Comics Are Changing Radically… Did Anyone Notice?

I don't know that everyone is realizing just what a massive transitional period we are in comics. We're actually going through some radical changes just on the way comic books are covered, the way that they're distributed. We're losing things that we've had for decades upon decades at this point. And things are getting uh very different. Now, I don't mean that as a bad thing. It could be bad. It could be good. I personally hold out hope that the comic book industry in America will just kind of get bigger and better and finally find its footing and really start competing with manga. I don't think we're ready for that, but hopefully the comic book industry isn't ready to rest on its laurels just because they've had one big success in Absolute Universe of DC Comics and realizing bigger things are ahead. But there are some enormous changes going on right now, especially with the comic book media. In fact, Newsorama is dead. After nearly 30 years covering comics, Future plc, the parent company of Games Radar, has effectively shut down the site. They laid off the final staff writer, George Marston, in April. He had been with New Zorama for 17 years. This follows a long period of consolidation that began when Newsorama was folded into games radar back in 2020. Over time, the site lost its independent branding and most of its staff. While Future PLC says they plan to keep the Newsorama name alive for social media and legacy content, the site no longer has a functioning editorial team. And you could kind of see this one coming down the road once they effectively became a part of Games Radar. But this is something that I think we're going to see far more within the comic books media. Obviously, we've lost several sites along the years, but Newsorama is a big site. They've been around for a long, long time. You could go there not only for press releases and coverage of things that were happening and maybe some reviews here and there, but you could actually get real editorial insights about what was happening in comic books. At least you could almost 10 years ago. But what we've been noticing is the sites that are still covering comic books, obviously not including no news, they are covering it far less. There are far less people associated with it. If you go to some place like Screen Rant, which does have their own dedicated like comic book section, it's basically nothing about comic books. It's all about movies based on comic books. It's about cartoons, video games, stuff like that. Every once in a while there will be an article based on something controversial in comic books, but for the most part, even Screen Rant, don't really cover comic books comprehensively. Really, the only site out there, well, I guess there's two and it's kind of embarrassing. I guess the number one would be Bleeding Cool. And that's bad coverage, and it's a lot of shill coverage and carrying water. And I'm going to be honest, Rich Johnston can't write. He just kind of uh has a stream of thought writing process. But that's really the final site that's dedicated to covering almost every aspect going on in comic books basically 247. And the other one that's got a lot of comic book content, but it's not really, you know, controversial when it comes to what's going inside the comic books. It's all about the business. It's icv2. com. And we have kind of lost the comprehensive coverage of what's going on in comic books, at least on the internet. Basically, you just have YouTube now. people like me and others out there that are actually covering the industry, but it's shrinking and shrinking. While it appears that interest in comic books is growing and growing, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. A lot of this does have to do with what Google and Facebook have done to a lot of these websites where if you ask for information on a character, it no longer brings up the news or CBR article that talks about that. It gives you like an AI briefing of basically what's in the article. On Facebook, you used to be able to promote, you know, links to reviews and stuff like that. They do not promote your stuff unless you pay them now. And the way that, you know, the search engines work and they're absolutely against independent uh creators on the internet, it's absolutely destroyed any way of monetizing that kind of stuff. And if you look at the review section like on comic book roundup, like you go back five years ago and a number one issue of like a wildtorm like reboot or something, a DC comics would have 29 reviews. Now Batman is lucky to get eight because the comic book media, at least on the internet, you when you're not talking about video, is basically drying up. But it's not just the comic book news media that's drying up right now. Comicsology is also gone. The last remaining employee, former GM Jeff Debarlo, quietly exited Amazon by the end of April, ending the platform as an

independent operation. Amazon acquired Comicsology in 2014 and spent years absorbing it. In 2022, they shut down the standalone app, merged it into Kindle, and stripped out most of the features that made it actually work for comics. The brand still exists inside Amazon storefront and that's about it. Comicsology Originals will apparently continue handled now by Pamela Horvath of Superfan Productions and Amazon says it will honor existing creator commitments. It's really insane what's happened to Comicsology. There was a time when I had this really badass like digital comic book library from Comicsology, but once they did the conversion over to Kindle and they basically integrated it into there and it didn't really work anymore and it was really hard to convert all your files. I just got rid of my Comicsology and haven't really thought about it since. Now Marvel and DC have upped their game a little bit when it comes to digital comics where you have, you know, DC Infinite Universe and Marvel Infinity. I think that's what it's called. but they're exceptionally and insanely expensive for just getting a portion of the DC and Marvel libraries and you don't even get stuff same day release. Whoever's decision it was, and it wasn't just DC or Marvel, they both made this decision to basically outsource their digital strategy to Comicsology. And even when Comicsology sold over to Amazon, to continue with that, to let Comicsology be like the go-to source for digital comic books in America was a terrible decision. And they are coming back and fighting against decades of advancements by other industries, including like the manga industry in Japan to catch up with what people are actually doing and how they consume digital entertainment. And it sucks what's happened to Comicsology, but it's basically dead now. I guess it's a good thing that Amazon is at least honoring the contract for the Comicsology originals. Not that anybody ever read them. Like even when they had Scott Snider doing Gobixology originals, nobody cared because nobody went to Comicsology for originals. They wanted libraries of Marvel DC, you know, Image Comics. You could get the entire Valiant library, which was actually really cool. But eventually, somebody has to be able to get their hands on the complete Marvel, DC, Image Comics libraries, and some of those other key libraries out there, like maybe a Dark Horse, an IDW, uh, Boom Studio, stuff like that. And there needs to be a single subscription service where you can actually go and read American Comic Books. And it has to be a decent price. and we are years away from that even though it feels like that's where Comicsology was going to eventually get. But of course, it's a small industry. Amazon just bought it up so there wouldn't be competition I guess for Kindle or whatever and then basically destroyed the entire thing. And it kind of sucks that Marvel and DC still do not have a comprehensive or even discernable digital comic book strategy. If you see the way that comic books move in Asia, specifically Korea and Japan, it's over 50% into digital at this point. And I think American comic books are less than 10% still. And obviously the Comicsology debacle has been an enormous step back and really decades worth of stepbacks for digital comic books in America. Uh there are also some other things that I'm noticing when it comes to major comic book shops suffering in 2026. Two major shops already closed their doors this year. In San Francisco, Silver Sprocket, an innie comic shop, and longtime publisher of original comics in the Mission District, suddenly shut down its Valencia Street storefront in late March after years of financial losses. It had been a hub for the local indie scene for nearly a decade. In the Boston area, the Outer Limits, a golden age focused shop, had been operating for over 40 years, closed in July. Owner Steve Higgins is retiring to spend more time with family. Business was actually strong. One shop couldn't survive. One chose to stop. The results are the same. Both are God. And we're seeing shutdowns for two completely different reasons and are kind of both troubling in their own unique ways. It's going to be very difficult for shops in a city like San Francisco where the rent is going up, energy prices are going up to maintain storefronts in places that actually have foot traffic. And if you want a successful comic book shop without a major e-commerce presence, you're going to need massive amounts of foot traffic. It kind of sucks cuz I know Silver Sprocket had done a lot of indie stuff. It's stuff that I personally wouldn't read. like it's comics not made for me, but it was made for the local community there and they were a part of it and they were able to cultivate their own little indie scene, even if it's a scene that I personally wouldn't want to be a part of. Those are key parts, those are key hubs in local areas as far as the comic book community, you know, where lifelong fans are made. So, I think it sucks what happened to them. But the one

that's way more troubling is because it actually picks up on a trend that I've heard several times from comic book retailers is the story with the Outer Limits where you have these guys that started their stores like in the late 80s, maybe the early to mid 90s and they're ready to retire. They've been around a long time and they have successful shops. They're not losing money. You know, maybe things got tight there for a minute, but for the most part, they have good, well-rounded businesses that are working properly and doing well, but they're finding nobody that wants to buy them. Like, there aren't a lot of people that want to buy in their own comic book shop, like younger people, people in their 30s and 40s. And that is very troubling because without people to take over these shops, you know, if the guy doesn't have a kid or some other kind of close family member that wants to take it over, there's nowhere for the shop to go. And you need people that see the American comic book industry and comic book shops as something worth investing in. And with the up and down nature, the turbulent nature of American comics, especially over the last 20 years, I don't blame people for being very, very hesitant for wanting to jump in both feet, you know, just because you love comic books or you think that would be a thriving business. And I've heard this one buzzing for a couple of three years where people retailers are on sites on Facebook or whatever little uh private community groups and guys are like, "Hey, I'm trying to sell my shop, you know, and nobody wants to buy it. I guess I'm just going to have to offload the inventory and just move on. It's not going to be able to go anywhere. And without that next generation of entrepreneurs, comic book shop owners, it's only going to shrink. Especially when you see people that really can't make it in some of the bigger cities because the economics of it just aren't working right now, which is, in my opinion, very, very troubling. Hopefully maybe the buzz around absolute uh Batman in the absolute universe, the Energon universe will change the tide and the way entrepreneurs are looking at uh investing in comic books and owning a comic book shop. Although I've also heard just a little bit of rumblings that within the last I don't know 45 to 60 days some of the high sale numbers are starting to come back to Earth. So that is definitely something that we'll have to keep an eye on. And there is the enormous red cloud that is really one of the main reasons that all of this change is happening or a lot of the changes happening that you're noticing within comic books is still basically hanging over us. Diamond Comics Distributors is still a total mess. The company officially converted from chapter 11 to full chapter 7 liquidation at the end of 2025. Months later, it's still dragging with no end in sight. The trustee is hiring more lawyers and borrowing even more money to fight multiple lawsuits. Meanwhile, nearly $50 million in consigned comics sitting in a warehouse are a major battleground. Sparkle Pop, the company that bought Diamond's assets, is demanding unpaid rent from the bankruptcy estate and has threatened to put a lean on the publishers's own inventory. Publishers are fighting back, but it's becoming increasingly likely that they will have to pay just to get their own comic books back. And that's if there's anything left after the banks and lawyers take their cut. And we had certainly been talking about the major issue or the liability that was Diamond Comics distributors just on the American comic book industry at large for years upon years. Nobody could have foresaw what happened with CO 19 and the worldwide shutdown. And I'm not going to get into how I feel about it, but Diamond Comics distributors essentially took it upon themselves to unilaterally shut down the American comic book industry and stop distribution. That was the one node or infrastructure in American comic books that you cannot lose. Thankfully, DC Comics and Jim Lee were there and they're like, "Oh, that is bullshit. " They actually brought on competition. They brought on Lunar. They brought in another competitor. Penguin Random House eventually came on board with Marvel Comics and that was the end for Diamond or at least we thought they had been in chapter 11 bankruptcy. Now they're in chapter 7 bankruptcy and they're essentially holding the publishers comic books hostage. What this is really doing is strangling the really small publishers, the ones that hadn't had an opportunity or never were going to get an opportunity to move on to a lunar a Penguin Random House and had to stick with Diamond even though it was obviously a real shit show there. and they have so much money just sitting in that warehouse that they'll likely never get back because those guys do want to sell it and use it to pay for their lawyer fees and all this kind of stuff, but it's basically just sitting there. And there aren't a lot of places for those smaller publishers to go. Lunar is going to take a a smaller publisher here and there when they see a good opportunity, but for the most part, they don't want the extra 300 publishers

that were signed to Diamond Comics. And from what I understand, Penguin Random House really isn't interested at all. And so, you do have Universal Distributors out there, which is a new uh comic book distribution company in Canada that was part of the bankruptcy auctions and all that kind of stuff. We're not sure exactly what they're going to do. Maybe they'll pick up some of those companies, but a lot of those companies are going to end up going out of business because of the consignment stuff or just because they no longer have distribution available to them because diamond isn't going to be there anymore. And I know there are companies out there like Udon, you know, you hear Matt Molen on social media and he'll talk about how, yeah, this does suck and we do have a lot of money, you know, sitting in that warehouse, but we have other streams of revenue where that's not going to kill us. Most of those other small publishers are not in the state that Udon is to where they had those alternate dreams and this is going to kill a lot of dreams cause massive amounts of consolidation and you know shrinkage as far as the amount of publishers in North America which I think sucks and it's heartbreaking for those people that started those companies and you know the creators that were working with them that maybe wouldn't get a chance with some other publishers but in the end if I'm being completely honest there are too many publishers in North America America, we are putting out too many books on a monthly basis. I think it's upwards of almost a thousand books a month are being published right now. The American market might be doing better and it's certainly doing better than it was 24 months ago, but it's not doing that good. So, I do think there needs to be a massive amount of contraction and that way we can start concentrating the actual good creators in, you know, five or six companies instead of spreading them out between 50 or 60. And I know that sucks because there will be less competition, but there are still going to be lots of companies out there for them to apply their trade, but we need more good comic books right now. We don't just need more comics. We need more quality. I think unfortunately that part right there is going to cause that. But there is no doubt we are in a massive era of change in comic books. You probably haven't noticed it. Maybe it trickles in here or there. Maybe you don't get to see a site like Newsome or CBR because there ain't many of them out there covering this stuff. But things are absolutely changing in 2026. It's very interesting. But I think in the end when we come out of this, probably in four or five years, we'll be a better American comic book industry. Something else that they could change, and they absolutely should change, is the way that Marvel and DC specifically do comic book events. They suck. They almost never mean anything. And I'm not the only one that thinks this. I actually had a really cool conversation with our good friend Perch talking about how they have killed the event structure in American comic books. And that's something that definitely needs to change. You haven't seen this video, check it out right here. I appreciate the time and remember to keep thinking critical.