Bookstore Distributor Bankruptcy Hits Indies Hard
by Julio Diaz
My apologies to those of you who have been waiting some time for the next installment of the Treadmill. Today I’ll be intruding on your goodwill just a little further, as this isn’t really a full edition of the Treadmill, and in any case, certainly isn’t the promised MegaCon column (that’s half-finished, and should be running in the next week). But an issue has arisen that’s too important to wait to comment on, and it merits turning a good portion of this entry over to what might – at first blush – seem like advertising.
Late last night, LPC Group, the biggest distributor of independent comics publishers to mainstream bookstores, announced that they had filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. What this means in broader terms is that many indie publishers who depend heavily on having a presence in the Barnes & Nobles, Borders, etc. are being hit with unexpected financial difficulties – payments are being frozen and some checks have even bounced. To give you an idea of the scope of this situation, one need only look at the list of publishers LPC represents in the book trade: Image, Top Shelf, Dark Horse, Oni, CrossGen, Tokyo Pop, Drawn & Quarterly, Alternative, Highwater Books, Humanoids, AIT/Planet Lar, and Graphic Interface. A diverse set of publishers, many of whom might have a lot of difficulty surviving this.
While the company – and many of the publishers – believe that LPC will emerge from Bankruptcy successfully, and that in the long run, everything will work out (for those who aren’t aware, Marvel Comics, the industry’s top publisher, spent about two years in Chapter 11 just a few years ago, but emerged stronger and is now showing a profit), the short term effects are devastating. Hardest hit is one of the industry’s most valued publishers, Top Shelf, home of such intelligent fare as Alex Robinson’s Box Office Poison, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, and James Kochalka’s Sketchbook Diaries. LPC bounced a $20,000 check to Top Shelf, which in turn caused the publisher to bounce 30 checks to artists, conventions, and printers – basically, every aspect of the business they do. Moreover, this occurs with LPC still owing more than four times that amount to the publisher.
In a letter to comics media this morning, Top Shelf’s Chris Staros said the following:
“To put it bluntly, even with all the hard work we’ve put in over the years, if we don’t raise $20,000 this month, it could realistically force us to suspend publishing operations for the foreseeable future. It’s hard to believe but a big domino has fallen right on top of us at the worst time possible. So, that leaves us no choice but to be honest and ask for your help.
“If 400-500 of you can find it in your hearts to each spend around fifty bucks on our core list of books, this would literally pull us through. We mean that. We’ve got such a strong future schedule, and so many cool things to announce soon (including two more Alan Moore projects and two Film & TV projects), that I’d hate to think that we’d have to pull the plug right before we were just about to arrive.
“In any event, if you can find it in your hearts to help us out, we will be eternally grateful. We’ll be manning the phones personally on this ‘drive,’ and we’ll also be sure to keep you informed – hopefully letting all of you know in three-to-four weeks that everything’s okay (with your help, that is…).”
Top Shelf is offering an extra $25 worth of books free with all orders of $100 or more during this crisis, as well as free shipping for US orders. Check out their selection of books at http://www.topshelfcomix.com. You can order online at the site, or call in credit card orders to Chris Staros at (770) 425-0551, or e-mail staros@bellsouth.net.
I wouldn’t be devoting so much column space to Top Shelf’s dilemma, in particular, if I didn’t feel that they were so worth saving (I’m not getting any kickbacks for this, I swear to you). I really think that the publisher is a treasure, with a slate of literary and intelligent fare that might otherwise go unpublished. In fact, I already had a big Top Shelf column planned for the next few weeks, focusing on some great recent books like Baja, Cicada, the latest Hey Mister! collection, and others. Suffice to say, they’re worth purchasing (as is just about everything the company puts out!) and will still be covered in greater detail in an upcoming Treadmill.
So much for the shilling. Stay tuned, as the Treadmill will return soon with the long-promised MegaCon column.
Update: 4/4/02 5:14 PM
The following letter was sent to comics media outlets this afternoon:
TOP SHELF SAVED BY COMICS COMMUNITY IN RECORD 12 HOURS
Dear Comics Fans,
What a difference a day makes. On Tuesday morning at 8:00 AM, April 3rd, Top Shelf was effectively put out of business, and on Tuesday evening by 8:00 PM, April 3rd, Top Shelf was remarkably back in business. There are not words suitable to express how honored and thankful we are that within 12 hours this amazing comics community took it upon itself to bring us back to life. And in this case, it might also be said that the power of the internet was fully realized.
On Tuesday, after we made the announcement of our book trade distributor filing for Chapter 11 (and the subsequent fatal impact that this had on our own operation), we received over 200 phone orders and 850 on-line and email orders to boot. This staggering 1000 orders has not only made us operational again (and put several thousand copies of our graphic novels into circulation), but has also reaffirmed to us that the comics industry is back, revitalized, and ready to take on the world. We’re even estimating that over 100,000 people received the news or were personally involved in the discussion of this on-line event on that day.
With this overwhelming support, combined with the (now contradictory) fact that Top Shelf has always prided itself that every order would ship out the very next day, we ask for your patience in letting us get all of these graphic novels, comics, and CDs to you. We hope to have everything shipped out within the next few weeks. In the meantime, if all this activity has made you curious about our books, we would encourage you to ask for them at your local retailer, so that everyone along the chain, retailers and distributors alike, can also benefit from this spur of interest. And while this interest in diversity is at the forefront of everyone’s mind, we encourage you to continue in the exploration and discussion of comics from all the publishers doing quality work these days: DC Comics, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, CrossGen, Viz, Fantagraphics, Slave Labor, Oni Press, NBM, Drawn & Quarterly, Cartoon Books, Alternative Comics, Highwater Books, the publishers we represent (like Eddie Campbell Comics, etc.), and all the rest (that we apologize for not having the space to mention by name today).
If we’ve learned anything over these last seven years – and witnessed it absolutely this week – we’re all in this together. And the growth and development of this amazing medium is in the most capable hands possible: the fans of this industry.
We’d also like to take a moment to give a special thank you to a few extraordinary people and organizations:
• Warren Ellis and the Warren Ellis Forum. We’ve always known that the Warren Ellis Forum was a formidable entity, dedicated to the discussion and support of quality comics all over the industry, but their mobilization in this instance was unprecedented. We can’t absolutely determine what percentage of all the orders were from this distinguished group, but our estimation is that it was significant. We cannot thank Warren or the supporters of his forum enough (http://www.warrenellis.com and http://forums.delphiforums.com/ellis and http://www.artbomb.net).
• CrossGen Comics. Mark Alessi and the CrossGen staff collectively bought $5,000.00 worth of graphic novels and will donate them to the public library system. This completely novel and generous gesture not only helped to keep us going (in a big way), but also promises to expose hundreds of people and libraries to what comics can bring to the world of art and literature. This stunned us, and is a testament to CrossGen’s contribution to our industry (http://www.crossgen.com).
• Rick Veitch and Matt Brady of comicon.com’s Spash and Newsarama pages. Their amazing coverage, on-line discussions, and links for this event spurred on an uncountable array of support from the industry (http://www.comicon.com).
• Neil Gaiman. Neil took it upon himself to discuss our situation within his daily on-line journal, which just happens to be the most visited daily journal on the web. And since he’s been known to have a fan or two (including us), we’ve been getting a nice bit of support from there as well (http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp).
• And no less amazing than that of the above, the collective efforts of the crews at http://www.artbomb.net, http://www.sequentialtart.com, http://www.comicbookresources.com, http://www.comicbookgalaxy.com, http://www.icv2.com, http://www.grayhavenmagazine.com, http://www.popimage.com, http://www.shotgunreviews.com, etc., whom all rallied their subscribers, who in turn proudly stated that they had come from one of these very active sites.
• And lastly, but never least, the comics retailing and distributing community. They are the front line of our industry, and behind the scenes they have always been the ones that have kept the independent publisher alive. The show of support from this community has not only been amazing on this particular day, but has ALWAYS been there from the first moment we entered the business. They have been the group that has supported us the most.
Again, we want to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts – we could not have done it without you. Top Shelf will continue to try and put out the best books possible, and we look forward to not only thanking each an every one of you personally at the Cons this summer, but also being able to now make some rather cool announcements in the coming weeks that should be fun and beneficial for the entire industry as well.
On behalf of Brett Warnock and myself…
Truly, your friend thru comics,
Chris Staros
Top Shelf Productions
