Dara Hannon from Pyrimid Comics and Games in Sierra Vista, Arizona has been following the various Talk Back discussions about Diamond's "Day Early Delivery" survey (see "Diamond Surveys Tuesday Comics") and had this to say:

I do agree with Paul Stock in that I don’t feel that changing New Comic Day to Tuesday will affect the sales.  Like him, I notice that most of our customers come in at their leisure over the weekend.  Even those that come in Wednesday are not making a special trip that they would not make on Tuesday.  They are stopping by on their lunch hour or on their way home which is not restricted to only Wednesday.  

I did spend some time thinking about what Andy Battagia, Russ Toney and Kirby and Deb Tardy stated for their concerns.

I do agree that comic book customers, like gamer customers and most of humanity, are creatures of habit and they are used to showing up on Wednesday.  I don’t think, however, this will affect sales as Diamond is not talking about moving the delivery day to Thursday or Friday which would mean there would be no new comics on Wednesday for the regular customers to buy.  They are talking about moving it to Tuesday.  Therefore, even if the customers do not alter their habits, there will still be new comic books on the shelves on Wednesday.  In fact, there really is no reason for them to alter their behavior since they will still have access to the same product on the same day they are used to.  

In regard to the concern of competing with DVDs, books, etc. released on Tuesday, we already compete against them.  We rely on our customers resisting buying these items on Tuesday so that they will have money on Wednesday for their comic books.  In fact, we routinely expect our customers to be patient that extra day instead of them being able to take a nice trip ‘round town and picking up their new DVDs, books and comics all on the same day.  People are paid at the most frequent once per week so we are in direct competition with other media for the same amount of money every week regardless of what comes out first.  Therefore, since our customers already have to make the choice weekly about whether to spend their money on a book, a movie or a comic book, I don’t feel that a Tuesday delivery will affect this decision.

In regard to the idea of delivering the comic books on Tuesday and trusting the retailers not to put the comic books out until Wednesday, I don’t think this will work out at all unfortunately.  As an industry, comic, games and hobby shops have a percentage of shops that never follow the rules and are willing to do anything to get ahead.  For proof, look to earlier this year at the people that committed fraud to get the DCI cards and sell them on eBay.  There are even shops who charged for the free comics on free comic book days.  Hard to believe but true.  If any of us stop to think, I know all of us can think of several examples of those that abuse the processes and who do not abide by the agreements placed on us by the distributors.  There are those that sell promo cards that should be given out free.  There are those that do not obey Wizards of the Coast’s ‘Do not sell before’ date.  Because of this portion of our industry that is large enough to have an impact on the reputation and overall perception of our industry, I do not think Diamond will let us receive the comic books on Tuesday and trusting us not to sell them until Wednesday and, unfortunately, until these rogue shops are brought into line, they would be right.

The main threat to our industry, in my opinion, is not the delivery date.  It is the rising price of comic books in an economy that is struggling and the lack of consistency in the release of series.  Making a person wait three or four months for the next part of a series will kill the series and frustrate the person to the point that he or she might drop other comic books.  Making a person have to pay $3.99 a comic book particularly when it’s part of an arc where they will be forced to buy four or five other books that month at the same price will put enough of a hardship on a customer that they will have to give up the hobby.  Making a person pay $3.99 or up for a comic book that has less than 50 pages of story will annoy a customer and make them feel jipped.  I believe that this is the real threat to our livelihood and this is something the comic book companies need to start considering for their future bottom line.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.