Diamond, the company that distributes comics for basically ever major publisher across the board, has officially announced that it is targeting a potential mid-to-late-May date to restart shipping product after having shut-down its shipping back on March 23rd.
They add: “With health and safety of employees, retailers and customers a top priority, we need to be very deliberate about how we restart and scale operations. We must find that delicate balance between managing health and safety concerns, meeting the pent-up demand for product and working with retailers whose situations differ.”
However there is a twist. DC Comics followed that statement up hours later with their own announcement saying they are pursuing alternative distribution methods and will start shipping product for onsale April 27th.
Specifically they intend to use Lunar Distribution (west) and UCS Comic Distributors (east) to distribute weekly periodical comics. The pair are the first new direct market distributors for comics periodicals in twenty years.