DC Publisher Jim Lee assures comic book sales are strong following the company’s split with Diamond Comic Distributors amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier this year, DC Comics famously parted ways with Diamond Comic Distributors, ending a decades-long exclusive deal and moving forward with a new multi-distributor model for its physical books. This development came as the company was attempting to get its comics back on shelves after Diamond temporarily shut its doors as a result of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. While the move has generated much debate within the comic book industry, as well as speculation regarding the potential fallout, DC Publisher Jim Lee assures the company’s comic book sales are as strong, if not stronger than they were before the split with Diamond.
“Not only has it exceeded our initial expectations, but the size and strength of the business is that same level or higher than pre-COVID,” Lee told The Hollywood Reporter after being asked about how DC has fared since adopting its new distribution model. “There was a lot of fear mongering out there about another Heroes World type of debacle that occurred decades ago; there is nothing further from the truth. Things have transitioned very smoothly — that’s not to say there aren’t kinks that need to be worked out. [New distributors] UCS and Lunar, they’ve done an amazing job transitioning all the content we produce and putting it into new pipelines and getting it to retailers.”
Lee went on to say that DC has “gotten some tremendous numbers on some of [its] recent books,” specifically naming the upcoming Batman: Three Jokers. “We’re back to press on the ‘Joker War’ storyline that has been running in Batman. Multiple printings on that. In fact, every issue since its launch has gone up in numbers and you know how hard that is. Usually when you launch, you start big and the numbers go down. But here it’s climbing issue to issue,” he explained. “We got our numbers for Three Jokers and the first issue sold over 300,000 copies. And that’s an $8 book. That’s a gigantic number for having new distribution.”
Finally, the DC Publisher discussed the company’s approach to its post-Diamond business strategy. “This wasn’t about taking our distribution business and placing it the hands of two entities, it was about, ‘What can we do together to do things that were never contemplated before,'” Lee said. “Things that we would love to do to grow the physical market.”
