Post by Admin on Apr 17, 2020 20:03:17 GMT
www.comicsbeat.com/so-who-are-lunar-distribution-and-ucs-comic-distributors-anyway/
So who are Lunar Distribution and UCS Comic Distributors anyway? - The Beat
Back on March 28, DC announced that they were exploring “a multi-distributor model” methods for their comics. Although since then various digital methods have been rejected by retailers, today DC pulled back the curtain with plans to start sending out comics for April 27th via two new distribution partners, Lunar Distribution and UCS Comic Distributors.
Neither company has any presence on the web, however, the sleuthing has already begun. And a little domain checking has revealed clues to their identity.
As first tweeted by John Jackson Miller, UCS – which is servicing accounts in the eastern part of North America – would seem to be Midtown Comics.
Lunar was a little more circumspect and has an anonymous IP registration, however their phone number and domain registration are in Indiana, which is also the home of DCBS, a huge mail order comics company.
As mentioned by Miller, Midtown Comics has been fulfilling both subscription and comp list comics for Marvel for a while.
I was told early on that Marvel also had “a plan” for dealing with the pandemic shutdown, but whether they were also considering Midtown and DCBS as a Diamond alternative is unknown. Midtown and DCBS are Diamond’s biggest clients, and they would be in a position to have a large enough infrastructure to at least attempt comics periodical distribution. I’m told DC had been considering a move to supplement Diamond distribution for a while – and their plan to go with Lunar and UCS backs that up.
Is this just an emergency stopgap for an unprecedented crisis? Or the start of a new business model for the industry? I’ve long been saying that nothing will come out of this lockdown/pandemic the same. So be prepared.
Literally as I was writing this post, Newsarama confirmed that Midtown and DCBS are running UCS and Lunar, respectively.
Retailers are still absorbing today’s immense news, so reactions will be filtering out as the days progress. As seen in this Facebook thread early reactions were NOT HAPPY with DC’s move, with reactions ranging from “Uh, oh,” to “I’m livid.”
Why would shops react so badly to getting new product from DC? Well, Midtown and DCBS are the big gorillas in the room, and local comic shops see them as their biggest competitors.
However, at least one shop was happy:
This story is “Developing” and we mean it.