell their collections via online stores, or in person at comic book conventions, the future is yours. It belongs to you. But first we have to end this party. Either it can go the way of Studio 54. Or the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco. The choice is yours.