August 19, 2009: Diamond's Industry-Wide Skip Week in December

Remember back a few years ago when months with a 5th week would mean there was a "skip week", a week where there wasn't a Superman comic (because at the time there were four main, on-going titles)?

Well it seems that the Comic Book industry as a whole will be forced to endure a skip week as Diamond Comics Distributors has announced that it would not be shipping comics in the fifth week of December due to the holiday season.

The final 2009 shipping date will be December 23rd, with the first shipping date in 2010 being January 6th.

In an email sent out to the Direct Market, Cindy Fournier, Diamond Vice President of Operations, explained, "Most of our customers receive their shipments via 1-Day, 2-Day, or 3-Day UPS, with 3-Day shipments tendered to UPS on Friday. With Christmas and New Year's falling on Friday this year, we would not be able to tender product for 3-Day retailers until Monday, December 28. But because there will be no UPS service on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, product which could reach 1-Day and 2-Day retailers on December 30, would not reach our 3-Day UPS customers until January 4. In light of this, and based on conversations with our customers and suppliers, we agreed that a skip week was the fairest, most prudent way to proceed."

Check out ComicBookResources.com for re-shipping information.

How this will affect retailers remains to be seen. Will stores simply take a week's holiday if no new comics are shipping between Christmas and New Year?


2009 Comic News

Listed below are all the Comic News items archived for 2009.

Back to the News Archive Contents page.

Back to the Latest News page.