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R.I.P. Dark Horse Star Wars
shaneb
Posts: 109
After hearing the mention that they were pulling the Dark Horse Star Wars titles on the show, and that they were selling the entire catalog for $300 digitally, I actually went down to my comic shop to inquire. I am in Portland, Oregon, and go to Things From Another World, which is owned by Mike Richardson and Dark Horse comics(Dark Horse is practically physically attached to one of their locations). I talked to the manager there and he confirmed that not only are they obviously not having them anymore since the Marvel titles are coming out, but they literally are going to have to pull all issues that are for sale. This will include back issues and all trades, all of which will be unavailable for sale on the direct market. Marvel may have the option to reprint, but since Disney has declared that they are non-canonical, it is unlikely.
I have never been the hugest Star Wars comics fan, except for Brian Wood's newish series, and now I am kicking myself for not holding on to the several dozen Star Wars comics I had ended up with over the years. Something tells me that these may actually be a hot item now that they will be perpetually out of print...
I have never been the hugest Star Wars comics fan, except for Brian Wood's newish series, and now I am kicking myself for not holding on to the several dozen Star Wars comics I had ended up with over the years. Something tells me that these may actually be a hot item now that they will be perpetually out of print...
Comments
The newspaper strips have been reprinted a few times now, so they may let them rest a while, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them in print again in a few years.
Marvel owns the Star Wars franchise now?
Why is Dark Horse doing this?
Only thing that really puzzles me is the notion of not being able to sell back issues.
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I don't know how he explains that move, but I won't put words in his mouth, but the optics of it aren't great, to me. If he is proud of the Star Wars work that Dark Horse published (and I would guess he is, and should be), then why not keep those copies available for customers to still find and enjoy? Why have his shop(s) be the one place where you can't go find those back issues and now out of print collections?
It comes off as a sour grapes move, and disservice to the artists and writers that worked on that material while DH was the steward of it.
Unless there is something contractual for Dark Horse as a publisher/licensee that extends to unsold stock in a Dark Horse owned shop. I suppose that is possible?
I've dealt with this is other areas of intellectual property (mostly videos and such) where right terminate. The fines for violating such agreements are pretty hefty. A hell of a lot more than the cost of a stack of books.
Dark Horse did an great job with the franchise, and it all comes from them picking up the rights while Marvel was working on the "Dark Empire" mini-series for the Epic line. In the 1991 Marvel Upcoming Guide to retailers we got that year, they featured Dark Empire pretty heavily. I can't think of any big missteps they had, although they made the mistake (in my mind) of going down the rabbit hole into non-movie characters like the books did, and once you do that, you kill off bringing in new readers pretty quickly.
I'm pleased with the Marvel offerings so far, and I really hope they keep the franchise prominent and put Name talent on it, and don't do like they did in the late 80's and give it to people who need a book to fill out their contract.
What I mean is I'd be surprised that any shop, even one owned by Mike Richardson, would *have* to return items that they bought. Unless that comic shop is actually wholly owned by Dark Horse Comics, and therefore basically a warehouse you can walk into, to buy unsold stock, instead of a comic book store. You know what I mean?
I don't know, but I would guess, that basically when Dark Horse sells a comic to a shop, that shop owns that comic, and may keep or sell it onto a customer as they choose. Dark Horse has not licensed a comic to the shop. They have sold it. And therefore can't point at your back issue bin and say, 'We no longer publish those things you bought, so out they go!' It would be like someone trying to bust a shop selling old Kenner-made Star Wars figures because Kenner no longer has that license. Right?
I would have thought that a Mike Richardson-owned comic book store physical and Dark Horse Comics the publisher would be separate corporate entities (even from a liability point of view I would think that would be a good idea), and therefore the agreement to no longer restock books from the warehouse would be different from the unsold stock on hand. But I could be wrong.
And Richards's shop is in a legal gray area (any lawyers around?) since he owns it and Dark Horse.
But, of course, I can only guess what the agreements actually are. Having never run a shop, I don't know what sort of potential recall kinds of agreements might be built into a Diamond account.
That said, I would be very surprised if Marvel would risk the optics of trying to enforce that shops return back issues or unsold trades of Dark Horse Star Wars. Though it may be that Richardson does so in his shop in an abundance of caution.
But this would lend itself to the idea that the DH backstock will be pulled. If marvel will be selling the same content I can't see them being ok with losing money over old backstock just as interest is reaching a new high.
But to actually try to get shops to pull the Dark Horse books or back issues that these shops bought from Diamond, maybe in some cases years ago, and have on the shelves? I would be very surprised if Marvel spent any energy on that. I just think that would look bad, and would distract attention away from promoting their new reprinting and formats of this material. It could actually draw attention to the availability of the Dark Horse material still on sale in shops. Especially if some shop resisted and called negative attention to it.
Could Marvel through Diamond have some sort of buyback or trade in program? Maybe. There was that thing they did in 2010 (and I thought this was poor behavior on their part) when retailers could destroy some DC comics and trade in the stripped covers for a Marvel Variant. Maybe they would do something like that to try to get old DH Star Wars out of shops. But I don't expect they would try to force it.
And unless there is some clause in contracts with Diamond that I don't know about (and would be surprised to learn of if it exists) Marvel would have no legal authority to compel shops to pull their Dark Horse trades or singles. My understanding is that comic book stores are not exhibitors of material that someone else owns. They are not selling things on consignment. They have purchased this material, likely all of it on an nonreturnable basis (or, in the case of certain promotions, with a limited returnability window). It is not like newsstand distribution. These shops risked on this product, have spent their own resources storing and displaying this unsold product, so I can't imagine Marvel would be able to order a pull. (Though, again, having never run a shop or managed a Diamond account, I could totally be wrong on that.)
As to your point @David_D I agree that there is no legal authority but to pull the old DH stock from shelves, but I would not put it past Marvel to play dirty with incentives. I'm not saying they will, just saying I could see it.