Since Diamond filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2025, a convoluted legal process has unfolded that has largely left the publishers who relied on Diamond for distribution to fend for themselves.
Amid the chaos, several other companies have stepped in to pick up the pieces left behind by the now shuttered comic distributor, which held a near-monopoly on the direct market. Among them is Lunar Distribution, a competitor of Diamond’s, which early last year inked partnerships with former Diamond clients Mad Cave Studios, Massive Publishing, and Vault Comics, among others.
But another, more surprising entrant looking to fill the Diamond-shaped void is Independent Publishers Group (IPG) which, until now, had not forayed into the comics space. IPG has quickly signed a slew of new partnerships with small graphic novel publishers who were cut out of the Lunar deal or otherwise lost in the fray.
According to CEO Joe Matthews, IPG has so far racked up nine client comic publishers, including graphic novel and RPG publishers, and has kickstarted relationships with 350 comic stores since launching its direct-market program in September 2025. IPG will also distribute graphic novels to library channels, as it does in other formats.
Matthews said that, when Diamond started struggling, “We already had some really great graphic novel and manga publishers, and it was a growing category for us. When we saw that, we started reaching out to comic book publishers, suggesting they consider using us for distribution.” In addition to sending out a bimonthly catalog to comic stores, à la Diamond, IPG also enlisted a team of sales reps to call each one directly.
Jeremy Atkins, a comic marketing veteran who is working for several of IPG’s client publishers, said that IPG has been “aggressive” in targeting presses that were previously with Diamond’s book distribution arm.
YA fantasy, sci-fi, and action-adventure graphic novel publisher Battle Quest Comics (BQC) was one of two presses to sign a bookstore distribution deal with IPG early this year. Andrew Kafoury, BQC’s publisher and creator of its flagship title No’Madd: The Unconquerable, is hopeful that the deal, which is BQC’s first for books, will boost sales.
“I think the direct market is going to be served very well by IPG, because IPG cares about getting quality stories out to people,” Kafoury said. BQC is already a “very retail-friendly comic book publisher” and has “champions” in the library world, he added.
SHP Comics, which signed a distribution deal with IPG alongside BQC in the first week of January, was similarly new to the graphic novels space when Diamond collapsed. With the IPG deal, founder Shawn Hainsworth is particularly excited about finding new readers through library channels.
“There's a lot of research being done now about the ways that graphic novels help to develop literacy,” Hainsworth said, noting that one of SHP’s inaugural graphic novels—a “manga meets Western style” comic—is written for ages 9-plus.
After Diamond’s collapse, Hainsworth re-signed with Lunar for comics distribution, and chose IPG for graphic novels, partly because of its wholesaling relationship with Diamond.
Kafoury said that some indie publishers, including BQC, were not big enough to be accepted by Lunar. “They decided to cull the herd,” he said, adding, “I feel like IPG is stepping in to make sure that those smaller publishers don't get lost in the reshuffling.”
Matthews said that distribution for small publishers has become more difficult in recent years. As book prices fail to keep up with rising costs, small distributors have been forced to consolidate and drop low-cost formats, including mass market paperbacks and floppy comics. The economics of floppy comics make that format untenable for IPG to carry, Matthews explained.
Despite the challenges, IPG has stuck it out for 53 years, and now finds itself as the “last full-service independent distributor that covers all channels,” Matthews said. To help ensure its financial health, in August IPG laid off some employees and cut titles from its publishing arm.
“We think that independent publishing is critical for a great culture,” Matthews said. “Very often it's the small publisher that discovers an author that, by their third or fourth book, maybe they're picked up by a huge house with a huge advance, but they would have never gotten their start without a distributor willing to take risks on an indie startup publisher.”
Though IPG is ameliorating some of their difficulties, indies still face many challenges in the post-Diamond world, Hainsworth said. “It's hard. There's not one distributor that's doing all the things that Diamond did, and the industry wasn't robust enough with other distributors,” he said, adding, “I think there's a real reshuffling going on now.”
