Comics Crux

                          

Bluewater Productions, known in large part for their comics dedicated to biographies about show business and political personalities, has severed their relationship with Diamond Comic Distributors. In Diamond’s place, Bluewater will be partnering with Comic Flea Market. The reason? Bluewater President, Darren G. Davis, stated that Diamond has “abruptly” cancelled several of their comics because they hadn’t make their “sales benchmarks”. This means that unless comics sell x-amount of copies, Diamond won’t issue a purchase order. Though it’s understandable as they’re a larger company, it’s not helpful for a publisher. Davis says, “But I don’t condemn them for it.”

Davis emphasized that Bluewater isn’t abandoning the direct market, and will continue to offer their comics at the same discount that Diamond had given.

“My experience has shown me that if your name is not DC or Marvel, it is very difficult to get support from Diamond,” Davis said in a press release. “As an independent producer, I felt it was time to take out titles to the next level.”

This is also coming at a time when Diamond has halted the distribution of Black Kiss 2 (a series published by Image Comics) in Britain because of the sexually explicit content. Because Image has an exclusive deal with Diamond, they can’t sell it to another distributor, and the trade paperback won’t be available most likely.

To circumvent this, it’s plausible that US stores will sub-distribute to UK ones, which goes against Diamond’s guidelines, but isn’t illegal. This means that while copies of Black Kiss 2 will be available, it’ll be later and at an expense. 

(Source: bleedingcool.com)