I don’t think we’ve ever shipped a Diamond order without some kind of catastrophe of lost books or books that were never marked as received or some other kind of administrative nightmare. Diamond is wildly inconsistent when it comes to our books. Wormdye, one of the top 25 books of the last decade per The Comics Journal, was rejected because Eamon’s writing wasn’t up to professional standards. Then it was accepted. They flatly turned down PS Comics, classified the Eisner-nominated Monsters as porn and listed it in their adult catalog, while books like Lost Girls and Paying for It were totally okay. They rejected the winner of the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel, Gaylord Phoenix, then ordered large numbers of I Will Bite You! and small numbers of Troop 142, which they then followed up with a huge re-order. I have no idea how seriously they take us. Diamond is like a box of chocolates.
–remember that “handholds and rockface” metaphor we just used in the SLG piece? Here’s an example of what we meant in an interview with Secret Acres’ Leon Avelino and Barry Matthews at The Comics Reporter.
I would like to read more, but the link to the interview (and a letter “o”) seems to be missing.
What I found interesting was the praise for Baker & Taylor, yet, checking right now, the West Coast (Vegas) warehouse of B&T has *no* Secret Acres books of any kind in stock… which means they effectively can’t be ordered in anything resembling a timely fashion for those of us on this side of the country.
I finally gave up and went direct to SA on my last order, despite the extra expense.
-B