Haven Distributor (David) takes on The Goliath (Perhaps?)

Funnies Business #3: Reheating Cold Cut

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week May 20, 2008 Sign up now!
By Todd Allen -- Publishers Weekly, 5/19/2008 5:04:00 PM

Remember Cold Cut Distribution, one of the last independent (that is to say, not Diamond) distributors of comic books to the direct market? After a February sale, the new owners have changed Cold Cut's name to Haven Distributors and are in the process of redesigning the company, even as Diamond continues its efforts to sign smaller publishers to exclusive contracts. Recently, I dropped by the Haven offices to speak with director Lance Stahlberg and his formerly silent partner, David Hitch, about their plans.

Their first task is to rebrand the company. This is being done partially with the new name. Explaining the name, Stahlberg, who publishes comics under the Rogue Wolf imprint, rattled off a litany of issues faced by small publishers and retailers, ranging from reorder problems to customer service, which he wished to provide a haven from. This might be best summed up as a haven from red tape.

Multiple steps are being undertaken to address brand identity. Ask someone what Cold Cut carried and you'd probably hear "Slave Labor," "manga" and "Fantagraphics." It's well known that Cold Cut was the go-to guy for SLG, moving much more of its product than Diamond did. Manga was a staple until Diamond pried Viz and Tokyopop away with exclusive contracts.
Currently, Stahlberg cited SLG's Squee and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac as Haven’s bestselling titles. SLG is Haven’s top publisher, with Top Shelf recently nosing out Fantagraphics for second and third on its chart. Does this put Haven firmly in the art-house category? Looking at that set (and we'll talk about Fantagraphics a bit later), you might think so.
With an eye to emphasizing a little more genre diversity in the catalogue, Haven is now carrying the Dabel Bros., Maw Productions and Checker Book Publishing Group. The plan is also to take on Zenescope and Moonstone, two publishers that had been in the Cold Cut system, but who haven't had as large an impact as Stahlberg thinks is possible.

Stahlberg will also emphasize Haven as an outlet for back issues and hard-to-find items, such as the hard cover edition of From Hell, the classic by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, which has been a brisk mover, and the first issue of The Dresden Files, published by Dabel Brothers Productions. Haven is also partnering with Enemi-Entertainment to publish its catalogue, which would potentially increase that publisher’s exposure outside of the traditional direct market.
As for back issues, Stahlberg said, "Diamond doesn't want to sell back issues? Cool. We'll take it." Especially when Diamond's time frame and stock levels of backlist graphic novels is a frequent point of complaint by retailers.

Stahlberg profusely denies any antagonism toward Diamond. He views Haven’s back issue distribution as providing a slightly different service for smaller publishers Diamond doesn't service as heavily, back issues and back list, quicker fulfillment on re-orders, that sort of thing.
Once you get past the "regular" comic part of the rebranding, things get significantly more adventurous and digital. For starters, Haven is now in the Web store fulfillment business. Having already signed its first (and confidential) client, Haven will be handling everything from order processing and shipping to turnkey Web stores in the near future. It's worth adding that Web store fulfillment is separate from distribution and has nothing to do with Diamond exclusivity. Stahlberg, who does have a background in IT, also foresees digital distribution in Haven's future, in the likely form of content management and digital download management.

Then there's previously silent partner, David Hitch. Hitch has a background in distribution, but as a distributor of supplies for the dry cleaning industry, not comics distribution. He's managed to survive in an industry that's consolidated from 11 distributors to three. You might think that's an odd match, but on a certain level, distribution is a business-to-business operation about putting the right product in the retailer's hands at the right time. It's also always interesting to watch the reactions of a successful businessman from outside comics to that industry's particular practices.

When Hitch was looking into comics distribution, he went to the San Diego Comic-con and ended up sitting by some reps from Diamond. He couldn't believe how arrogantly they were acting to their customers.
"Your customers are your partners, they're not who you take advantage of," Hitch said.
He was alarmed enough to try and call the Diamond rep he'd been talking to, after the show was over. Unable to reach him, he left a message. When his call wasn't returned, Hitch decided there was an opportunity in comics distribution, based on the apparent lack of customer service.
And when you talk about independent comics distribution, Diamond is the elephant in the room. Thus far exempt from anti-trust rulings, Diamond controls the vast majority of top-selling publishers and has been actively signing more publishers as recently as last week when it signed Dynamite and Fantagraphics. Yes, the same Fantagraphics that was the number three publisher for Haven.

The case of Fantagraphics gets a little more interesting when you figure that at approximately the time the publisher formally announced it was going exclusive with Diamond last week, I was in the Haven offices and Haven had received no notification that it would no longer be able to carry Fantagraphics. More interestingly, to quote Tom Spurgeon at the Comics Reporter: "[Fantagraphics has] grandfathered in their relationships with Last Gasp and Bud Plant, both of whom do business with DM retailers. Eric Reynolds of Fantagraphics told CR that these were the last two DM distributors with whom Fantagraphics had a relationship that wasn't Diamond."
I suppose to have an exclusive contract, you have to exclude somebody and the somebody in this case seems to be Haven. Fantagraphics didn't even acknowledge Haven as carrying Fantagraphics product, but perhaps it's a case of out of sight, out of mind. Makes you wonder if Haven was targeted by Diamond or if this was just a communications gaffe on Fantagraphic's part. Having large accounts get signed away is definitely a danger for an independent distributor, especially with Diamond's sales charts being the default measuring tool for direct market circulations. Stahlberg has indicated his intention to publish a similar sales chart for Haven later in the year. It will be interesting to find out what's selling that’s off Diamond’s radar, especially with companies like SLG that everyone knows have different distribution patterns but that nobody outside of their staff and creators has data on.

Factoring in back-issue sales, Web store operation and fulfillment, and the proposed digital services, Haven is taking steps beyond standard distribution and into the business services category that has popped up to service a number of creative sectors online, including music and Web comics. Still, Diamond's signing of Fantagraphics casts a familiar, monopolistic chill in the air at a time when Haven's just settling into its new offices. So Diamond's apparent quest to be last distributor standing continues as Haven reinvents itself.
[Todd Allen is a technology consultant and adjunct professor with Columbia College Chicago's Arts, Entertainment & Media Management department. Allen's book, The Economics of Web Comics, is taught at the college level. His further comics industry commentary is available at Indignant Online. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of PW Comics Week.]


To not s--- where we eat, as they say, "Enthusiasmos" will refrain from commenting too much on this reprinted article, but we certainly, certainly wish Haven Distributors well. We will be adding them to our list of distribution options. Yes, there are other options out there, and isn't that nice! As retailers, we encourage other to do so, as well. I'm sure if you got a group of Direct Market retailers together and promised them Big Brother was not watching, they'd come up with a laundry list of concerns they would love addressed in the distribution of the merchadise they sell to their loyal customers. It would be nice if a distribution company treated their customers (the retailers) not as the end consumer themselves but as the frontline force that keeps them in business and really help that frontline be strong and successful, instead of feeding off of them and sucking them dry. Okay, I'd better stop now....they're everywhere!! Go get 'em, Haven.