Ongoing Diamond frustration

Here's the cover of our book collection of the first six issues (click to embiggen) - the book which should have been in Previews this month, and wasn't. To catch up those of you unaware of all this - six months ago, when we published issue one, Diamond took us out of the Previews catalogue from number two onwards, as at that time we didn't achieve the minimum orders required for them to carry the comic. We did, however, receive assurance that they would still run the collected edition in the August issue of Previews. Fair enough, we decided, and we carried on publishing, doing our own publicity and distribution, reaching the point now where we're getting tons of good reviews, sales are very good, we're making a small profit and the comic is safe for the forseeable future, coming out on a strict monthly schedule with no problem.

So we open the August Previews excitedly, hoping that at last we're going to be able to break the US market as well... and it's not in there. Our UK Diamond liaison (who's a fan of the comic and who seems to be as frustrated about this as we are) explained that there's been a change of management at Diamond US, and that they took a look at the orders for issue one, and decided on the basis of that not to carry the collected edition. Which is nonsense, of course, as we were practically unknown when issue one came out, and now we're making a real impact, with UK comic shops coming on board eagerly, wanting to carry us, and the comic becoming a big success over here.

So that's where we are right now. We will be publishing the collection, distributing it ourselves as usual, so expect to see it in the usual UK comic shops in late September / early October. If you're in the US, however - well, the best we can do at the moment is suggest you order it in our online shop next month. We're very happy to take US orders.

Hopefully this will be resolved soon - I'm going to try pitching to Diamond US again, explaining our success over here and pointing them towards reviews, but at the moment we're still only available in UK shops and in our own online shop. We're trying to get a book deal with a serious publisher which would get our collections into the US market, so as soon as I know more about that, I'll let you know :)

For the moment - issue seven comes out on 1st September (the start of our new monthly story), and look out for the collection in the usual UK shops late-September to October. In the meantime, the first six issues are still available, many of them in the shops listed here. Forbidden Planet have just taken a big batch of all six issues this week, so if you've missed an issue, give them a call, they should be able to help you out - or try any of the other shops in the list - and we have some here too, in our shop, if you don't live near any of those comic stores.

More news as we get it! Issue seven due in three weeks - and it's a funny one ;)