Rich has every right to his opinions as you do. If you’d been in the comic business for more than 5 minutes, you would KNOW that PERKS for ANY comic retailer are FEW and INSIGNIFICANT.

Diamond– at least in theory– are NOT supposed to treat Rich’s store any differently than yours. You’ll figure ALL this out when you’ve been dealing with them for more than a couple of months, BELIEVE ME.

This is NOT the REAL WORLD of MAINSTREAM Retail Book Selling– where high volume retailers (or retail chains) get treated LAVISHLY with BIG RETURN PRIVILEGES.

This is the DIAMOND DISTRIBUTION MONOPOLY and they care little about you– and little about Rich too… Because they can AFFORD to… Since they are a monopoly.

With few perks to be found anywhere, it is understandable that a retailer that spends TENS of THOUSANDS a month with a distributor might hope for further EXCLUSIVE incentives to retain their shrinking customer base in a lackluster economy… Yet, all they get are MORE variants (which almost DESTROYED the business in the late ’90’s) and some CHEAP PLASTIC RINGS… that they have to PURCHASE before they can “give” them away!

Understand this in the collegial spirit in which I write it:

A person like Rich LOVES comics JUST AS MUCH– if not MORE– than you do… As he experiences MORE shortages, MORE billing problems, MORE damages and MORE miss-shipped items than you can (now) only DREAM about… And he endures this sh*t on a WEEKLY basis… Like clockwork.

He ain’t doing it for the MONEY, Moss… That’s a FACT you can believe.

At your current rate of sales– you really are in a different league than a retailer like Rich. Good business would dictate that he would be treated with MORE perks and incentives than you because he gives the distributor HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS MORE BUSINESS than you. If your account were to grow, than you should start t receive the EXACT SAME perks too. That’s the way it works in EVERY OTHER industry,

Yet, as I have just written– Rich gets treated LESS well you because any significant problems you have ever had with Diamond are multiplied a THOUSANDFOLD with him. (And don’t act like you’ve never, ever had a short or a damage. If you haven’t– than you really must order 8 books a week or your last name must be Geppi, Didio or Quesada.)

DC, by lowering the book minimum needed to order for retailers to purchase the new rings will FLOOD the market. This CHEAPENS the VALUE of the PREVIOUS incentive/promotion rings that were offered and therefore will make them ALL LESS SPECIAL in MANY collector’s eyes.

If I may hazard a guess without knowing the man– that’s the CORE of Rich’s argument. IF everybody can get the rings– the rings are automatically LESS COLLECTIBLE… and MORE IMPORTANTLY, LESS SPECIAL in the eyes of many collector’s who strove to collect all the previous rings.

If you sell 10 or 20 of these books– what are you going to do with 100 plastic Flash rings anyway?

Don’t tell me you are SO DELUDED in your “love” for comics that you think if you give someone a cheap PLASTIC RING that you’ll turn a NON-comic fan into a NEW comic reader?! That’s not going happen.

Ever.

In the end, you’ll give ALL your EXTRA RINGS out to people who won’t give a damn… And Rich? The guy who is actually helping to keep the dwindling comic book industry ALIVE?

He gets nothing “SPECIAL” for all his extra efforts… Which means all the extra hardships he endures at the hands of a monopolistic distributor will never be soothed (as long as this business is served by a monopoly) and he will have to REDOUBLE his efforts to make his customers think his store is better than yours… When rightfully– at least for now– it IS “better” than yours in terms of quantity and diversity of book product carried.

A lot of retailers feel like they are just donkeys carrying Diamond’s product to market.

Believe me when I tell you that as long as there is only one MAJOR distributor in this market– if your business thrives and your ordering increases– you’ll feel EXACTLY the SAME WAY too…

… And you’ll mutter about your “love” for comics in an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT WAY.

You’ll say, “Damn, I’m glad I LOVE comics… because I wouldn’t put up with ANY of this sh*t otherwise!”