Joe Krolik of Comics America in Winnipeg, Canada read Kendall Swafford's recent column (see "Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk--Time to Grow Up") regarding Diamond considering changing new comic book day and had this to say.

Kendall Swafford is correct in his views.  What is not being mentioned is the origin of why we haven't grown up.  The simple fact is that many (NOT ALL, so don't get mad at me unless you're self-conscious), so-called "retailers" are still children in their business behaviour as well as their minds and spirits.  They are not business people.  They have created their own little childhood fiefdoms and cloaked them in the guise of a business.  They're looking for anything that can give them a leg up on someone who runs his or her business as a proper business with proper rules and guidelines.

For example, these childish attitudes towards business are what have contributed to such wonderful innovations as ridiculous discounts.  That's why you have many comic dealers and discount service sites just churning
dollars and not really doing much more than providing a subsistence income level for their principals and a cash source for the distributor (no offense intended, but that's  reality).  Have you ever seen a business where a
proprietor says to a customer, "Give me your business and I will work twice as hard to cut my own throat by 30 or 40 percent!"?  This is only one example of why the industry is not mature, because it's the only one where
the retailers get to severely cheapen the value of both their own efforts as well as the products they sell just to get someone's business.  Now before you jump down my throat, please note that I didn't say everyone, and I did use the word "severely."  Competitive discounting as we all know exists in many industries, but there's a difference between competitive and just plain dumb.

And dare I say it, many customers in the industry celebrate these types of behaviours as well.  And so the industry is stuck in a rut as a result.  Folks, it's stuff like this that continues to make the general population look down on comic retailers and comics readers in North America as weird or peculiar at worst, and curiosities at best (million dollar back-issue sales notwithstanding, but that's another whole topic!).

But I digress.

Aside from the problem of holiday weekends, there are two factors that speak against a shift beyond the current street date:

1)  The concept that an extra day of selling new stuff would result is an illusion.  As soon as the word spread, the bulk of Wednesday sales would shift down one day because of course everyone would have to have their
books on new issue day.  G-d forbid they should have to wait even five minutes or, horrors a whole day, that their heads would likely explode if they knew that someone else had their books before they did (Hey, remember the days when dealers had to switch to air freight to make sure they got stuff at or before the guy down the street, because basically that's the only thing they could offer to get a leg up on the competition?  Another childish behaviour.  See how things really haven't changed over 30 years?  But I digress again.....).

and

2)  More importantly, many retailers take the Monday as their day off because of slower sales.  To make it practical for Monday delivery and Tuesday on sale, that would kill it for many smaller retailers.

Just my opinions.  Now you can yell back at me for appearing to be jaded.

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.