Diamond Comic Distributors
Type	Private
Founded	1982
Headquarters	Timonium, Maryland, USA
Key people	Stephen A. Geppi, CEO Cindy Fournier, VP Operations Roger Fletcher, VP Sales and Marketing Kuo-Yu Liang, VP Sales and Marketing books Mike Schimmel, Sales Director Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... A private company is a company that is independently owned. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Stephen A. Geppi is the founder, CEO, and president of Diamond Comic Distributors Geppis Entertainment Museum Stephen Geppi was born in Baltimore. ... Barry Lyga, Director Marketing Communications
Industry	comics
Products	comic distribution
Revenue	$500 million
Employees	540
Website	Diamond Comics.com

Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. (often called Diamond Comics, DCD, or casually Diamond) is the largest comic book distributor serving North America. They transport comic books from both big and small comic book makers, or suppliers, to the retailers. Diamond dominates the direct market in the United States, and has special arrangements with most major U.S. comics publishers, including Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, Image Comics, and Marvel Comics. Diamond is also the parent company of Diamond Select Toys, Diamond International Galleries, Geppi's Memorabilia Roadshow, Hake's Americana & Collectibles, Morphy's Auctions, Alliance Game Distributors, Baltimore Magazine, Diamond Book Distributors, E. Gerber Products, Gemstone Publishing, and Geppi's Entertainment Museum. Diamond publishes Previews and Previews Adult, monthly catalogs showcasing upcoming comic books and related items throughout the industry. These publications are available to both comic merchants and consumers. Comics (or, less commonly, sequential art) is a form of visual art consisting of images which are commonly combined with text, often in the form of speech balloons or image captions. ... Revenue is a U.S. business term for the amount of money that a company earns from its activities in a given period, mostly from sales of products and/or services to customers. ... Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... A website (or Web site) is a collection of web pages, images, videos and other digital assets and hosted on a particular domain or subdomain on the World Wide Web. ... A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ... Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing Distribution is one of the four aspects of marketing. ... Drawing of a self-service store. ... Direct market in the comic book industry is the dominant distribution and retail network in North America and elsewhere in the market for English-language comics. ... Dark Horse Comics logo Dark Horse Comics is one of the largest independent American comic book publishers, behind dominant publishers Marvel Comics and DC Comics. ... DC Comics is one of the largest American companies in comic book and related media publishing. ... Image Comics Logo Image Comics is an American comic book publisher. ... Marvel Comics is an American comic book line published by Marvel Publishing, Inc. ... Gemstone Publishing (logo) Gemstone Publishing is a U.S. company that is the current publisher of licensed Disney comic books, starting in June 2003. ... Geppis Entertainment Museum is a 16,000-square-foot facility located in downtown Baltimores historic Camden Station, directly above Sports Legends at Camden Yards and adjacent to Oriole Park at Camden Yards (part of the Camden Yards Sports Complex). ...

Overview

Diamond has what it calls an "open-door policy" to new suppliers. This means that anyone who makes a comic book can send samples of it to Diamond for review. If the comic book has sufficient sales potential, Diamond might distribute the comic book to retail stores for the comic book creator.

Antitrust litigation

In the Summer of 1997, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an antitrust investigation into the comics industry and the alleged monopoly of Diamond Comics. The investigation was closed in November 2000, with no further action deemed necessary^[1] on the basis that, although Diamond enjoyed a monopoly in the North American comic book direct market distribution, they did not enjoy a monopoly on book distribution (books including non-comic books), and therefore had competitors. DOJ headquarters in Washington, D.C. Justice Department redirects here. ... This article is about anti-competitive business behavior. ... In economics, a monopoly (from the Latin word monopolium - Greek language monos, one + polein, to sell) is defined as a persistent market situation where there is only one provider of a product or service. ...

Sources

• [1]

External links

• Diamond Comics.com - Diamond Comic Distributors official website; Articles
• "Defending Diamond" - A February 2006 defense of the company (by Julian Darius at Sequart)
• "Will DC Buy Diamond?" - An April 2002 article (by Michael Dean in The Comics Journal)