Image Comics, including Top Cow and Todd McFarlane Productions, has signed with Diamond Book Distributors for distribution to the book, warehouse club, and mass merchant channels.  Image was the last major LPC graphic novel client to choose a new book distributor in the wake of LPC's bankruptcy, and it did so some 40 days after LPC quit doing business. 

 

So the near-final scorecard (see 'Book Distribution Scorecard' for the roster and links to the key articles in this saga) shows CDS, the company that formerly handled logistics and collections for LPC, with two of the three biggest graphic novel publishers in play this summer (Marvel and Tokyopop), and several others, including CrossGen and Titan, which have considerable potential.  Diamond's new book division, headed by Kuo-Yu Liang, ended up with just one of the three big fish (Dark Horse).  But Diamond has lined up an impressive roster of mid-size and smaller graphic novel publishers, including a number, such as Image, with substantial lines and potential.  We call it even out of the gate and look forward to what both CDS and Diamond will bring to the rapidly growing bookstore channel for graphic novels.