Direct market

Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash comic book store in Red Bank, New Jersey.

The direct market is the dominant distribution and retail network for American comic books.[1] The concept of the direct market was created in the 1970s by Phil Seuling. The network currently consists of:

The name is no longer a fully accurate description of the model by which it operates, but derives from its original implementation: retailers bypassing existing distributors to make "direct" purchases from publishers. The defining characteristic of the direct market however is non-returnability: unlike book store and news stand distribution, which operate on a sale-or-return model, direct market distribution prohibits distributors and retailers from returning their unsold merchandise for refunds. In exchange for more favorable ordering terms, retailers and distributors must gamble that they can accurately predict their customers' demand for products. Each month's surplus inventory, meanwhile, could be archived and sold later, driving the development of an organized market for "back issues."

The emergence of this lower-risk distribution system is also credited with providing an opportunity for new comics publishers to enter the business, despite the two bigger publishers Marvel and DC Comics still having the largest share. The establishment and growth of independent publishers and self-publishers, beginning in the late 1970s and continuing to the present, was made economically possible by the existence of a system that targets its retail audience, rather than relying on the scattershot approach embodied in the returnable newsstand system.

  1. ^ Salkowitz, Rob (April 12, 2021). "How PRH Could Expand the Market for Comics Periodicals". ICv2. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  2. ^ "Image Comics Leaves Diamond Comic Distributors for Lunar". CBR. 2023-05-24. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
  3. ^ Schedeen, Jesse (March 25, 2021). "Marvel Comics Shifts to New Distributor in Industry-Rattling Move – IGN". IGN. Archived from the original on March 25, 2021. Retrieved March 25, 2021.
  4. ^ "DARK HORSE EXPANDS PARTNERSHIP WITH PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PUBLISHER SERVICES". darkhorse.com. Retrieved 2023-06-04.