Small Press Spotlight: Indy Comic Book Week (December 30th, 2009)

The Small Press Spotlight is a semi-regular feature on Hypergeek where I dedicate an article to all the excellent small press and indie publishers out there, as well as self-publishing artists. This is accomplished in the form of company/creator profiles, highlights of key works, reviews of the company/individual’s latest releases, and general articles about the small press scene.

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 is a rather unique day for comic fans. It marks the first week in the history of modern comics that no new comics will be available to purchase from their local comic store!

Normally the holiday season delays comic shipments by one or two days, but this year, Diamond Distribution, the main distributor of comics in North America, have decided to skip this shipping week entirely. Diamond explained the reasoning behind this decision in an email to retailers:

“Most of our customers receive their shipments via 1-Day, 2-Day, or 3-Day UPS, with 3-Day shipments tendered to UPS on Friday,” explained Diamond Vice President of Operations Cindy Fournier in an email obtained by CBR News. “With Christmas and New Year’s falling on Friday this year, we would not be able to tender product for 3-Day retailers until Monday, December 28. But because there will be no UPS service on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, product which could reach 1-Day and 2-Day retailers on December 30, would not reach our 3-Day UPS customers until January 4. In light of this, and based on conversations with our customers and suppliers, we agreed that a skip week was the fairest, most prudent way to proceed.”

Reship information is as follows:

Those placed by 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 13 will ship to customers on Wednesday, December 23.

Those placed from December 13 to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 20 will ship to customers on Wednesday, January 6.

Those placed by 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 27 will ship to customers on Wednesday, January 13.

Henceforth, to be known as Black Wednesday, December 30th will be a dark day for comic book fans around the world. Unable to get their weekly fix of four-color thrills, fans will no doubt resort to anarchy and violence, a harsh reaction against the system that has denied them their very lifeblood! Many fans will no doubt have missed the news, and will turn up at their comic stores on the Wednesday morning, eager to get the latest issues of their favourite comics. When their local merchant has to regretfully inform them that no, he doesn’t have the latest copy of X-Babies! What do you think will happen then? Have you ever stood in the way of a geek and his comic fix? Expect comic stores to be robbed, then burned to the ground. Expect comic merchants to be held hostage until Diamond agrees to ship out a special order. It’s going to be hell on earth, mark my words!

But it doesn’t have to be like this! Luckily, some very smart people have decided to declare December 30th as ‘Indy Comic Book Week’! A week for going into your local comic store and picking up a few issues from the fine selection of indy and small press comics on offer.

Here is the statement from the Indy Comic Book Week website:

Indy Comic Book Week is not only an event but a call to action. Diamond Comic Distributors announced to comic shops that Diamond will not be shipping new comics for the last week of December. We challenge writers and artists to self publish new material for this week, and offer it to their local stores. We ask for retailers to take this as an opportunity to showcase local independent talent on the new release shelves. We encourage fans to break from their buying habits and try something new.

In support of the event, a website has been set up at http://indycomicbookweek.blogspot.com. The website contains tons of indy comic resources, such as links to buy indy comics on sites such as http://www.indyplanet.com & http://www.comicsmonkey.com (see here), links to buy promotional apparel for the event, as well as features on upcoming indy titles, and indy comic previews.

Here at Hypergeek we are always trying to support indy and small press titles in any way that we can, and think that Indy comic week is a fantastic idea! So head on over to http://indycomicbookweek.blogspot.com and read all about what they have planned for the week, and make sure to tell your retailer about the idea, so they can promote it in-store, and hopefully order in a bunch of indy books for people to buy on December 30th!

I’ve already started to receive a few review copies for comics associated with the Indy Comic Book Week event, and will hopefully have some reviews up soon. I’ve been really busy lately, with searching for a new job, and trying to finish a freelance writing piece I have to get in soon, but I should have some review up really soon… honest!