Breaking Down the DC and Diamond Comics Break-up Split

As a casual comic book reader, you may or may not be aware that the only reason you’re able to get comic books is because there’s a delicate system in place to ensure it. In short, comic book publishers (DC, Marvel, Image, Boom!, etc.) send books to distributors, who then ship them to stores who ordered them months in advance and those stores sell them to customers. The money spent on these books then goes back in the opposite direction—with everyone taking their respective cut along the way, of course—until the publisher gets what’s left. For more than 20 years, as numerous publishers and comic book stores have come and gone, one part of that process has remained locked in place with no real change: Diamond Comics Distributors. That is no longer the case, as DC Comics shocked the comic retailer world this week by publicly severing its relationship with Diamond, which has had a virtual monopoly on all North American comic book distribution since the mid-1990s. It may not feel like it, but this is probably the biggest thing to happen in comics in decades. It’s a true shock to a system that’s been, at times, seemingly both hanging on by a thread and on the verge of a new era. Image via CBSI Comics How did we get here? Despite everything you may have learned in U.S. History, monopolies still exist. And Diamond’s relationship with North American comic book distribution couldn’t be described any other way. Which is why it was such a significant blow to the comic book industry when…