More on Diamond’s changes

And now I officially christen this Indy Deathwatch 2009: The Bloodletting ™.  Let the massacre begin!

…okay, the bloodletting is really only a trickle right now, which is really shocking to me considering how many publishers the new changes at Diamond will affect.  I’m looking at the TCJ forum, and it’s suspiciously quiet on the subject.  Forum goers at BL publishers seem oblivious.  The general comic boards are preoccupied with some silly drama around the comics equivalent of Obama commemorative plates.

Perhaps I’ve simply jumped the gun and a lot of publishers haven’t gotten the news yet.  And it is a weekend + Presidential Inauguration + MLK Day, so the news sites will likely have more meaty articles about this come Tuesday.  There is also confusion over whether it was the purchase order benchmark or the sales threshhold that was raised (I believe the $2500 figure is the po benchmark in retail value.  But logically, if Diamond’s raising the benchmark, they’re probably raising the sales threshhold too).  But come to think of it, there’s really not a robust source for indy comic news, or even a forum hangout anymore.  Hmm, when did that happen… oh yes, sometime around when Diamond originally instituted the po benchmark…

Anyway, here are some links of note:

Dan Vado, founder of Slave Labor Graphics/SLG, gives his perspective on Diamond’s new sales threshhold (or is it PO benchmark?) and how it may affect small publishers.  Vado also hints he may seize this opportunity to begin his own distribution company for small press comics.

Precocious Curmudgeon has a few thoughts on the discontinuation of Previews Adult and the higher sales requirements, which I think are right on the money.

Holy crap, someone else on the internet also believes that Diamond should be printing more specialized genre catalogs, not less.

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Canned Dogs reports that a list of 20,000 participants to the doujinshi event Sunshine Creation 43, which includes private information on artists such as real names and addresses, somehow found its way online.  One commenter notes that the event has now been cancelled… one assumes because the SC43 staff were crapping their pants at the prospect of apologizing to 20,000 irate doujinshi artists in person.

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Okazu continues its semi-regular essays on niche marketing with 5 things publishers do wrong, or overlook too often.

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About.Manga is running several year end polls, such as this one for best Yaoi/Shonen Ai manga.

What, no love for porno manga? (T_T)

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As a child of the 80s, this is rather amusing for me… What Japan Thinks has a survey conducted by Japanese site MyVoice about Kinnikuman, the slapstick actioner about masked wrestlers (visually, Japanese wrestling characters are more reminiscent of the lucha libre tradition than WWE) which was extremely popular in that era, and also spawned more than its share of gay doujinshi parodies.  Viz actually released an updated manga version in the US called Ultimate Muscle.  Head over there for some unusual trivia about its predecessor.