92615_RAA_LooseCannon_Text_R1_PROOF

So I opened up the email, and I was dismayed to learn several things:

1. The whole thing is in process, already. Marvel, Image, Dark Horse and DC are doing it. This email wasn’t an offer to my company to give comics away. "Huh," I thought. But we’d already given away a bunch of graphic novels, and our company doesn’t do floppies anymore, so I figured it doesn’t real ly apply to us, anyway. I kept reading. 2. Retailers can order special bundles of low-cost, give away comics. This one gave me pause right away. What’s "free" about "low-cost"? Why would a retailer want to do this? Pay to give out a company’s comics? What’s in it for them, besides a nebulous promise of possibly gaining new customers, which a smart retailer is already doing? They get… 3. … listed as a participating retailer on www.freecomicbookday.com . Well, that’s awfully sporting of them, I thought. So I went to click to the site. You should, too. In fact, go right now and check it out. I’ll wait. Did you see that thing? I barely know my Dreamweaver from my Fetch, but blind drunk I could cause to be produced a more attractive website. This is the place on the Internet "civilians" are going to be pointed to get infor mation about the event. It should at least look useful. I’m not talking about flaming logos, but at least something a little more involved than reversed type over a text pattern and white type on a black background on the inner pages. Man, I nearly had a seizure when that first page loaded up. But anyway. If you’re a retailer, your value received for actually buying the free comics that you’re then supposed to give away is being listed on this website. Getting back to this missive from Diamond… I read a bit further, and I find that our (non-brokered) company is invited to "donate excess inventory which will be distributed free of charge to retailers in proportion to their orders for the low-cost give-away comics mentioned above." I mean, what? That’s just brazen. Let Marvel and DC and Image and Dark Horse donate their excess inventory; their deals with Diamond are sweet enough they won’t miss the money. If Diamond wants to charge even a "low-cost" for supposedly free comics, give the money to the non-brokered publishers. At about this point in the letter, I just dismissed this thing as a noble idea squashed by the realities of comic book commerce. I wasn’t even really that steamed. I know how the world works. But then I found out what the brokered publishers are doing with this opportunity so generously handed

181