It’s not particularly different than it has been for a few months, but the reduced nature of information Diamond now offers is finally sinking in with me…
In another case of “be careful what you wish for”, many people used to lament about Diamond’s monopoly on comics distribution.
Now distribution is sprinkled all around with Lunar & PRH holding the major publishers now and Diamond reduced to a pale shadow of their former self.
I used to love to be able to browse through the Diamond Previews catalog each month and get a pretty complete picture of all the comics coming out. This is sadly no longer the case and the Previews catalog is rushing into irrelevancy for many (most?) comics fans who primarily read super-hero comics with a smattering of indies led by Image.
What you will NOT find in the Diamond Catalog: Marvel & DC. They each publish a smaller comic book sized solicitation, though the DC one is pretty weak. Image has a single page in the Diamond catalog with a list of what they’re putting out in November, though you can still find full Image solicitation information online.
The BIG publisher leading off the Previews catalog is now BOOM!, followed by Dynamite. They’re putting out some good stuff, but now the entirety of the Previews catalog is what we used to call “the back half of Previews” (which many/most fans never looked at or cared about).
Previews is still a good tool for retailer orders and hardcore indie comics fans, but I question the $4.99 cover price.
I think it’s pretty much irrelevant for most fans now. At least prior to the distributor schism we could get a pretty good idea of everything coming out, now to get that picture we HAVE to go online, so I think most of us would be just as well off going 100% to the publisher online solicitations and skipping the print catalog.
Maybe not a bad thing to just let this massive monthly tree-killer just fade from memory.
Bob Bretall (bob@comicspectrum.com)
http://comicspectrum.com/ By Fans who Love Comics For Fans who Love Comics
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