Some time around the beginning of the pandemic, I turned my occasional flirtation with comics into a full-fledged side hustle (albeit one that would, to date, turn no profit).
This might be a healthy thing for comics in the long run, though it looks painful in the short term. Comics need to evolve from trying to sell variant covers and CGC books to the dwindling handful of collectors (a cohort which I'm admittedly a part of).
What Vault is doing is very interesting, taking on distribution themselves. Crowdfunders have figured that out a while ago and there are services willing to act as a middleman for those who haven't.
Having to bow to Diamond and their whims feels archaic and overdue for a change anyway. This is healthy.
I think someone branding themselves as indie distro needs to rise from all this madness with a user interface on both retailer and publisher side that makes sense and is easy to maneuver.
All that, and then they need some larger and mid sized indies to use them early.
Sounds to me like you're already halfway there! Gather ye kindred spirits, hash out the details, and create the next gen comics distribution network.
This might be a healthy thing for comics in the long run, though it looks painful in the short term. Comics need to evolve from trying to sell variant covers and CGC books to the dwindling handful of collectors (a cohort which I'm admittedly a part of).
What Vault is doing is very interesting, taking on distribution themselves. Crowdfunders have figured that out a while ago and there are services willing to act as a middleman for those who haven't.
Having to bow to Diamond and their whims feels archaic and overdue for a change anyway. This is healthy.
I think the Vault thing won’t work. If it were profitable to do all your own distro, DC or Marvel would be doing it by now
Definitely an interesting experiment though.
I think someone branding themselves as indie distro needs to rise from all this madness with a user interface on both retailer and publisher side that makes sense and is easy to maneuver.
All that, and then they need some larger and mid sized indies to use them early.