Oh wow

I knew someone would eventually buy it.

Not sure if it's good or not.

Back when Acclaim bought them I thought it was great news as they're a "real" company, even better, an entertainment company, with deep pockets, but look how that turned out.

I'm nervous now, TBH.

I love the heck out of the characters, and the current versions are the best ever IMHO.

It would take just one well received show or movie to really help propel these guys upwards.

Their universe is small enough that you don't have to follow everything to know what's going on, and the creators they have really contribute on a level they don't take to the Big Two IMO, even though they still don't own the characters.

Jeff Lemire and Matt Kindt have told amazing stories over there and the artists, like Tomas Giorello, Lewis Larosa, Cafu, and Rafa Sandoval do an incredible job.

As an investment opportunity, I think Valiant is an excellent option.

They're undervalued as they only have about 1% market share at best, despite having been around for almost 3 decades.

The potential for X-O, Shadowman, Bloodshot, Harbinger, Dr Mirage, Faith or someone else break out is there.

I'll eagerly be watching this story.

The fallout of the deal has already begun. Valiant's CEO, CCO (chief creative officer) and chairman have already resigned form Valiant after the news of the buyout broke, so the company leadership that has taken them this far is now gone. Editorial remains in place for now.

-M

The articles I read addressed the fact that they agreed per the contract with DMG to step down.

Valiant will survive.

They should have clarified # 3 superhero universe, not publisher, obviously.

It's probably going to end up like Birthquake/Pre-Valiant Heroes, where Acclaim funneled in trillions of dollars to get big names like Mike Grell to do their books

I've been kind of wondering if Harbinger Wars 2 was ever really even necessary, but I'm betting that MDG kind of forced their hand

Marvel had the advantage of newsstands to reach people who didn't know about them and maybe didn't know what they wanted until they saw it. Comic shops sell to people who already know what they want and only a few titles get shelf space to be seen to be bought by new customers. In most shops, those few don't include Valiant, so it's hard to have a hit when the only people buying it are people who already know that they want it, because no one else sees it. That's not a Valiant issue per se, it's a direct market issue, but a publisher like Valiant has to find a way to overcome that and they tried valiantly with outreach efforts like going on the Warp tour and such over the last few years only to see no appreciable gains in sales because of it. The only way you can have a hit is if people know about it and order it 3 months before it comes out to get retailers to order it so Valiant can print it. Otherwise they print to order and retailers only order what they know they can sell, so no hit is going to emerge form that scenario because there just aren't enough copies printed or preordered to make it be a hit. It's a cycle comic shops can't escape from because all the risk in on the heads of the retailers who have to buy on a non-returnable basis and publishers aren't willing to shoulder the risk by making the books returnable so there can be copies out there to be bought by new audiences because frankly there aren't enough customers left in the direct market to make it worth their while and the margins are so small to begin with a bad risk would be catastrophic to their cash flow.

-M

That's what you are not seeing. There can't be a hit if people don't preorder it. Shopowners have to order it before people can buy it. If shops can't afford to buy enough extra copies of something like Dark Knights Metal that is selling 100K copies per issue and selling out within the first week so they know it will sell, they're sure as hell not going to order extra copies of something they aren't sure will sell and tie up their operating capital. Customers do not determine how many books are ordered, retailers do. and the only time customers can influence retailer orders is 3 months before the book comes out when only hardcore fans who already know about the book know to preorder it. If it could be overcome, the industry as a whole would be in better shape, but it cannot be overcome because the direct market model is not designed to overcome it. It is designed to sell to people who already know what they want. If retailers don't order extra to have on the shelf, how can anyone else find a copy to buy it and try it to make it a hit even if word of mouth is good on a book? How do you buy something that never gets printed because print runs are set to pre-orders by retailers who aren't ordering extra copies for shelves. TO be a hit, either preorders have to rise dramatically but if no one knows they want the book, they won't, or people have to buy the book in large numbers who weren't planning on it, but if there's no extras available because they weren't ordered or printed, that can't happen.

One hit could change it, but the current market doesn't allow for hits except for books who are preordered heavily. Who is going to preorder heavily on Valiant when it's not moving 10K unites per issue. Faith was a critical hit. Didn't move sales overall. The Valiant by Lemire & Kindt was a crrtical hit, didn't move sales. And when people did go looking for them, there weren't copies available because they weren't preordered and thus not printed. So how do you break that cycle? The industry has been looking for ways to do so for decades now, but no one wants to take on the risk or change the model of the market, so it doesn't happen. It's like saying you life will change as soon as you win the lottery and you keep waiting for it to happen, but you can't buy the tickets to actually play, so it will never happen.

-M