These tariffs and the recent Diamond bankruptcy are about to make 2025 a historic year for the comic book industry. Most single issue comics are printed in Canada. - ThreadSky

zacthompson.bsky.social • 21 days ago

These tariffs and the recent Diamond bankruptcy are about to make 2025 a historic year for the comic book industry. Most single issue comics are printed in Canada.

Reposted from Daniel Drezner

“For the typical American household, the tariffs will mean a loss of about $1,200 in purchasing power, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University, a nonpartisan research center.” www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Comments

ch0c0l4t3m1lk.bsky.social•20 days ago

it would be nice if they could distribute the canadian sales here and not ship it to US first.

zacthompson.bsky.social•20 days ago

I was thinking the same thing. That would nice. Hopefully it happens. But I reckon most of the distro is done from the US.

ajcdoesitall.bsky.social•21 days ago

Not to mention, even printers in the US generally get supplies from overseas (my uncle's small press before it closed was getting most of its stock from either China or Canada)

zacthompson.bsky.social•21 days ago

And it's worth mentioning that most trade paperbacks are printed in China. So we're about to get price increases on both formats. Small publishers working already razor thin margins are going to be stretched thin. Same goes for your local comic shop.

woollahra.bsky.social•21 days ago

This is going to kill a lot of comics stores. Comics are about to get more heavily shifted to e-formats, which can be printed anywhere you have a PC, a means to push ebooks and PDFs and a lack of concern of not having anything to hold.

You can see the problem.

woollahra.bsky.social•21 days ago

1. Comics fans love the smell of freshly inked and bound paper.

2. Comicverse ebooks are, no offense, hard to read. They do better when the comic is formatted like a Korean Web toon, but that breaks many comic conventions and demands a new type of literacy not common to fans of American comics.

woollahra.bsky.social•21 days ago

3. How much money are comic shops going to see when a comic is sold through Comicverse rather than their tills? Not like they can hand out previews with a specific QR code that sends them a cut everything someone sells a copy online.

towniebastard.bsky.social•21 days ago

Plus Canadians are going to stop buying comics and other American made media and items. The rage in Canada over these tariffs is off the charts.

hackintimseeley.bsky.social•21 days ago

Being that most American comics are made by Canadians, Europeans or liberal Americans who hate Trump, this would seem like a bad idea.

towniebastard.bsky.social•21 days ago

Yes, but the parent companies of these comic book publishers have no problem bending their knee to Trump. And I’m going to pick Feb. 14, when the new Captain America movie comes out, when he turns his attention to woke/DEI comics and movies. Let’s see how much spine Disney and WB have then.

hackintimseeley.bsky.social•21 days ago

Right, but they don’t get punished, we do.

towniebastard.bsky.social•21 days ago

I agree. But there are a lot of angry people in Canada. They booed the US national anthem at a hockey game tonight. They’re feeling betrayed and want to punish American companies. I’m not sure fans will look too closely at the writers/artists nationaliity and politics.

zacthompson.bsky.social•21 days ago

Agreed.

zacthompson.bsky.social•21 days ago

I'm Canadian! I know. :)

towniebastard.bsky.social•21 days ago

I remembered after I hit send. Btw, I live in Nunavut and should be getting the tpb for Blow Away this week. Looking forward to it. Likely the last tpb I’m buying for a while.