Rod Lamberti of comic shop Rodman Comics of Ankeny, Iowa, writes weekly for Bleeding Cool. Find previous columns here.
I opened up my store and wanted to be different from other comics stores. Why offer the exact same experience and products other stores do? For years there was only Diamond for comic stores to order through. They forced their secret shopper program on us. If a comic store paid $4, they could receive Diamond comics on a Tuesday instead of Wednesday. The $4 a week went towards paying for the secret shopper program. The program hired someone to check out a store, see if they could get two comics sold to them early and if the store would break street date on the two comics. Then Lunar came along as a supplier for DC Comics. No secret shopper program, no paying for comic shipments to arrive a day before the official release date. Diamond did away with their secret shopper program due to Lunar. Lunar surprised me, and their shipment arrived days before their release date on Saturday, Feb 13th. Diamond? They did not arrive on Tuesday due to the weather when they normally would; of course, they did not arrive on Wednesday either. No new non-DC comics for Wednesday. Diamond has been in the business for decades, while Lunar started last year. Thankfully, we did at least have DC comics on hand to sell. Hurting sales, even more, I was told one of the stores in the area had all the new comics on Wednesday while we did not. A great way to get people to go elsewhere.