Comics shipping in May/June 2020

Topic

Ah! Good to be back. The enemy has been vanquished, and we can all go back to hugging and kissing at our Local Comic Shops!

Going to make these threads monthly, and I don’t think I’ll “edit” anything, just new posts as required.

Remember, Diamond will be giving Wednesday dates, but some LCS’ will sell DC on Tuesdays.
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Comics shipping May 20th – confirmed – TXT – PDF – Midtown Comics

Replies

Comics shipping May 27th – Expected – Text List

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DavidM, Ben

Thanks Sean, this’ll be hugely helpful.

Clustering should help on the flux and changes, as there’ll be more than a few.

I wonder how this will work in practice for the retailers. Forbidden Planet still isn’t open this month, and probably won’t be next month either. Are they going to keep taking in shipments and piling them up, hoping they can sell them at some point down the line?

Forbidden Planet are sending books out by mail order. I just had my first arrive.

So that covers a portion of their customers with pre-orders, presumably. There will still be books for customers like me, who have a pull list but have never given them any contact details. They could stockpile mine and hope I have enough money to buy them all when I am finally allowed in the shop, I suppose. But they also have to do something with all the books that would normally sit on the shelves waiting for an impulse buyer, and continuing to order them and piling them up for x months until they open seems a bad business risk. I think that the logical business choice would be to cancel everything they can’t guarantee selling this month (i.e. just yours Dave). But if every shop does that, is there really much point in the publishers printing anything?

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Todd

Oh it wasn’t automatic, I’ve had to actively go on to their online store and place orders for the stuff I want.

I spoke to FP about their additional ordering last year and they told me that they don’t actually over-order that much on most titles as they get very little impulse purchasing from people in their bricks-and-mortar stores and don’t keep back issues on the shelf for more than a couple of months max.

So presumably unsold stock would usually be sent back to HQ and sold off at a discount through the website where they have a regular sale on recent issues that they haven’t been able to shift. Maybe they’ll just keep all that centralised this time.

It’s a tricky thing because the responses vary so much by region, often logically because of the relative impact of the virus, sometimes not. A lot of US shops seem to be using curbside pickup, so you can’t go in and browse but can get your weekly pull list. It’s controlled at state level though so that isn’t uniform.

Every shop will do different things which makes it impossible to have a ‘fits all’ approach from the publishers. FP have an established mail order business so they can switch to that much easier than a smaller operation.

One thing that worries me a little is DC has partnered with the BINC group and have raised a lot of money to keep comic shops afloat, Jim Lee’s daily sketches alone have raised hundreds of thousands but it is north America only. 30% of comics sales are outside that region and I hope people are considering shops in the UK, Ireland, Australia and beyond because if they go bust that’s a big chunk of the market.

I just placed my order with Midtown Comics for a couple of new releases plus an old TPB collection; it felt good to be ordering books again after a long drought.

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Vikram, Sean Robinson

Dave wrote:

Forbidden Planet are sending books out by mail order. I just had my first arrive.

All of mine have come now. Nice to have a new stack to work through.

[Sean Robinson]

PreviewsWorld’s confirmed list for comics shipping May 27th

Direct Links: TXT, PDF, and Midtown Comics

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• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Sean Robinson.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Sean Robinson.

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DavidM, Ben

PreviewsWorld’s expected/tentative list of comics shipping June 3rd

Direct link to the Text List

[Sean Robinson]

Sean Robinson wrote:

PreviewsWorld’s confirmed list for comics shipping May 27th

Direct Links: TXT, PDF, and Midtown Comics

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• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Sean Robinson.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Sean Robinson.

That’s weird, Green Lantern Season Two #3 has already come out in the UK.

Yes, DC released GL S2 #3 on May 5th, but through Lunar.

Diamond are just getting back into the swing of things today, so I take it they are going to spread the build up of issues over the first few weeks.

I’m sure the first few weeks will be confusing and problem filled, but get back to their usual military-like precision in no time.

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Dave

Sean Robinson wrote:

Yes, DC released GL S2 #3 on May 5th, but through Lunar.

Ah, ok. Didn’t realise that arrangement extended to the UK.

IDW’s Revised MAY – AUGUST 2020 Publishing Schedule

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DavidM, Ben

PreviewsWorld’s confirmed list of comics shipping June 3rd

Direct Links: TXT, PDF, and Midtown Comics

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1 user thanked author for this post.

DavidM

PreviewsWorld’s expected/tentative list of comics shipping June 10th

Direct link to the text List

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1 user thanked author for this post.

DavidM

PreviewsWorld’s confirmed list of comics shipping June 10th

Direct Links: TXT, PDF, and Midtown Comics

PreviewsWorld’s expected/tentative list of comics shipping June 17th

Direct Link to the Text List

[Sean Robinson]

PreviewsWorld’s confirmed list of comics shipping June 17th

Direct Links: TXT, PDF, and Midtown Comics

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Sean Robinson.

PreviewsWorld’s expected/tentative list of comics shipping June 24th

Direct Link to the Text List – not available just yet

Why are some books (e.g. Hellblazer, and Flash) double shipping on the 24th?

I don’t know. Seems to be DC variant editions have the wrong number next to them, but I’m speculating.

They don’t appear on this list:
UCS Comics Distributors – DC for Tues. June 23rd

A lack of communication before they part ways?
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DC and Diamond extend working relationship temporarily

…For Direct Market comic book retailers in the U.S., Diamond and DC have extended their agreement to fulfill reorders of in-stock comic periodicals previously offered for sale, fulfilling reorders through July 31.

For readers without a degree in comic book Direct Marketology, that means if you want a DC back issue released any time prior to June 23 that your local comic shop doesn’t have in stock, they can try to order it for you from Diamond through the end of July, assuming Diamond still has copies themselves.
For graphic novels and collections, readers have even longer. Retailers can order books DC offered through Diamond for sale on Final Order Cut-off June 1 or before through mid-December.
For you comic book readers who shop in stores serviced by Diamond U.K., they can continue to order new and backlist DC comic books and graphic novels through the end of 2020…

For you comic book readers outside the U.S. and the Diamond U.K. territories, DC is recommending your local comic book shop place their DC orders through distributor UCS if you’re in Eastern Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
If you’re in Western Canada, the Asia-Pacific region (including Australia and New Zealand), and Latin America, DC recommends your store order through Lunar.

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Vikram, Todd

PreviewsWorld’s confirmed list of comics shipping June 24th

Direct Links: TXT, PDF, and Midtown Comics

PreviewsWorld expected/tentative list of comics shipping July 1st

Direct link to the Text List – not there at all – use main link

Sean Robinson wrote:

PreviewsWorld’s confirmed list of comics shipping June 24th

Direct Links: TXT, PDF, and Midtown Comics

Am I missing something? The cover to FIREPOWER VOL. 1 PRELUDE is prominently displayed there, but I don’t see it in the actual shipping list for Image Comics.

I see it on the Text and PDF lists for Diamond, but I don’t see it at Midtown Comics.

FEB200019 FIRE POWER BY KIRKMAN & SAMNEE TP VOL 01 PRELUDE $9.99

Sean Robinson wrote:

I see it on the Text and PDF lists for Diamond, but I don’t see it at Midtown Comics.

Thanks, Sean. Very strange; the TXT file also lists ISOLA 2 TPB, whereas Midtown’s list has CROWDED 2 TPB instead. I guess we’ll see for sure on June 24.