I an extremely intrigued by Black Magick-Rucka on an occult procedural is a winner and Nicola Scott on art is a plus, but like most Image books these days, I'll likely trade wait, though if I can get the magazine size variant for #1 I will.

-M

Grayson #13

If you get the deluxe hardcovers, you usually get all the extra back matter from the singles. My big thing is I abhor the business practices of Diamond, so I prefer to buy my stuff from other distributors, which mostly means buying trades from the book trade not the comics shops. I cannot buy singles from another distributor since Diamond holds a monopoly on that. They treat many of their customers (i.e. the retailers) like shit, play favorites when they have to allocate when books get shorted (during the September lenticular DC cover debacle, our local shop did not increase its orders, just ordered the normal amount which is pulls +2-5 books depending on title-but received less than 20% of the books he ordered due to allocations, but bigger retailers who upped their orders beyond normal received 90%+ of their increased order, so he did not even receive enough to fulfill his pulls, but other bigger accounts got extra copies to sell at inflated prices due to the shortages-this is Diamond's policy-make the big guys happy and screw the smaller accounts), make it a hassle to replace damages when sometimes as much as 25% of the weekly shipment comes in damaged and delay those shipments so the retailer's customers either have to wait to get their books or they go to other outlets (other shops, online sellers, etc.) meaning the retailer loses sales through no fault of their own, retailers have to pay additional shipping to get damage replacements (Diamond's mistakes in handling and packaging the books, but the retailer has to pay for it, not Diamond)-I've seen a shop that has been shorted a book (an issue of Robert Howard's Savage Sword from Dark Horse)-it's an $8 comic meaning the retailer pays $4 for it and makes $4 on it normally, but since they shorted it Diamond shipped the replacement in a package by itself which cost the retailer $8 in shipping charges, so he had to pay $12 for a book he could at best sell for $8 and Diamond's customer service was like well that's what it costs, you could have bought it from another shop for your customer if you were concerned about the shipping charge, or just told the customer it was unavailable. They are an arrogant monopoly that cares nothing for their customers or the industry, only how much money they can squeeze out of comic fans and retailers.

SO I want to support the publishers, I do not want to support Diamond in any way, shape or form if possible, so if I can get the material via other means of distribution I do. That means trades via Amazon in most cases. If Diamond were to go bankrupot and alternate means of distribution were found, I would likely go back to singles in some fashion, but the Diamond monopoly is one of the worst things to happen to the industry as a whole and their practices do more harm to the industry and the potential growth of the industry than anything any of the publishers have done.

I won't even get into the fact they act as gatekeeper as to who can get distributed or not. Their standards make it impossible for many smaller publishers and/or creators to get their books to market.

-M

But then again... you eat bananas, so... forever unclean!!! Can't trust you

Singles:
Guidebook Marvel Cinematic Universe Marvels Iron Man
Justice League 3001 #5
Justice League Darkseid War Batman #1
Section 8 #5
Superman #45

Trade waiting:
Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Batman 66, Prez, Chew, Crossed, Hellboy/BPRD, Savage Dragon, Stan Lee Chakra The Invincible, Fables

All Star Section Eight 5
Art Ops 1
Cyborg 4 (possible last issue for me)
Gotham by Midnight 10
Prez 5
Superman 45 (possible last issue for me)
Where Monsters Dwell 5

Heavy Metal #277 showed up in my mailbox today, so it actually was new comic Wednesday for me.

-M