"[B]y every available metric, including financial performance and units sold," Gorinson said, "Oni definitively had its best performing year of all time in 2024." He pointed to the 20th anniversary of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim (see "‘Scott Pilgrim Box Set’ Deets"), as well as Oni’s EC Comics (see "Oni to Launch New EC Comics Line”) and Cult of the Lamb comic (see "Video Game-Inspired Comic Coming from Oni").
The eight-point program will offer retailers who enroll the following benefits:
- Guaranteed returnability on at least one debut issue or trade paperback per month;
- An ongoing sale of backlist graphic novels and comics, with a selection that rotates bimonthly;
- Free in-store promotional materials;
- Early access for retailer variants;
- Once a quarter, a free overship of a #1 issue;
- Twice a year, live retailer-exclusive listening sessions;
- Twice a year, a 57.5% discount on the first issue of a new series, starting with Out of Alcatraz #1;
- Once a year, the opportunity to get an $8,000 grant to put toward store upgrades.
New series that Oni will launch in 2025, and that they will be highlighting in the new program, include Out of Alcatraz, by Christopher Cantwell and Tyler Crook; Free For All, by Patrick Horvath (see "Graphic Novella by Creator of ‘Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees’"); Plague House, by Michael W. Conrad and Dave Chisholm; Adventure Time, by Nick Winn and Derek Ballard (see "Oni to Launch New 'Adventure Time' Ongoing Series"); and a new EC Comics series, Blood Type, by Corinna Bechko and Andrea Sorrentino, which will be the first EC comic to have a serialized story.
Gorinson acknowledged the importance of retailers and the uncertainty that lies ahead, saying,
No independent comics publisher exists in a vacuum. What we do is only made possible by standing together both with the creators who entrust us with their work, and the retailers who work tirelessly to support books we send out onto their shelves every Wednesday. But, just a few weeks into the New Year, we all recognize that delicate balance is currently being tested by market forces beyond our control on multiple fronts. For that reason, we think now is the time to doubly re-assert our support of Direct Market retailers and the often-unforgiving work they do to make the business of publishing comics possible.
