A New Comic Distribution System?
If you weren’t aware, the comic industry is currently having a financial crisis. Many shops are finding it extremely difficult to operate in these trying times. There’s a good chance a decent percentage will close permanently after the dust settles.
Out of the blue though, ComicHub announced they would be rolling out their service to every single comic shop.
What does this mean?
This means that all shops will be able to still make money through the service. But how does that work?
Customers use the service to register with their shop, so that when they purchase through ComicHub, the shop will get the money. What you’re purchasing is a digital copy with a free physical copy that is later shipped to your store for you to pick up.
This sounds like a good idea. But there are also a few concerns I personally have as someone who works in a comic shop that is temporarily closed until everything blows over.
Distribution of these books could become much more difficult as you’re going from around 100 shops that use ComicHub to every shop across the globe. At least, that’s the idea. This will be a much larger number than ComicHub normally handles. So the question is if their system will be able to handle the added load. Espefially when Diamond, the biggest and only distributor, already has issues handling these things.
Customer use is not guaranteed. This is a band-aid on a bullet wound of a solution. Yes, some customers will use this system. But MOST probably won't. So it still leaves many shops to fend for themselves.
A lot of the companies just aren’t printing books in general at the moment. It's not just distribution. It's printing itself. So that raises the question, “What happens when we reach the bottom of the back log?” I’m assuming that some creators will continue to make comics and when the printing starts up again, the books will be shipped to stores. But that goes back to my concern of if the system can handle it. That is a lot of orders, which means shipments of HUNDREDS of books by the time they’d be shipping.
As of right now, this is the best solution the industry has. A solution that, in my opinion, should’ve already been an industry standard. For the moment, think of it as a pre-order system. As that is effectively what it will be, and somewhat has been.
Only time will tell how much this will actually help.
