Making the Cut: Cold Cut Going Strong
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on April 18, 2006 Sign up now!
by Judith Rosen, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 4/18/2006
 Matt High. |
High attributes Cold Cut's ability to weather the latest shakeup in direct comics distribution to the fact that the company has always been small. "We've never had more than 10 employees, and we've never had grandiose plans," he explains. "We're an alternative source for alternative comics. Our function is more along the lines of a supplemental option."
In addition, Cold Cut has an easy-to-use shopping cart program, possibly easier than Diamond's. Although Cold Cut hasn't changed most of the content on its www.coldcut.com Web site in a few years, it updates its online ordering information for retailers every 24 hours. "They're really the only ones that I order from. I've never had a problem with them," says Jaben Wyneken, trend buyer for the 26-store New England retailer Newbury Comics.
Last year, Cold Cut's biggest suppliers were Viz, Slave Labor and Fantagraphics, which accounted for as much as 40% of the company's business, according to High. But with book publishers refusing to have any part of the comics industry's distribution exclusivity, Cold Cut also does a brisk business with Andrews McMeel, Random House and Sterling. And HarperCollins's recent deal to distribute and copublish with Tokyopop could be good news for Cold Cut, which may soon be able to sell the manga publisher's backlist for the first time in three years.
